-with the surrounding fields and scattered dwellings, from the West river to the Quinnipiack, and between the harbor and the two sentinel cliffs which guard the beauty of the plain. Here was New Haven proper-the territorial parish of the First Ecclesiastical Society, all the outlying portions of the township having been set off into distinct parishes for church and school purposes. In other words, the town of New Haven, at that time was bounded on the east by Branford, on the north by Wallingford (which included Cheshire), on the west by Derby and Milford; and all the "freemen" within those bounds were accustomed to assemble here in town meeting.

A hundred years ago, there was a very pleasant village here at the "town-plat," though very little had been done to make it beautiful. This public square had been reserved, with a wise forethought for certain public uses; but in the hundred and thirty-eight years that had passed since it was laid out by the proprietors who purchased these lands from the Indians, it had never been enclosed, nor planted with trees, nor graded; for the people had always been too poor to do much for mere beauty. Here, at the centre of their public square, the planters of New Haven built a plain, rude house for public worship, and behind it they made their graves-thus giving to the spot a consecration that ought never to be forgotten. At the time which we are now endeavoring to recall, that central spot (almost identical with the site of what is now called Centre church) had been reoccupied about eighteen years, by the brick meeting-house of the First church; and the burying-ground, enclosed with a rude fence, but otherwise neglected, was still the only burial-place within the parochial limits of the First Ecclesiastical Society. A little south of the burying-ground, was another brick edifice, the state house, so called even while Connecticut was still a colony. Where the North church now stands, there was a framed meeting-house, recently built by what was called the Fair Haven Society, a secession from the White Haven, whose house of worship (colloquially called "the old Blue Meetinghouse") was on the corner now known as St. John Place. Beside those three churches there was another from which Church street derives its name. That was pre-eminently "the church"---

those who worshipped there would have resented the suggestion of its being a meeting-house. It was, in fact, a missionary station or outpost of the Church of England, and as such was served by a missionary of the English "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." The building, though of respectable dimensions (58x38), was smaller than the others, yet it had ⚫ one distinction,-its steeple-a few feet south of Cutler corner, and in full view from the Green, though somewhat less aspiring than the other three-was surmounted by the figure of a crown, signifying that, whatever might be the doctrine or the sentiment elsewhere, there the king's ecclesiastical supremacy was acknowledged, and loyalty to his sacred person was a conspicious virtue, Only a few householders worshipped there, for the Church of England was an exotic in the climate of New England. Not till the Episcopal church had become (in consequence of the event which this day commemorates) an organization dependent on no king but Christ, an American church, and therefore no longer English, did it begin to strike its roots deep into the soil and to flourish as if it were indigenous. Two other public buildings adorned this "market-place;" one a little school-house just behind the Fair Haven meeting-house and not unlike the old-time wayside school-houses in the country; the other a county jail, which was a wooden structure fronting on College street about half way from Elm to Chapel.

we now see.

Beside all these public buildings, representative of religion, of government and justice, and of provision by the commonwealth against popular ignorance, there was the college, then as now, the pride of New Haven, but very different then from what The college buildings at that time were only three. First there was the original college edifice, to which, at its completion, in 1718, the name of Yale had been given in honor of a distinguished benefactor, and from which that name had been gradually, and at last authoritatively, transfered to the institution which has made it famous. That original Yale College was close on the corner of College and Chapel streets, a wooden building, long and narrow, three stories high, with three entries, and cupola and clock.

Next in age was the brick chapel with its tower and spire, the

building now called the Athenæum and lately transformed into recitation rooms. More glorious yet was the new brick college (then not ten years old), which had been named Connecticut Hall, and which remains (though not unchanged) the "Old South Middle."

