Past to Present the Newsletter of the New Haven Museum
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Past to Present The newsletter of The New Haven Museum Spring 2010 Hopkins School to be Awarded Museum’s Seal of the City By Steve Gurney hree hundred fifty years ago, on the public square near what is now the intersection of Elm and Temple Streets, stood a simple one-room log cabin adorned with a large fieldstone fireplace. The square served many T purposes and within a stone’s throw of this modest structure was the town grave- yard and the local jail. Inside this small cabin, on hard oak benches, sat six or eight boys as young as eight years old, their Bibles on their laps. Throughout the day each was called upon to recite aloud a Latin or Greek passage supposed to have been memorized by candle or firelight the evening before. This was Hop- kins’s first schoolhouse; these were its first students; this was their curriculum. One can only marvel at the fierce determination required of a Puritan foremother on winter mornings as she pried a sleep-bound boy out of a warm bed in time to trudge to an unheated schoolroom with daylight still an hour or more away. One can assume she did not always succeed. Six days a week, fifty-two weeks of the year, from six in the morning until four or five in the afternoon, a few young scholars labored at their lessons in the dim light. All could hear the ongoing burials of departed Christians in the General Information nearby graveyard, the wails of convicted sinners in the jail, the grunting of hogs Museum & Library and the barking of dogs rooting among the graves. If these activities did not suf- Hours: ficiently inspire young minds to scholarly concentration, a handy supply of birch Tuesday—Friday 10:00-5:00 rods, locally cut and ably wielded by their schoolmaster, served instead. Saturday 12:00-5:00 Hope of redemption was admission to Harvard “Colledge,” such as it Admission was in its third decade. There was as yet no alternative in the New World to Adults: $4.00 Harvard. Yale was still over forty years in the future but it might be noted that in Seniors $3.00 the decades after its founding, Yale immediately and overwhelmingly replaced Students (12+) $2.00 Harvard as the goal of a Hopkins education – perhaps because Yale’s location Children Free in Saybrook and later New Haven entailed a considerably shorter and safer walk Free First Sundays: than the footpath to Boston. The Museum is now open Hopkins owes these free to the public on the humble yet purpose- first Sunday of the month ful and, in those from 1 PM to 4 PM. times, successful beginnings to the Contact Information Reverend John Dav- Phone: 203.562.4183 enport. In the Fax: 203.562.2002 spring of 1637, he [email protected] continued on p. 6 Signs of Spring—East Shore Edition! affodils may be blooming who would like to, please call brightly all over down- Louise FitzSimons (203) 562-4183 D town New Haven as ext 10. If you would like to exercise March turns to April, but out on your green thumb helping clean up the East Shore, spring comes later. the lawns, trimming and planting, At the Pardee-Morris House, the please contact the head of our 300 daffodils planted last fall by grounds volunteers, John Cox at the Morris Cove Garden Club are [email protected]. And watch for the barely beginning to push their announcement of the Pardee- leaves above the ground. The legen- Morris House’s formal opening. dary north winds that sweep over Morris Cove and delay the spring Music Returns to the New Haven Museum! really do exist. But within the next few weeks, the Pardee-Morris fter many years—no one House will be coming to life. come a group of local musicians: remembers exactly how Sergio Pallottelli—flute; Joanna A long it’s been—live music is Becker—violin; Yaroslav Kargin— returning to the New Haven Mu- viola; Gretchen Frazier—viola; Tom seum. If you’ve been in the Clem- Hudson—cello). They will perform: ent Room lately, you will have no- Flute Quartet in D Major (W.A. ticed the magnificent six foot ma- Mozart); Serenade for Flute, Violin hogany Steinway grand piano that and Viola (L.v. Beethoven); and recently arrived. It is on loan from Quintet in A Major for Flute and piano restorer Brent Evans. Evans, String Quartet (F. Kuhlau). who sells restored pianos from his shop on State Street, offered to The concert will be fol- lend the Museum the piano for use lowed by a reception. Please mark in our musical events. The Stein- your calendar for Sunday May way is for sale and, when it is sold, 16th, 3 PM. he promises to lend us another. Morris Cove