Already on the Trail

Eli Whitney Museum and the dam

The richest cluster on the river — a full interpretive series on the armory, run by the museum.

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  The Coal Shed

  Charcoal for the armory forges came up the Mill River on a flat-bottomed scow and was carried up the hill to the shed. Whitney's 1823 inventory recorded 5,075 bushels.

  41.33594, -72.91044 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  The Barn

  Square rule construction as an early application of precision and interchangeable practice. It also records that while Whitney was quarrying the stone for this barn's foundation, he supplied Ithiel Town with the stone for Trinity Church on the Green.

  41.33595, -72.91166 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  The Dam

  The most useful sign on the river, and the one that corrects our own numbers. See the transcript.

  What it says

  New Haven was thirsty. Between 1850 and 1860, New Haven had nearly doubled in size. With no sanitation system, its public wells became unusable. Proliferating factories increased the danger of fire. Efforts to establish a modern water system had languished, deadlocked by politics for a decade. Whitney solved the two challenges with one stone dam. He marshalled public investment to finance the 38 foot tall, 500 foot long dam that still supplies a portion of New Haven's water. The dam's construction was just half the problem. Its stone was quarried in place from Mill Rock to your left and from the northern ridge of East Rock to your right. Eighteen miles of pipe distributed water to New Haven. Lake Whitney, the new dam's reservoir, stretched two miles to the north. Three mills were submerged. Three bridges and 20 other buildings had to be relocated. Oxen dragged the Town Bridge north to the crossing we now call Davis Street. The original dam and reservoir have been expanded twice since it opened in 1862.

  41.33649, -72.91061 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  The Turbine

  Water power at the armory, and the vertical wheel that replaced it.

  41.33654, -72.91056 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  The Second Armory

  Whitney's Improved Fire-Arms, and the armory's Civil War peak.

  41.33648, -72.91064 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  The Boarding House

  Whitney had no trained gunsmiths, so he built housing and brought workers to the site. The boarding house is where they lived.

  41.33595, -72.91166 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  Transition

  What came after the armory — the Acme Wire Company and the Sentinel Stove Company, and the industrial archaeology still in the ground.

  41.33594, -72.91044

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  The Town Bridge

  Ithiel Town patented this truss in 1820. Whitney endorsed it for its simplicity, lightness, strength, cheapness and durability. Students from Eli Whitney Technical School built the replica in 1979.

  41.33594, -72.91044 · This project adds to it at Three Bridges North

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  Historical Artifact — the pipe

  A section of the water main that carried Lake Whitney into the city.

  41.33596, -72.91183 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

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  Eli Whitney 1765-1825 — bronze plaque

  "Inventor of the Cotton Gin." Erected by the Hamden Historical Society in 1939.

  41.33832, -72.91117 · This project adds to it at The Dam That Fought Fires

East Rock Park

Mostly natural history, and good. The new signs deliberately do not duplicate these.

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  Geology of East Rock

  Yale Peabody Museum. The breakup of Pangaea, the trap rock, and a geologic map of the ridge.

  41.32696, -72.91062 · This project adds to it at A Boat on the Rock

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  Mill River Watershed

  The value of wetlands, with the birds and fish of the river. Covers much of what a nature sign would otherwise say.

  41.33510, -72.90992 · This project adds to it at Twice a Day, the Sea

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  Songbirds: Neotropical Migrants

  Migration routes between here and South America. Worth knowing about before commissioning any more bird illustrations.

  41.33832, -72.91117

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  East Rock Park map

  Orientation map for the park and its trails.

  41.33033, -72.90894

Criscuolo Park and Fair Haven

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  29th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry (Colored) monument

  Black granite monoliths carrying the roster and the regiment's history, with a Freedom Trail marker. The narrative records that after the Colored Ladies of New Haven presented the regiment its flag, it marched aboard the transport Warrior on 19 March 1864 and sailed for Annapolis.

  41.30333, -72.90399 · This project adds to it at Camp at Grapevine Point

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  The Salt Marsh Wall

  A field guide to salt marsh plants in Connecticut. Directly overlaps the species panels, and is the reason those pick different plants.

  41.30410, -72.90247 · This project adds to it at Twice a Day, the Sea

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  Fair Haven Walking Trails

  The Mill River-Ferry Street Loop and the Quinnipiac River Trail Loop. Chatham Square Neighborhood Association, CARE at the Yale School of Public Health, and the City of New Haven.

  41.30358, -72.90281

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  Lea's Place

  A memorial playground, with owl artwork by Lea Doran on the flags above it.

  41.30369, -72.90407