Morning journal and courier., 1888-04-26
CONTINUED FROM SECOND PAGE. NEW RAVENS FOUNDERS DAY
An Admirable Grafton Delivered by MT. Henry 1T. Blake of This City at she Commemorative Exercises at Canter Church.


 An Admirable OratIon Delivered by
 ur. Henry 1T. Blake of This City at
 she Commemorative Exercises at
 Center Church.
 The oration of MT. Henry T. Blake occu-
 pied an hour and twenty minutes in it's de-
 livery. The speaker confined himself to a
 retrospect of the past half century since the
 last centennial celebration which he regarded
 as starting point of new progress in the
 industrial, administrative and social life of
 the city and town. During his address he
 said
 The law of Moses, which the founders of
 New Haven adopted as an annex to the civil
 code of their colony, commanded that every
 fftieth year after the arrival of the chosen
 people in the promised land should be ob-
 served ss year of jubilee. sfOn the tenth
 day of the seventh month in the day of atone
 ment ye shall make trumpet to sound throughout all your land, and ye shall halIow
 the fftieth year and proclaim liberty through out all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" There is therefore puritan fit-
 ness in our assembling to celebrate this two
 hundred and fftieth anniversary of the first
 settlement of this town as if in obedience to
 the organic law of the commonwealth. And in further compliance with that law, the
 trumpets having now ceased to sound, it behooves me as my first and foremost duty on this occasion "to proclaim liberty through out the land and to all the inhabi- tants thereof" Among the eighty thousand
 residents of New Haven the descendants of it's founders form very small proportion. Probably those who were born within it's limit are but minority-but to-day the town itself has been reborn. By our common ac- {; f hoo hao,, 1oI # hoe formed Henceforth then we are all original settlers, all town born! Welcome then ye who were hitherto aliens to the rights, privi- leges and immunities of that favored con- dition.
 At the time of the last centennial celebra- tion the town as civil and political unity was still paramount. The city was hardly more than an annex or adjunct to it. The changes which have brought about the rever sal of their respective positions have all oc- cured within the last fifty years and most of them are still fresh in the memories of our citizens, even of those of middle life. MT. Blake alluded to the various sources of information of the early history of the town and gave graphic description of the city in 1888. New Haven was at that time little more than an overgrown country village. It's population was IS, 300, with less than 500 of foreign birth. The business part of the town was confined to Chapel street between Church and State State and Fleet streets to the head of the wharf and Church street from Chapel to Grown. The architectural glories of this region were the Exchange building and ! Streets building, both then recently erected. The dwelling houses of the town were almost universally of wood, and what was then call ed the .'thickly settled" portion of the town was substantially bounded on the north by Grove street, on the east by Olive street, Brewery street and Wooster Place and on the west by York street and Broadway. -<~Ea rrvik \, side world consisted of a line of daily steam l boats to New York and two daily stages to ! Hartford.
 | Nearly every highway of communication with the surrounding country was turnpiked and barred by gates with heavy rates of toll. | There were the Milford turnpike, the Derby ! turnpike, the Litchfe1d turnpike, the Ches- \ hire turnpike, the Middletown turnpike and | the Branford turnpike. drive to Bridge port and back in one horse carriage cost | seventy-fve cents for tolls.
 | The great public work and avenue of in- land commerce was the Pennington canal, ! which had been finally carried through to Northampton in 1885. As picturesque fea- | ture of the town, and as a source of water l supply in some cases of fire as well as fur- nishing additional skating and swimming ac- commodations for the boys, it was partial l success; but 8 speculative enterprise 1t | would have been better had it never been | born.
 l The manufacturing interests of the city in ! 1888 were meagre compared with those of the | present day, and an investment of $10,000 l was considered great enterprise. Still, by the census of 1840, we find the total capital employed in manufacturing was $921, ,000 I Of this amount the largest investment is as- signed to tanneries, of which five are report | ed with capital of $101, TOO, and an annual product of $3S0, ,000. The next largest in- dustrY was carriage making, with twelve I factories, an aggregate capital of $1O1, ,000 ! and product in 1889 of $234, ,OOO though this is probably below the average. There were several printing and binding establish ments, and $40, 900 was invested in the man. ufacturs of furniture. When we learn by the census of 1880 that the total manufac- | turing products of the town amounted to some $30, 100000, we realize the change 1 which fifty years had effected in the volume and methods of business operations. Goal was just beginning to be used as fuel, but fer obvious reasons the supply was small ! and the cost heavy. The streets were l lighted and unpaved and were beds of bot 1 tomless dirt or fathomless mud, where blind | led blind and both fell into the ditch. When | an alarm of fire was given, which was often, the whole city was in turmoil. A chorus | of universal cries filled heavens conclave. \ Every bell pealed forth an unceasing clamor, | while the seven hand fire engines, drawn by | shouting men, flew like demoniac chariots along the sidewalks in as many different di- l Iections, unguided by any system of its sig ! nals, each company on it's own account hunt | ing for the flames and each little too anxious ! to secure the $10 reward for first appear ance at the fire to impart any private infor- l nation of it's locality to rival.
 TOWN AND CITY GOVERNMENT. The town and city organizations reflected the simplicity and democratic usages of the times Of the city government will only