PARK AND CEMETERY. 
i6i 
of the hill on which are the remains of Fort Wooster, 
constructed in 1812, from which the park derives its 
name. A bronze tablet on the fort, placed by the Sons 
of the American Revolution, commemorates the gallant 
resistance made from this hill to an attack on New Haven 
by British troops in 1779. 
Three quarters of a mile from Fort Wooster is Fort 
Hale Park, containing a little over forty acres. It is 
situated directly on the sea shore and has nearly half a 
mile of water front including several elevations of one 
hundred feet high and upwards, which are on the water’s 
edge and afford splendid outlooks over sea and land. 
This Park is named from Fort Hale, a casemated earth- 
work erected by the U. S. Government in 1863, never 
used and now dilapidated but which forms an interesting 
feature in the park. This fort is the successor of one 
which during the Revolution stood on the same site and 
which actively resisted the landing of the British troops 
at this point in 1779. A considerable part of this park 
is land belonging to U. S. Government including and 
adjoining Fort Hale, which has been placed by Act of 
Congress under the control of the New Haven Park 
Commission. 
The entire park system of New Haven is accessible 
by trolley lines which run to one or more entrances cf 
every park at a cost of five cents from any part of the city. 
For a complete resume of the park resources "f New 
Haven it would be pro})er to mention the several pleasure 
grounds which are maintained by the Street Railway 
Companies and which are made attractive to the people 
by the entertainments and other enticements usual at 
such places. Of these the most prominent is the park at 
Savin Rock, a sea side bathing resort, four miles from 
the City Hall, to which trolley cars run every ten min- 
utes and which is thronged every day and evening by 
pleasure seekers from the city. At the same distance 
on the other side of the harbor is Light House Grove, 
with similar popular allurements. One and a half miles 
further east, on the shore of Long Island Sound, are 
Cosey Beach and Mansfield’s Grove, two contiguous re- 
sorts whose combined attractions are largely patronized. 
Eight miles from New Haven by water is Pawson Park, 
a favorite place for society picnics and Sunday School 
excursions, to which a steam boat runs twice a day dur 
ing the season. And finally Schuetzen Park, a popular 
gathering place for our German fellow citizens, noted 
for its invigorating athletics and Teutonic tonics, is at 
the end of a short trolley line in our northern suburbs. 
On the whole it may be said that New Haven with 
its nineteen parks and pleasure grounds is fairly well 
supplied with places of rest and recreation. Its popul- 
ation is about 1 1 5000 and the park acreage, not includ- 
ing the public resorts which are privately maintained, 
s something over eleven hundred acres, or about one 
acre to every one hundred inhabitants. 
If the circulars which the Department of Agriculture 
has distributed, looking to a comprehensive at Paris next 
year of plans and photographs of park, landscape and 
gardening development of the United States, receive due 
attention, a most important exhibit will result. 
THE EARLY CEMETERIES OF NEW HAVEN, CONN.* 
In writing of early burial grounds, it may not be un- 
interesting to mention the fact that the Indians of this 
locality a Ijs o 
had a place of 
burial, which 
was located on 
Beacon Hill, 
now known as 
Fort Wooster 
Park. This 
property was 
afterwards 
MEMORIAL TO ROGER SHERMAN. , , „ 
owned by my 
own ancestors, and I recall an incident related in my 
childhood by my grandmother. It was the custom of 
the Indians never to bury one of their number unless some 
one could say a good word of the dead. One of them 
died and was left unburied for several days because no 
one could speak well of him; finally one old Indian came 
along and pronounced him as having been a good 
smoker. Then they planted him in a sitting posture 
and facing the east. 
New Haven has had an existence bordering on to 
three centuries. In the spring of 1638 the first settlers 
sailed from Boston, arriving here the latter part of April 
in that year, and landed in boats at the foot of College 
street, within two blocks of this place where we are now 
convened. A memorial tablet marks the spot. 
Among their first enactments was to lay out the town 
in nine squares, and to the “Town Born” of New Haven 
are still known as the “Nine Original Squares,” in the 
center of which they laid out a market place: (the pre- 
sent New Haven Green). They then established a 
church, schools, a whipping post and a burial ground, 
all adjacent to each other; the two latter are rather sug- 
gestive, coming as they did from these good Boston 
people. 
The first burying ground was located under and in 
the rear of the present Center church on the Green, as 
you wilt see by the accompanying map. The names of 
those renting under that edifice are recorded on marble 
tablets in the vestibule of the church. Among the noted 
dead of their day and generation, under that church can 
be seen the tombstone erected to the memory of Mar- 
garet, the first wife of Benedict Arnold. In the rear is 
a monument to Colonel John Dixwcll, one of the regi- 
cides who signed the death warrant of King Charles 
1 . of England. On the rear of the church are tab- 
lets marking the spot were Theophilus Eaton, the first 
governor of New Haven colony, and his deputy gover- 
nor Stephen Goodyear, were buried. These grounds were 
used as a common place of burial from the first settle- 
ment of the town in 1638 to the beginning of this century. 
The last interment here made was in 1812. 
In the year 175.'’ Trinity parish (in communion with 
the church of England) erected a church edifice on its 
land located on the easterly side of Church street, south 
'Paper read at the New Haven, Conn. Convention of the Association 
of American Cemetery Superintendents, September, iSgg. By Edward 
C Beecher. 
