“General George H. Ford has in this week’s Chronicle an illustrated article on ‘Roger Sherman and His New Haven Home,’ which is extremely interesting, as well as instructive. It relates to the Roger Sherman house, a quotation being given from the town records of New Haven obtained by General Ford, defining the plot purchased by Roger Sherman of Jabez Mix of New Milford, two hundred and twenty pounds being the price paid.
Proceeding General Ford says: ‘Jabez Mix, of whom the property was bought, was a son of Nathaniel Mix, deceased, and the dwelling house referred to in the deed was a fine, large, spacious residence standing about thirty feet back from the street, and appears in a map of the plan of New Haven, drawn by Joseph Brown in 1724, when there were only 157 houses, the lot on the corner of Chapel and College streets, where the New Haven house annex stands, being owned and occupied by President Clapp of Yale college.
On the 1748 map by Hon. Gen. Wadsworth, which shows not only the houses but the names and professions of all the inhabitants of that period, is still shown the Nathaniel Mix house. On its west side, however, there had been built a barn and on the east side a shop. This house is also shown as standing in the President Stiles map of 1775, and also the Doolittle map of 1817.’
‘The house was afterwards occupied by his son, Roger Sherman, who was a New Haven merchant, and has been the home of the descendants of Roger Sherman for five generations until 1888, when it was utilized for business purposes. The outline of the house may still be seen by passersby on Chapel street, though scarcely observed, owing to being overwhelmed by its surroundings.’
‘Roger Sherman occupied this Jabez Mix house for eight years until 1768, when he built the house illustrated in this article, in which he lived until his death in 1793.
‘The east wall of the Mix house, accord to measurements of the various maps, stood about 250 feet from the corner of College street, or upon the spot where Warner hall now stands, the premises occupying on this side a space of about one-half of the driveway between the present Union league house and Warner hall.’
Proceeding, General Ford gives a succinct and lucid account of the life of Roger Sherman, reviewing the chief events of the career of this distinguished man, one of the most distinguished that Connecticut has produced.
Accompanying the article are two cuts, one representing the house erected by Roger Sherman in 1768 and occupied by him and his descendants continuously until 1888, and the other showing the Roger Sherman house as it now stands, with two one story stores built in front.”
-Excerpt courtesy of the Library of Congress, Chronicling America, New Haven Morning Journal-Courier, “The Roger Sherman House,” February 8, 1904. (top) Image courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Map of New Haven / drawn by Joseph Brown, 1724; copied by Prest. Ezra Stiles, 1782
