History came alive at New Haven’s revived historical society, as heroic figures from the past (almost literally) walked off the walls and sparked debates with still-walking historic figures about our city’s past.
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It all happened this week at an open house for the New Haven Museum and Historical Society on Whitney Avenue, which has been energized in its 145th year by new director William Hosley. Hosley brought together figures from the city’s history — living ones, and others dressed as the people in the portraits (who occasionally turned out also to be their very own relatives) — for the festive event.
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Here’s Eli Whitney hopped out of the famous Samuel F.B. Morse painting of himself. He’s pointing out that the “gin” in his cottin gin is just shorthand for “engine”— in the form of agreeable impersonators who walked the precincts of the museum’s galleries.
p(clear). The uniformed gentleman (in the photo at the top) standing beside Hosley in the captain’s get-up is Henry H. Townshend, a long-time supporter of the museum who also was an alderman in the late 1950s. Townsend ran for mayor against Richard C. Lee, losing to the man who transformed New Haven for the better or the worse (depending on your point of view) for generations. Talk about living history.
p(clear). Townshend could be forgiven for staying in character when a reporter asked him who he really was. For his character was in fact his grandfather, Captain Charles Hervey Townshend (1822 – 1904), in the painting over his left shoulder. Townshend captained the sailing ship Bavaria around Cape Horn in 1852.
p(clear). “Yes,” he said, being in the instant both Townshend past and Townshend present. “We had a hard time when we arrived in San Francisco. You know, with the gold being discovered, the whole crew deserted and ran off to Sutter’s Mill. I managed to get the first and second mates to stay with me, and we sailed up to Seattle and delivered our load of coal. Later, when they invented these things, these steam engines, I really had to think about my career. Sailors are always afraid of fire, you know, and to put these things in the bottom of the ship! That was crazy. Well, I thought and thought and realized it was time to retire.”
p(clear). Coming out of character a bit, Townshend said that after retirement his ancestor lobbied furiously for the creation of breakwaters and for dredging of New Haven Harbor, which resulted in the port’s economic ascent. Shading into Townshend present, he regaled Hosley and a reporter with a little more recent history: “I was a two-term alderman, 1956 to 1960, and then I found myself running for mayor against Richard C. Lee. Do you know that in the election of 1960 I lost by only 2,000 votes? Lee was tearing down Oak Street and Shartenberg’s Department Store, and my platform was: Don’t tear down stuff, Dick, because you really don’t know what’s going to replace it. Who knew it was going to be those highways!”
p(clear). “Only 2,000 votes,” sighed Hosley. “Talk about a fork in the road. How things might have been different.”
p(clear). To that end, one of the many new programs Hosley has launched is a series of what he calls New Haven Heritage Salons. On July 12th, the topic will be “Envisioning Connecticut Tomorrow.” Hosley is bringing together representatives from the mayor’s office, from the state, from City Plan, and from Yale (author Douglas Rae).
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“We’re doing this because 2007 marks the centennial of New Haven’s modern city plan, the brainchild of George Dudley Seymour (in the portrait), which resulted in the creation of public buildings like the library and the courthouse at the turn of the century, in effect, the modern New Haven we know,” Hosley said as he stood beside his hero. “Seymour knew everybody, opened up Yale’s museums for the city residents, launched the park system, was a friend of Frederick Law Olmstead’s and Cass Gilbert’s, was obsessed with Nathan Hale and made sure a statue of him was created. He was in short what I call a prophet of place, one of our most important civic visionaries. I’m channeling him from now until July 12,” said Hosley. “In fact the only reason I’m not dressed up like George is that I didn’t have a chance to get to the costume store.”
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Others had, however, such as Eli Whitney on the far right (aka Ron Gagliardi, a museum supporter from Cheshire). The young man in the white shirt is Joseph Cinque, the hero of the Amistad revolt (aka as John Hasty, who works for the Town Green Special Service District). They were retelling former Mayor John Daniels and the Reverend John H. Scott, III of the Dixwell Congregational Church what their lives were like in New Haven of the 18th and 19th centuries.
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As befits a place where history comes alive, they sparked a debate when Daniels took a reporter over to a portrait of Simeon Jocelyn and said, “This man was the first pastor of my church, the Dixwell Congregational Church. He’s a white man, yes, and an abolitionist, and at the time the Congregationalists in Center Church would let the Negroes sit only in the balcony. Jocelyn took 13 of them and set up his own church, which became ours, the oldest African-American Congregational church in Connecticut. Joceyln also tried to establish a Negro college, but the Connecticut state legislature voted him down 700 to 21. That tells you something.”
