Opposite the Old Campus, on Chapel Street, in New Haven, Connecticut: from when the glaciers melted, stewarded by the Quinnipiac people; in 1614, charted by a Dutch explorer; in 1638, colonized by Puritans; before, during, and after the American Revolution, home of the Founding Father, Roger Sherman, his wife Rebekah, their fifteen children, and the Sherman family store; in 1860, Gaius F. Warner's Italianate villa, by Henry Austin; in 1880, Carll's Opera House; in 1884, the Republican League; in 1887, the Hyperion; in 1903, the Union League Club, by Richard Williams; in 1926, the Roger Sherman Theater; beginning in 1977, a tradition of French fine dining, which continues today. While the Roger Sherman house is no longer standing, it holds up all right.
"The first ascent of Mount Washington by a European settler, was by Darby Field, an Irish immigrant, who accomplished this difficult feat in 1642 from a southerly approach. Partly guided by Indians and with only primitive equipment at his disposal, he is thus alleged to be the originator of all Mount Washington ascensions."
"MOST New Yorkers have doubtless forgotten it, but until a little more than three centuries ago the town of Southold, L.I., was the southernmost holding of New Haven Colony. It was bitter loss to New Haven when Southold was written out of the Royal Charter. The people of New Haven stewed for three years before they finally accepted the charter in 1665, without the property on Long Island. The people of Southold resisted the change for many years longer, petitioning the King to be left as part of Connecticut, and refusing to pay New York taxes."
"The exhibit was organized by Linda Lindroth, a New Haven photographer and assistant professor at Quinnipiac College, who lives across the street from East Rock. 'This exhibition is the product of a search for new spaces and new relationships within the city to show artwork,' says Lindroth, noting that it is the first time that the historical society has hosted an exhibit by living photographers. In an essay in the exhibition catalogue, Amy L. Trout, curator at the New Haven Colony Historical Society, writes, 'More than geographical features, East and West Rocks are symbols of New Haven. As such, they carry meaning beyond what their physical presence implies.' The Rocks have served as a 'backdrop' in artworks documenting the changes in New Haven over the years, she notes."
"Could those pious Puritans who landed at Quinnipiac in 1638 return to life and spend a day in modern New Haven, they would hardly know where they were or what to do with themselves. They would need to learn again how to live. The uses of almost everything would be unknown to them, and they would require a guide to show them around and explain things."
"No lighthouses guided the sailors, No breakwater sheltered the bay; No bridges of steel spanned the rivers — Just wilderness bordered the way."
"The first people to live in New Haven were Native Americans. Native Americans lived in New Haven as long as 8,000 years ago! The earliest people we know about that lived in New Haven were members of the Quinnipiac Tribe. They lived in villages around the harbor and caught fish and raised maize (a kind of corn)."
"Bicentennial Notes: Souvenirs are for graduates only. To avoid others taking them, there will be no souvenirs. The animals will be fed at the University Dining Hall three times daily. Come and see them. They eat raw meet. No one but graduates are allowed to climb on the decorations or statues."
"This archetype of the Connecticut Yankee had a reputation for taciturnity. One of his political mottoes was: 'When you are in a minority, talk, when you are in a majority, vote!' In his country drawl, daughter came out as 'dat-ter' and applesauce sounded like 'ap-plesass.' But Jefferson remarked that however awkward his manner Sherman 'never said a foolish thing in his life.' And he was by no means silent. During the Convention he spoke 138 times, each speech short but pithy, only three others were more vocal."
"[Roger] Sherman's parents were English people of the lower class and he can be said to have sprung from what is described as the common people. He had not the same confidence in the people that they reposed in him. He was an effective speaker whose power of debate lay in his never taking the floor unless he had something new to offer. Justice was his great forte and he was a lover of the truth."
"When, in 1761, Roger Sherman moved to New Haven, he found himself in what served as a metropolis for the colony, insofar as its fifteen hundred or so shopkeepers, artisans, and farmers could enable it to do so. Sitting quietly by the sea, the little port was outside the main currents of commerce and politics of the British Empire. She trafficked a little with Boston, New York, and the West Indies, but hardly any with England."
Roger Sherman house 