The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-01-25
"REMINISCENCES OF FIJI
 STREET.
FLEET

By a Former Resident Who Was born
 in the House Sold at Auction April
 Il.
 New Haven, Conn.,, April IS, 1892.
 To the Editor of the Register:
 see by an article in your paper that the old landmarks at the lower end of State street were sold at auction on the l1th inst. Please allow one who was born and who lived all the early part of his life in the frame house mentioned, some few "reminiscences of that and the brick house and vicinity of fifty and sixty years ago, and which may be in- teresting to young as well as old of New Haven. The frame house was built by John Chatterton about 1900 and first occupied by him when he married and moved into it in 1S10. His wife Elizabeth was the daughter of cele- brated sea captain of those days, and 1t is inscribed on his tombstone in the Grove street cemetery that he made one hundred and eleven foreign voy- ages which was considered a great achievement in those days, particularly as some of them were sealing voyages to the Pacific ocean. Mir Chatterton received his mercantile education with Isaac Tomlinson, wholesale merchant, who was instrumental in building the bridge so long known by his name over the river at the steamboat dock. Then MT. Chatterton united himself with Joseph Bishop, in those days first class tailor, and commenced business in the old frame house under the firm name of Chatterton & Bishop. They were successful. MT. Bishop married a daughter of Benjamin Prescott of Prescott X Sherman, in the West India trade and Sherman was son of the signer of the declaration of inde- pendence MT. Bishop was also captain of the old artillery company that was called out so frequently in the war of 1912 and all one summer in camp on the Oyster Point quarter. During that war they built the brick house, intending to move into it when finished, but 1t cost so much in consequence of the war and high price of everything and the stock of goods they were carrying, that when peace was declared in the spring of 1916 and the great drop came they failed, and the brick house passed into the hands of Prescott & Sherman, who held a mortgage on it. and they afterwards sold it to Le Grand Cannon. Captain Bishop broke down completely and af- terwards died, but MT, Chatterton paid the debt principal and interest, but 1t l took ten years to do it; things are not done in that way in these days; MT. Chatterton moved to Chapel street and | took as a partner Avery c. Babcock, the brother of the founder of the New Haven Palladium, under the firm name of Chatterton & Babcock, and pros pered until his death in 1884.
 Old Fleet street in those days was a residential street, and yet busy one, for it was around the head of the wharf-old Custom House Square-and on the wharf the great business of the town centered. There were four tav- erns near blythe Eagle tavern, still standing, and two in Fleet street, one now the Durant house, and the celebra- ted Bulford tavern, corner of Union and Water streets, long since gone Some of the best citizens resided on Fleet Water, Meadow and Whiting streets On Fleet street John and Samuel Chatterton, Le Grand Cannon George Rowland, Deacon Whittlesey of the Center church, Truman Woodward and others, and on Water street James Atwater and Eli Sanford, the father ol Judge Sanford, the two houses still re- maining. On Meadow street Henry Trowbridge, the founder of the house oi H. Trowbridge & Sons. The Totter family, Captain Roswell Trowbridge Isaac Trowbridge, the father of Daniel
 Thomas Atwater Captain Phipps, tht
 father of Frank G. and Daniel Gofft Phipps; Governor Henry W. Edwards William Mansfield Russell Hotchkiss
 Sr., and afterwards George Hotchkiss
 and on Whiting street Allen Prescott and Captain Phipps Clark, all of whom were held in great respect by their fel-
 low townsmen. T.C,