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“Now wait a second here, John,” said Reverend Scott, who just happens to be the current pastor, in his 11th year, also a young man, but not as young as Joceyln, who was a fire-breathing abolitionist of 19 years old when he walked out with his new congregants. “I believe Jocelyn took 24 Negroes with him, free men, ex-slaves. We are talking now about the year 1831. And, by the way,” he said, as they walked over to the famous portrait of Singbe (aka CInque) and Cordalie Benoit of the New Haven Land Trust stopped to chat with Reverend Scott and the living Singbeh Pieh, “guess who painted that famous portrait of you? Few people know that it was Nathaneal Jocelyn, Simeon’s brother.
p(clear). “Also, it’s true that Simeon failed to establish the Negro college in New Haven, but he then went on to found the American Missionary Society, a Congregational organization, and that group was responsible for establishing a whole slew of the historically black colleges in the South.”
p(clear). Daniels conceded that if his minister said 24 Negroes had founded the church, not 13, he wasn’t going to argue the point. “I’m afraid a good portion of the people in the city don’t even know this great place exists.”
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That’s changing, and not just for the city. Up on the second floor these three young men (left to right), Cameron, Garrett, and Brenton Fuchs, of Guilford, were hanging out in the History of the New Haven Bar Association gallery. Garrett had done a research paper on the Amistad and had written a paper on the mutiny that earned him one of the coveted berths on the schooner Amistad’s February five-day sail to Mystic. Their mom is a new docent at the museum. This outreach to the Greater New Haven area is precisely the kind of outreach Hosley is effecting.
p(clear). “We need a long view of our city, of all cities, a policy,” Hosley said. He added that the Museum was trying to help midwife this vision and sense of urgency through its events and growing profile. “Then we wouldn’t be in a kind of mess that we’re in.” Among the many high-profile exhibitions and upgrades he’s hoping to carry off are an exhibition featuring the work of the Carpenters, a family of musicians nationally famous in the 1970s who grew up in Lighthouse Point. “Richard Carpenter [Karen, the female vocalist died, tragically] is a pack rat and he has wonderful old photographs of the era. I think we can have an exhibition in the near future, and wonderful concerts that bring back that era and draw 50,000 people to this institution.” Other ambitious plans include the $1.5 million revitalization of the Pardee Morris House, an exhibition devoted to visualizing the effects of sprawl on Connecticut and one on the ethnic reshaping of New Haven, among a long list of others.
p(clear). “The portrait of Cinque downstairs [shown at the top of this story] is the most reproduced image in Connecticut. While there are 29 million web sites using the words George Washington, but 32 million that use the word Amistad, you’ll know what I mean when I discuss the huge potential for New Haven, our museum, and the whole constellation of great historic sights in our midst to be a true destination increasingly, and for people in Connecticut. Respectfully,” he said, “the state tourism officials have it a big wrong in their marketing approach. Our biggest audience is not tourists from far away, but people within 50 miles of us.
p(clear). “At a time of homogenization and globalization, this institution is going to lead the way in keeping a sense of place alive through the art, documents, the stories we tell here. As George Dudley Seymour did for New Haven a hundred years ago, we’re going to do again. We have 75% of our great stuff in storage, and it must come out. I mean just think of our maritime history that can and will be told in a bold new way.” And keeping with that metaphor, he concluded to a crowded auditorium, “we need your help to get our oar in the water.”
p(clear). If you see someone in the weeks ahead dressed up in a waist coat and looking surprisingly like one George Dudley Seymour, you’ll know. For more information on the upcoming July 12 salon, the current and future exhibitions, or to join, contact Hosley by email or call 562‑4183
Hosley has great ideas. I was recently in Savannah, GA, where they have an historic sign for every little event of the 18th-19th centuries. ("In this house the former President of the Confederacy slept for two nights in the 1880s".) They have tons of tourists, but in many cases I
thought "New Haven has plenty of history more interesting than that!"
We have our statues of Hale and Singbe, but where are the monuments to Whitney, to Noah Webster, to Roger Sherman, etc. Where is the giant Cotton Gin sculpture? How about better signage for the homes of the Presidents -- Taft, Clinton, Bush, maybe a "Presidential trail." Markers for the revolutionary war battles, where Yale professors and townfolk fought the British marching down Whalley (do I have that right?)
Maybe Hosley can help us remember and market more of our history.