Lee B. Hotchkiss and Beverly Stern
Part A. History and Geology of the River
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The Mill River is unique in many ways, and it has played a major role in New Haven’s history from its beginning. In 1665 the town promised Christopher Todd and William Bradley land on the south side of Mill Rock for them to build and maintain a new mill. They were given extra land to house a miller and to take timber to build a dam. The town also promised that there was to be only one grist mill for the townspeople.
By 1671 Todd had become the owner of what became known as “Todd’s Mill.” Todd was plagued with problems of low water and wanted the town to help raise the height of the dam. Later his sons took over the mill, but with a new contract with the town which deliberately omitted the promise of no competition. Thus, a new grist mills started up on the river. Wilmot’s Brook area was the site of a new saw mill, and in time a fulling mill (to perfect woolen cloth) was set up below Todd’s Mill.
In 1733 a dam was constructed way up the swift-flowing Mill River in what is now Sleeping Giant State Park. Joel Munson was given permission to build a dam across the river if he would also build a feasible cartway across the river. This he did. He also built a grist mill and a saw mill. The Joel Munson dam is now a historic landmark.
This area became the beginning of the settlement of Mount Carmel because it became the meeting place for people to bring their grain to be ground and their logs to be cut. Bellamy’s tavern, erected nearby on the northern edge of Mount Carmel Green in 1743, did not lessen the popularity of the area.
Other mills dotted the areas of the Mill River, especially after Eli Whitney took over the Todd Mill and dam and bought large amounts of land along the river as protection against any flooding resulting from building the dam higher. Whitney holdings extended from the edge of East Rock to the top of Mill Rock, a range which made it easier for Eli Whitney, Jr. to organize the New Haven Water Company many years later.
The Whitney factory was a fine working unit. Figure 11 shows the layout of the buildings and the lake formed by the dam. The original timber dam was replaced by a stone one at the same height of six feet. Unfortunately, maximum use of water power was not attained because of poor design of the water-wheel blades. In 1842 Eli Whitney, Jr. replaced the trustee authority set up by his father’s estate. He got rid of the wheels and replaced them with a turbine; but a problem still existed for the armory because the flow duration was not constant. The size of the lake and the force of the waterfall were inadequate. A higher dam was needed to increase the force and consistency of flow.
Eli Whitney, Jr., like many men at this time, was quite civic minded. Realizing that New Haven would need more water in the future, and also hoping to solve some of his own financial problems in the process, he expressed willingness to share his water rights with the city, using only the surplus water for the factory. Finally a new 38-foot dam was built (at a cost to the city of about $350,000). On December 2, 1861, the New Haven Water Company began to pump water from the Mill River into a reservoir on Prospect Hill. In a short time water was being piped through seventeen miles of pipe to all parts of the city.
It later became obvious that the amount of water thought to be available was inadequate. The demands were greater than the watershed could supply. Steam power had to be used, especially when the water was low, to pump water into the supply system. A photograph showing the dam and the smokestack from the furnace is contained in the teacher’s packet.
The newly formed Southern Connecticut Regional Water Authority has plans to protect other historic sites in addition to the still-standing Eli Whitney Barn, built in 1816, which is now a part of the Eli Whitney Museum, Inc. An 1824 workers’ dormitory on the south side of Armory Street may become a part of the Museum complex, although it may have to be moved in the eventuality of a new filtration plant. The present filtration is quite adequate and is unique in its method of slow sand filtration with a biological layer of material at the top to help destroy bacteria.
Architect Ithiel Town’s Covered Bridge is no longer standing. It had replaced an older bridge over the Mill River beside Whitney’s Armory. Built in 1823, it had a 100-foot clear span and was the first truss bridge in the United States. It was itself, in turn, replaced, but because of its uniqueness, Whitney, with customary ingenuity, invented means to have it moved north to serve as the Davis Street Bridge. It “did its duty” until 1890.
Additional sites associated with the Mill River which are to be preserved include the Elam Ives House on Ives Street in Hamden, just east of bridge over the Mill River, and a nearby nineteenth century factory; a former canal and tailrace at Woodruff’s Pond on Bank Street north of Ives Street whence power was supplied for the factory and where a sluice gate remains close to the road; Clark’s Pond, cradled within New Road and Sherman Avenue south of Mount Carmel Avenue, where R.S. Clark had his bell factory in 1872 and a thread factory after 1875 and where the dam washed out three years ago is scheduled for reconstruction; a last, old-growth hemlock-hardwood stand south of Clark’s Pond; the remains of buildings, the sluice way, and the Munson Dam at Axle Shop Pond just south of the confluence of Eaton Brook with the Mill River and near the south entrance to Sleeping Giant State Park on Mount Carmel Avenue a few yards east of Whitney Avenue; the last building of the old Augur Shop south of the Skiff Street Bridge over the Mill River and south of the confluence of Shepard Brook with the Mill River.
Marked for preservation in general are historically significant sites and structures, scenic and natural resources, and recreational facilities—and protection of both surface water supplies and the extensive groundwater aquifer underlying the Mill River.
Note
: Many of these scenic sites have been photographed. A tape and slide presentation is being completed.