Such was New Haven, a hundred years ago, in its public buildings and institutions. Its population, within the present town limits was, at the largest estimate, not more than 1800 (including about 150 students) where there are now more than thirty times that number. If you ask, what were the people who lived here then, I may say that I remember some of them. Certainly they were, at least in outward manifestation, a religious people. Differences of religious judgment and sympathy had divided them, within less than forty years, into three worshipping assemblies beside the little company that had gone over to the Church of England. Their religious zeal supported three ministers; and I will venture to say that the houses were comparatively few in which there was not some form of household religion. Compared with other communities in that age (on either side of the ocean) they were an intelligent people. With few exceptions, they could read and write; and though they had no daily newspapers, nor any knowledge of the modern sciences, nor any illumination from popular lectures, nor that sort of intelligence and refinement which comes from the theater, they knew some things as well as we do. They knew something about the chief end of man and man's responsibility to God; something about their rights as freeborn subjects of their king; something about their chartered freedom; and the tradition had never died out among them. There were graves in the old burial ground which would not let them forget that a king may prove himself a traitor to his people, and may be brought to account by the people whom he has betrayed. There were social distinctions then, as now. Some families were recognized as more intelligent and cultivated than others. Some were respected for their ancestry, if they had not disgraced it. Men in official stations-civil, military, or ecclesiasticalwere treated with a sort of formal deference now almost obsolete; but then, as now, a man, whatever title he might bear,

was pretty sure to be estimated by his neighbors at his real worth, and nothing more. Some men were considered wealthy, others were depressed by poverty, but the distinction between. rich and poor was not just what it is to-day. There were no great capitalists, nor was there anything like a class of mere laborers with no dependence but their daily wages. The aggregate wealth of the community was very moderate, with no overgrown fortunes and hardly anything like abject want. Almost every family was in that condition-"neither poverty nor riches "—which a wise man of old desired and prayed for as most helpful to right living. Such a community was not likely to break out into any turbulent or noisy demonstrations.

Doubtless the Declaration of Independence was appreciated as a great fact by the people of New Haven when they heard of it. Perhaps the church bells were rung (that would cost nothing); perhaps there was some shouting by men and boys (that would also cost nothing): perhaps there was a bonfire on the Green or at the "Head of the Wharf" (that would not cost much); but we may be sure that the great fact was not greeted with the thunder of artillery nor celebrated with fireworks; for gunpowder was just then too precious to be consumed in that way. The little newspaper, then published in this town every Wednesday, gives no indication of any popular excitement on that occasion. On "Wednesday, July 10th, 1776," the Connecticut Journal had news, much of it very important, and almost every word of it relating to the conflict between the colonies and the mother country; news from London to the date of April 9 ; from Halifax to June 4; from Boston to July 4; from New York to July 8, and from Philadelphia to July 6. Under the Philadelphia date the first item was "Yesterday the CONGRESS unanimously resolved to declare the United Colonies FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." That was all, save that, in another column, the printer said, "To-morrow will be ready for sale 'The Resolves of the Congress declaring the United Colonies FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.'" What the printer, in that advertisement, called "The Resolves of Congress," was a handbill, 8 inches by 9, in two columns, with a rudely ornamented border, and was reproduced in the Journal for July 17. It was the immortal state paper

with which we are so familiar, and we may be sure that everybody in New Haven, old enough to know the meaning of it had read it, or beard it read, before another seven days had been counted.

The Declaration of Independence was not at all an unexpected event. It surprised nobody. Slowly but irresistibly the conviction had come that the only alternative before the United Colonies was absolute subjection to a British Parliament or absolute independence of the British crown. Such was the general conviction, but whether independence was possible, whether the time had come to strike for it, whether something might not yet be gained by remonstrance and negotiation, were questions on which there were different opinions even among men whose patriotism could not be reasonably doubted.

[Here followed some of the facts intended to give a better understanding of "what were the thoughts, and what the hopes and fears of good men in New Haven a hundred years ago."]

Having at last undertaken to wage war in defense of American liberty, the Continental Congress proceeded, very naturally, to a formal declaration of war, setting forth the causes which impelled them to take up arms.

That declaration preceded by a year the Declaration of Independence; for at that time only a few sagacious minds had seen clearly the impossibility of reconciliation. Declaring to the world that they had taken up arms in self-defense and would never lay them down till hostilities should cease on the part of the aggressors, they nevertheless disavowed again the idea of separation from the British empire. "Necessity," said they, "has not yet driven us to that desperate measure;" we have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states." That was an honest declaration. Doubtless a few prophetic souls had seen the vision of a separate and independent nationality, and knew to what issue the long controversy had been tending; but the thought and sentiment of the people throughout the colonies, at that time-the thought and sentiment of thoughtful and patriotic men in every colony-was fairly expressed in that declaration. They were English colonies, proud of the