The Old Boston Post Road by Stephen Jenkins

Author:Stephen Jenkins [Jenkins, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-03-07T23:00:00+00:00

CONNECTICUT HALL In this Hall

Corner Stone Laid Was the Room of

1750 NATHAN HALE

Restored by the Graduates Of the Class of

1905 1773

Dr. Daggett, the president in pre-Revolutionary days, instilled into his students strong ideas of liberty and patriotism; so that there were very few who became Tories. Many of the graduates became distinguished during the struggle, either in civil or military life, and one of them, Nathan Hale, has left a name which is the synonym for sublime patriotism. Dr. Timothy Dwight, afterwards president of the college, was a chaplain in one of the Connecticut regiments during the Revolution. His Travels in New York and New England is an invaluable source for information concerning that struggle and also for matter relating to the life, conditions, industries, trade, population, etc., of this part of the country in the generation following the Revolution.

The green at New Haven, comprising over twenty acres, has been the center of the town's life from colonial days to the present. Here were located the marketplace, the church, the court-house, the jail, the stocks, the whipping-post, and the pillory. Here the people assembled to discuss the Stamp Act in 1765 and to celebrate its repeal in 1766. Jared Ingersoll, the stamp agent for Connecticut, upon the arrival of the stamped papers, announced that he was ready to sell them; whereupon New Haven broke out in open rebellion and so menaced the life of the stampmaster that he deserted his own town and went to Hartford. What happened to him later we shall see when we come to Wethersfield. It was upon the green that Captain Benedict Arnold mustered his company of Governor's Guards upon the news of the Lexington fight and started with forty of them for Cambridge, where they attracted great attention on account of their uniforms and discipline. Arnold kept a shop on Water Street where he sold drugs, stationery, and books for several years before the Revolution, and he was also engaged in the West India trade. His house on Water Street, not far from his shop, stood until about ten years ago, when it was demolished.

The green is still the center of the town's activities, and if you will look at a map of New Haven, you will be reminded of a spider's web, with the green in the center and the streets radiating from it and winding around it. On the upper side of it are Trinity, Center, and United churches, and on the north side are the new Ives Memorial Library and the new court-house, while the college grounds also abut upon a portion of it; and on the lower side are the Library and the city hall.

New Haven, like so many of the New England towns, had its trial for witchcraft, but this did not result fatally for the accused person. This was Elizabeth Godman, the town scold, whose tongue proved to be "an unruly member"; and as she had rows with her neighbors, after which peculiar things happened, she was arrested and tried.

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