Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1885-03-05
Thursday, March S, 1855.
THE RECENT ICE BLOCKADE.


Thursday, March S, 1855.
THE RECENT ICE BLOCKADE.
Ice BIockades i'm Former Days Long |
Before the Breakwater and Jetty-
A Defense of These improvements
Their value and Usefulness Against |
p Ice-Observations Made Yesterday.
To the EDITOR of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Some of our dailies during the ice block |
ade this winter in Long Island Sound have
been constantly borrowing trouble about the
breakwaters and jetties at the entrance OF
our port and attributing the annoyance OF
ice to these improvements. We also notice
that at the same time the Narragansett Bay,
the Connecticut and East rivers and the
Sound off Fort Schuyler have been packed
with drift ice, causing many powerful
Sound steamers to be delayed for hours, and
as no breakwater or jetty has been construct
ed in these waters the ice obstruction must
have been formed by some other power. and
perhaps temperature may have had some
thing to do with it.
This mention of ice obstruction would not
have been noticed here were it not that many
of our citizens have been misled by these
articles and we propose to show here that to
have our harbor INSTRUCTED by ice has been
of frequent occurrence since the settlement
of the country.
Colonial historians tell us how the phan-
tom ship of New Haven was put to sea by
cutting a passage down through the ice, and,
when Guilford was the residence of Cover
nor Leet, how the'ice bridge across the har-
Dor was used to reach New Haven; and how
later during the Revolution President STILES,
of Yale college, surveyed New Haven harbor
on the ice with a party OF students, "hlch
survey IS now eXtant among the college ar
chives; and soon after, we learn from the
best authority, Captain Phipps, of this town,
with his company hauled the old heldplece,
now in the New Haven Historical society
museum, across Long Island Sound on the
ice and mounted it on bluff and banged
away at an outpost of the British. Later In
the winter of 1779-SO Mr.. Pardee, whose
house was burned by the Britishers the July
before, moved, with the assistance OF his
neighbors and oxen, from the town across to
Solitary Cove on the ice, and portions of 1t
remain there until this day. The writer,
when boy at Joseph III. Rogers school
in East Haven, has, at one time,
seen three or four square Triggers being haul
ed down the harbor through canal cut in
the ice similar to the one cut for Captain
Lamberton's ship and has listened with boy
ish delight to the songs of the several crews
when they mastheaded and sheeted home his
topsail when the wind yeered far enough aft
for these sails to stand full (and such sight
for painter) and thereby assist those at the
tow line ahead. Among those at the tow
line were many ofSthe future merchant
princes of this town; and Captain Harry
Prescott of Long Wharf, will tell you how
he unloaded and loaded on the ice vessel for
the West Indies in the Sound off Southwest
Ledge.
We only note all this to show that ice has
been known before in our harbor and ada
cent waters and that the whole coast has
been at times blockaded and has remained so
for month and that now, by artificial and
scientific means, navigation has been bene-
fitted and protected and opened sooner than
before. We note these things to show that
valuable shore front, along which have been
located wharves to which vessels
have been moored, buildings,
warehouses and machine shops erected of
great value to parties who at this moment
are led to believe that their property has
been damaged by the breakwater and jetties,
public works which have been built OF recon-
mended and endorsed by such distinguished
and learned men Humphrey, Wright, New
ton, Abbot, Tower, Barlow, Barton and Nc
Farland, engineer, of the United States Army,
engineers whose distinguished ability is
widely recognized.
We now propose to demonstrate how the
breakwater and jetty have done their silent
work and assisted the tides in clearing at
this early day of the season the entrance of
the port The breakwater has been a great
bulwark keeping out in the Sound vast fields
of ice which would otherwise have foated into
our harbor as such ice from the Sound
has done before in east and southeast gales
The ietties on every ebb tide twice in TWEEN
ty-four hours shatter the fields Of harbor ice
which strike against them its whole length.
and the first shift of the wind to the north
west carries the debris seaward, as was the
case Yesterday March ~. This fact was
proven by observation made yesterday by
scientific and otherwise prominent citizens
from the observatory of the United States
signal station. 1t is true there is a vast field
of ice in the harbor which has been held by
the bridges, wharves and indentations of the
shore, but about the jetties and the break
water the water is free for navigation and
will be kept SO by the tides
ebb and flow. We take this oppor-
tunity of calling attention to this work of the
breakwater and jetties and would impress 1t
On all who seek for the absolute truth i'll the
case, and urge all who desire absolute proof
to personally make the needed observations,
which can be done by mounting any eleva-
ton whence the requisite view can be OBJ
tanned And we would further say to the
thinking public that graduates OF West
Point whose success at He'll Gate, Mississippi
river and the numerous harbors and rivers OF
the United States are brilliant can in our
opinion be entrusted with the improvement
of New Haven harbor.