Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1894-01-26
BEFORE DAYS or RAILROADS.

Remarkable and Memorable Cold
Winter Recalled by One OF Our
Esteemed ToWnsmen - Long |
Stretch OF Extreme Cold weather.
Reign Of the Ice KiBg-NeW Haven
Fre1ghtinG-ProPhe who ga" NO
Chance for . Railroad to Live ana
no Chance for New Haven to Grow.
The public is familiar with the fact that
this is 60 far very mild winter, and that
the weather of the last few weeks has been
such as few care to complain of. The
weather this week has bsen ss mild as the
best that April usually affords. There has
been considerable ice and skating, but the
fine weather has predominated all the same
making skating unusually enjoyable. The
mild weather il most acceptable in view Of
the large number Of people. either wholly
out of work or working on reduced time,
or who have been idle for q large part Of
the wioter. This situation of affairs has
told heavily on the pocketbooks of null
titude of people and the mild weather has
prevented much suffering that otherwise
would have been inevitable. But speaking
of mild winters one of our old and much
esteemed citizens, ex-Alderman Bensjah
Douglass, the confectionery manufactur-
or, recalls, one of the extremely cold win
ters of the century. Mr.. Douglass says:
"This was the winter of 1885 9, the year of
the great fire in New York. I see my
esteemed friend, Mr.. A. O. Wilcox, the
former dry goods merchant. places this
very cold winter year out of the way. It
was the winter of 1896 6 that was 30 cold.
Then 1t was 80 cold that New Haven har =
Dor was solidly frozen over clear out to
the lighthouse and the sound in some parts
was frozen over except In the channel.
Vessels bound here had to be unlosded out
side the harbor beyond the old light
house. Flour was brought here overland
from New York by means of four and six
horse teams. Freights for Meriden and
Hartford were transported overland from
New York, via. New Haven, in the same
way. 1t was very cold winter. We had
sleighing without interruption for three
months and half. Wasn't that pretty
6ne9 It was 80 cold that the
time and freiRhts accumulated here
so that Mr.. Root, who was then supsrin-
tendent of the Old line, had to hire build
ings up town here in which to store
freights until they could be moved. One
of the buildings he rented for the purpose
is that on Crown street, where the Cal.
vary Baptist church people and other good
people have just established the Calvary
Lodging homo for the poor. It was very
| cold continuously, and was a memorable
winter. In those days we had no New
York and New Haven, no Con.
solidated road, no railroads. It wal
| just before the day of railroads here
| I remember hearing prominent men pro
/ <ao hoo al hat onnraroolr
| ridiculous to talk of building Q railroad
| from here to New York. It was, they
| maintained, a preposterous idea. Why
| they said, here We have q grand waterway
to New York-Long Island Sound. How
could any railroad compete against such ,
| great natural waterway Why, they added
| there isn't but one stage load of passenger
each way q day between here and New
York. Talk about there being passenger
enough to make railroad paJs Why, it
absurd.
New Haven in those days had abou
| Is, 900 population and there were lots o
people who said, and thoroughly believed
that New Haven never would grow an,
bigger. They thought New Haven hat
reached the limit of its growth. In sup
port of their theory they urged that New
Haven had no back country of any i'm
portance to feed or stimulate its growth.
Those were days when old Brewsterville
namsd in honor of Hon. James Brewster
where the Blackboard and the Fitch manu-
factories are, we're in the suburbs of tn
city and when much of the land on Woos
ter and Chapel streets was eithe
pasture land or devoted to tn
cultivation of cabbage, beans, an
other garden truck. New Haven hs
grown amazingly, and ehould like to Sc
those old worthless come back here just t
have hem see how big place New Have
has become, with its grand private An
public buildings, its big Consolidated raj
road in place of the old Canal, its telegrap
and telephone wires, its electric street raj
ways and horse railways. intersecting q
parts of the city. its new electric road
be built in the spring to Saltonstsll Lake
its beautiful and extensive suburban park
and its multitude of churches, schools an
big factories. Truly, those old veterans {
sixty years ago would look amazed-fs
more SO than did Rip Van Wrinkle when b
came back from his long snoozs on til
mountains and tiled to recognizs the vi
lsRe of Falling Waters, which he knee
every inch of so we'll, when in the heyda
of his young manhood"