Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from New Haven in 1784: A Paper Read Before the New Haven Colony Historical Society, January 21, 1884
ON the evening of January 21, 1784, the President of Yale College wrote in his diary: This afternoon the Bill or Charter of the City of New Haven passed the Governor and Council, and completes the incorporation of the Mayor, four Aldermen and twenty Common Council. It is fitting to recall on this anniversary some characteristics of the New Haven of 1784. The town then covered the territory now occupied, not only by the present town, but also by West Haven, East Haven, North Haven, (the greater part of) Woodbridge, Ham den, and Bethany, in all an area of perhaps ten by thirteen miles, or from ten to twelve times as extensive as now. The inhabitants were estimated at souls; of whom less than almost any one of our wards to - day, were in that part which was chartered as a city. There are now within the town-limits of 17 84, by a more than tenfold increase, some inhabitants, while the city proper has multiplied more than twentyfold. In the settled part of the city (that is, the original nine squares, called the town-plat, and the south-eastward exten sion to the water, known as the new there were some 400 dwellings, mostly of wood, but a good number of brick, and one or two of stone. A nearly contemporaneous map (1775) on our walls shows that these dwellings lay almost wholly in the area bounded by Meadow, George, York, Grove,52 centennial OF new haven. Clive and Water streets, - the northern part of this area being by far the least fully inhabited. The streets were without regular lines of trees, without pavements, sidewalks, or names; but it was an awkward mode of designation by localities identified with personal names (as we still speak of Cutler Corner) and eight months after the charter was given, 21 of the principal streets (broadway, Chapel, Cherry, Church, College, Court, Crown, Elm, Fair, Fleet, George, Grove, High, Meadow, Olive, Orange, State, Temple, Union, Water, and York) received at a city meeting their present names. A few may have been already known by these titles; I dare not affirm it of any but College and Chapel streets, in both which cases the names were applied only to the immediate vicinity of the two college buildings which occa sioned them. A few more had been known by other names thus, the lower part of Church street was called Market street, from the market-house at the Open intersection of George and Church; State street is called on the map of 1775 Queen street, a designation which would seem to go back to distant Queen Anne part of George street was long known as Leather lane; York street was sometimes called West street, and Grove street North street. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
