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The Incomparable New Haven Green
The New Haven Green has been the center of community activities since the first settlers arrived in 1638.
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Business New Haven
8/24/1998
By:
Priscilla Searles
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At various times a marketplace, a drill ground for exercises by the militia (known as the Train Band), the site of stocks to punish those who broke the strict Puritan rules, public wells, a burial ground and various public buildings, today the Green remains the heart of New Haven, protected by a plan that was developed more than 350 years ago.
The founding fathers wouldn't recognize what is now the pride of New Haven. Once crossed by rutted roads, a swamp on the Chapel Street side and assorted buildings of questionable quality, the New Haven Green, originally referred to as the marketplace, is the center of the nine-square grid on which the town was laid out. The 17-acre site is bordered on the east by Church Street, on the west by College Street, on the north by Elm Street and on the south by Chapel Street.
The Puritan settlers who had invested in the new colony purchased the land we call New Haven from the Quinnipiack Indians for “twelve coats of trucking cloath, twelve alcumy spoons, twelve hatchetts, twelve hoes, two dozen of knives, etc.” No one really knows who laid out New Haven into nine squares in the 1630s, although for many years it was thought to be John Brockett, a Puritan land surveyor. Early maps show that as early as 1639 there was a central square, referred to as the marketplace.
There was no attempt to separate church and state in the new Puritan community. The meetinghouse was the center of life in New Haven, establishing the rules and regulations that citizens were forced to live by, and meting out punishments when infractions were discovered.
New Haven's first meetinghouse was completed in 1640 and abandoned in 1668 because poor construction made it impossible to maintain. The second meeting house was completed in 1640 and was used until 1757.
A small grammar school was erected in 1723. As early as 1660, New Haven had a jail on the Green, enlarged to two stories in 1748. It is believed that the jail keeper lived in the expanded facility.
An early map of New Haven, drawn by James Wadsworth in 1748, indicates that stocks were located in front of the jail. The first stocks appeared in 1638 and probably included a nearby whipping post. Public punishment was very much a part of life in colonial New Haven.
Puritan tradition dictated that the burial ground be located behind the meetinghouse. New Haven's original burial ground was located below and behind what is now Center Church. Graves were placed in an erratic manner, often on top of other graves. Only those with means had stones to mark their burial sites, and family plots didn't exist anywhere in the country until the Grove Street Cemetery was established.
Although unkempt and overgrown with weeds, the burial ground continued to be used until 1812, surrounded by a red wooden fence. In spite of it appearance, there was considerable objection to the construction of Center Church in 1813 because it involved construction over a portion of the burial ground.
Today the only remaining portion of the burial ground to survive is located beneath the church. Gravestones were moved to the Grove Street location where the grave sites of those who helped New Haven grow for 175 years remain, a silent and unnoticed eternal tribute to the birth of a city.
The land that comprised the New Haven plantation was purchased and owned, not by the town as a legal entity nor by the whole body of the original colonists, but by the individuals who put up the money to establish the new community. These people were known of “the free planters” and afterwards as “the proprietors.” They and their successors in ownership remained apart from the political body of the town.
So who were the proprietors, and who owns the New Haven Green today? Originally it meant that the proprietors could decided who lived in the center of town, since technically only investors could occupy this space. Non-investors lived on the outer lots.
It also meant that this group could decided what public building could be built in the marketplace. The right to make these decisions was passed down to the proprietor's heirs. The legal rights of the proprietors to control the “common and undivided land” has been recognized and confirmed on four occasions by the General Assembly of the colony and, later, the state of Connecticut.
In 1805, with most of the lands divided and the heirs of the original proprietors scattered and unknown, the proprietors transferred all their interests, rights and powers to a permanent self-perpetuating committee, which continues to this day.
Confirmed by the General Assembly in 1810, this gave legal title to the Green to what today are still known as the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Land. Until 1856 the group could still give permission to construct buildings on this location but since that date no structure can be placed on the New Haven Green.
Following the revolution, the lower half of the Green was designated as a public space. But until 1784 there remained at least a legal possibility that the upper half of the Green could be sold, with proceeds to be used for highways or other projects.
Interestingly, only one of the three church buildings presently located on the Green actually sits on land owned by the church. Center Church owns the land beneath its house of worship as well as an “ox cart width” around the building. The other two churches remain on land controlled by the proprietors.
Today the proprietors continue to protect and preserve the New Haven Green for future generations. The proprietors are C. Newton Schenk, former mayor Richard C. Lee, Harry Townshend, Albertus Magnus Julia McNamara (the first woman proprietor), and Ann Calabresi. The group continues to make sure that this valuable piece of real estate remains unsullied. The rules are strict: The sale of food, for example, is forbidden on the Green itself.
The New Haven Green began as the heart of the colony and remains the heart of New Haven - a place for the public to enjoy with the security of knowing that it will continue on for all future generations.
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