But New Haven is much more than Yale College. It is a great hive of
industry, manufacturing all kinds of "Yankee notions," with
agricultural machinery, corsets, scales, organs, pianos, carriages,
hardware and other things, and it has a large commerce along the
coast and with the West Indies. It was to New Haven that the first
steamboat navigating Long Island Sound went from New York in March,
1815, the Fulton, which occupied eleven hours in going there, and
fifteen hours in returning two days later, being delayed by fog,
subsequently, however, making the trip in less time. This boat was
constructed by Robert Fulton, and carried a figure-head of him on her
bow. She was one hundred and thirty-four feet long, and of three
hundred and twenty-seven tons, built with a keel like a ship, having a
sloop bow, and being rigged with one mast and sails to accelerate her
speed. She was managed by Elihu S. Bunker, and her ability to pass
through Hell Gate against a tide running six miles an hour was
regarded as one of the marvels of that time. The New York _Evening
Post_ of March 25, 1815, describing her, said, "We have been assured
that this establishment has cost $90,000, and we believe it may with
truth be affirmed that there is not in the whole world such
accommodations afloat as the Fulton affords. Indeed, it is hardly
possible to conceive that anything of the kind can exceed her in
elegance and convenience." Many were the races she had with the
"packet-sloops" that plied on the Sound and often beat her, when the
wind was fair.
There are tastefully adorned suburbs surrounding New Haven, where the
hills afford charming prospects. The two great attractions, however,
are the bold and impressive promontories known as the East and West
Rocks, which are high buttresses of trap rock, lifting themselves from
the plain on each side of the town in magnificent opposition, and
rising four hundred feet. The geologists say they were driven up
through the other strata, and some people think these grim precipices
in remote ages may have sentinelled the outflow of the Connecticut
River, between their broad and solid bases, to the Sound. Each
tremendous cliff is the termination of a long mountain range coming
down from the far North. The Green Mountain prolongation, stretching
through ridges southward from Vermont, is represented in the West
Rock, while the East Rock terminates the Mount Tom range, through
which the Connecticut River breaks its passage in Massachusetts, and
part of which rises a thousand feet in the "Blue Hills of
Southington," which are the most elevated portion of Connecticut. Thus
projected out upon the plain, almost to Long Island Sound, the summits
of these two huge rocks afford grand views. In the Judge's Cave, a
small cleft in a group of boulders on the West Rock, the three
regicides, Goffe, Whalley and Dixwell were in hiding for some time in
1661, and the three streets leading out to this rock from the city are
named after them. It is recorded that a man living about a mile away
took them food until one night a catamount looked in on them, and
"blazed his eyes in such a frightful manner as greatly to terrify
them." Dixwell's bones repose upon the Public Green at the back of the
"Centre Church," which stands in the row of three churches occupying
the middle of the Green that was the graveyard of colonial New Haven,
and Whalley is buried nearby.
There is a grand approach to the East Rock, which is elevated high
above the marshy valley of Mill River, winding about its base, and
upon the topmost crag is a noble monument reared to the soldiers who
fell in the Civil War. The whole surface of the East Rock is a park,
and upon the face of the cliff the perpendicular strata of
reddish-brown trap stand bolt upright. From this elevated outpost
there is a charming view over the town spreading upon the flat plain,
and the little harbor stretching down to the Sound; and beyond, across
the silvery waters, can be traced the hazy hills of Long Island,
twenty-five miles away. Two little crooked rivers come out of the deep
valleys on either side of the great rock, winding through the town to
the harbor, while all about, the country is dotted with flourishing
villages. Among them is Wallingford, to which the railway leads
northeast amid meadows and brickyards until it reaches the high hill,
whose church-towers watch over the population, largely composed of
plated-ware makers. When this town was founded, John Davenport came
out from New Haven and preached the initial sermon from the
appropriate text, "My beloved hath a vineyard on a very fruitful
hill."
Hillhouse Avenue, a broad and beautiful elm-shaded street bordered by
fine mansions, leads out to the "Sachem's Wood," which was the home of
the Hillhouses, of whom James Hillhouse was the great Connecticut
Senator after the Revolution. His remains repose in the old Grove
Street Burying-Ground, where rest many other famous men of the
Academic City, among them Timothy Dwight, Lyman Beecher, Samuel F. B.
Morse, Benjamin Silliman, Elbridge Gerry, Roger Sherman, of whom
Jefferson wrote that he "never said a foolish thing in his life," Eli
Whitney, and Noah Webster, who, before he compiled his famous
dictionary, had published the "Elementary Spelling Book," which had a
sale of fifty millions of copies. The New Haven City Hall, fronting
the Green, is one of the finest municipal buildings in New England.
The three churches occupying the centre of the Green are the North,
the Centre, and Trinity churches, the first two Congregationalist and
the last Episcopal, the row presenting a curiously quaint and ancient
appearance. The favorite resort of the people of New Haven is Savin
Rock, a promontory four miles away, pushing a rocky front to the Sound
at the end of a long sandy beach, and having a good view, being
located westward from the harbor entrance.