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The Derby Turnpike
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Business New Haven
1/27/1997
By:
Priscilla Searles
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Early transportation in most communities was primitive, at best. Horseback was the most popular mode of travel. Roads were extremely poor, muddy, full of ruts and generally ran over the poorest land in order to avoid farmers' fields.
Because land transportation was so poor, most commerce centered around harbors. But as farming and industry began to push inland, more attention had to be given to constructing and improving roads to connect Connecticut's small towns to its budding cities.
The concept of toll roads was hardly a novel idea, it had been used successfully in England for centuries. Toll roads provided the funds needed for maintenance and repair. The Derby Turnpike Company was chartered in 1798. The eight mile toll road ran from New Haven to Derby Landing. The company began with a capital stock of $7,520.
The Derby Turnpike wasn't the only road to Derby, but it was the best. The road originally ran from York Street, westward across the West River. By 1847 the part east of Kensington Street was closed. Other portions of the road were abandoned to the care of New Haven.
It was the Town of Derby that had pressed for the road to New Haven. An important shipping center through which passed merchandise to the town of the Naugatuck Valley, Derby businessmen thought that a road to New Haven would bring them additional trade.
Although they managed to get the road built, little if any trade came to them from New Haven. Petitioning the General Assembly for the road to New Haven from Derby Landing, the businessmen described the existing road as almost impassable for teams and carriages. They proposed a shorter route, ending at the Court House in New Haven.
Most of the original share holders were Derby men, paying $34 per share. It didn't take them long to determine that the initial capitalization was insufficient, so each shareholder was given an assessment to cover the cost of building the road. In 1800 Isaac Ticknor of Lebanon was hired to build the turnpike from the house of Dr. Eneas Monson on York Street in New Haven to Joseph Wheelers house in Derby at the landing.
The description of the route would be an legal nightmare today: The byway was to extend to a certain red oak tree to a particular curve, through Hoggs Meadow to a stack with a heap of stones, etc. It's a wonder the road ended up in Derby with directions like that. The road was to be 18 feet wide with a hard surface, no stumps, roots or rocks. Ticknor had five months to finish the job. He was to be paid $640 a mile. In the end, it cost almost double that amount.
The toll house became a landmark on what we now call Derby Avenue (Route 34). Located in Orange near Malby Lake, the small story-and-a-half house was occupied by the toll keeper, who would, when he heard someone coming, run out to collect the appropriate toll and lift the gate. Mail stages paid a 25 cent toll, a one horse pleasure wagon eight cents. Neither man nor creature got past the toll keeper for free. Sheep and hogs, for example, were charged a half-penny. Mules got through for one cent. Humans did catch a break on Sundays and special days if they were on their way to church, military exercises, funerals or mills -- they traveled free.
In 1867 a railroad from New Haven to Derby was begun, opening for business on August 5, 1871. Six trains traveled each direction Monday through Friday. In 1893 the Derby and New Haven Electric Railway Company was granted a charter to run from Derby to New Haven over the turnpike road. The advent of trolleys meant the end of rail service to Derby. Construction of a trolley line from New Haven to Derby began in 1902. Opened for service in 1904, the line ran on tracts laid in the east bound lane of the Derby Turnpike. Trolleys ran between Derby and New Haven every half hour.
The Derby Turnpike was never a huge financial success but it did pay reasonable dividends, the first payment coming in 1805. The charter awarded by the legislature to build the road was so iron clad, that even they could not change it. It was to be full century before the towns that the Derby Turnpike ran through were able to take it over. Today it is a State road, maintained by DOT.
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