Garden Club volunteers, Despite the including Marge Ottenbreit, planted 300 number of venues daffodils at the Pardee-Morris House. for music in this city, local musicians A grand opening event is tell us that there are planned, with tours, food, and en- never enough for the tertainment. Throughout the sum- number of talented mer, there will be classes, exhibits, musicians who want tours and other events. Depending to perform or for the on the availability of volunteers, we audiences who want hope to have the Pardee-Morris to hear good music. House open to the public for visits and tours on weekends throughout For the first the season. If you would like to vol- concert of the new unteer, or if you know someone series, we will wel- The latest addition to our museum is a Steinway Model A-2 grand piano, on loan from Brenton Evans Pianos. Page 2 Past to Present Moving Forward: A Message from our President & CEO, Walter Miller he Museum continues to February 28th. We anticipate that move forward, reaching out portions of this popular exhibit will T and attracting new audi- be transferred to the Pardee-Morris ences. Since the first of the year, we House later this spring so that it can have hosted a number of successful continue to be enjoyed during the events that were very well attended: Pardee-Morris House season, when The January 21st talk by Carleton we have events scheduled. Loucks on “What Railroads Have In early April we will open Meant to New Haven;” the presenta- an exhibit on Hopkins School, tion on February 4th, researched in which is celebrating its 350th anni- the Whitney Library, on Mrs. F. B. versary. We are reviving our tradi- Scranton, a New Havener who went tional “Seal of the City” award and to Korea in 1885 and founded a will present it to Hopkins School at girls’ school which has grown into a ceremony at the Museum on April today’s Ewah University, the largest 15th. We will continue to make an- women’s university in the world. nual “Seal of the City” awards. This event, which was co-sponsored Another new development Walter R. Miller, Jr. by the First and Summerfield Meth- at the Museum is the arrival of a President and CEO odist Church, drew a large crowd, beautiful, recently-restored Steinway most of whom had never been in grand piano on loan. This will en- the Museum before. We also hosted able us to host musical events for a Yale Club-sponsored presentation the first time in many years. A per- And on Tuesday May 18th we will on scientific writing and state-wide formance by a string quartet and hear from the distinguished editor annual meeting of the Daughters of flute is scheduled for Sunday, May of The Jonathan Edwards papers, the American Revolution. 16th to inaugurate the new series. who will speak on “Jonathan Ed- Our new series “New Ha- We continue to offer a vari- wards in New Haven.” ven/Safe Haven” on the changing ety of evening programs designed to As part of the overall master patterns of immigration in our city attract new and diverse audiences. plan for the museum in the coming has held two events to date, one an An example is our “Irish Movies- years, we are working closely with overview of the changing face of im- Irish Beer” festival, which features the city’s Canal Dock project. We migration in Connecticut, three evenings of films set in the want to make the Museum the focus “Welcoming the World,” on March crucial years of the Irish War of In- of Canal Dock’s emphasis on the th th 4 and on March 11 , a previously dependence. harbor, the Freedom Trail, the snowed-out presentation by IRIS On Tuesday, April 20th, we Farmington Canal, and the Amistad. (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant will welcome Prof. James O’Gor- In this regard, we are working Services) on the new Iraqi refugees man, Emeritus Professor of Art at closely with Canal Dock planners who are being resettled in New Ha- Wellesley College, and author of a ven by the U. S. State Department. prize-winning book on architect and architects as well as the City. On February 25th postcard Henry Austin. He will discuss the ar- and ephemera collector Joe Taylor chitect whose work is prominent at presented a “finale” to our East Shore many sites in New Haven, including Walter R. Miller, Jr. Reflections exhibit, which closed on the gate of Grove Street Cemetery. Page 3 From the Photo Archives By Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, Director of Photographic Archives his photograph was taken by T.S. Bronson as the T New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad constructed its most extensive rail yard here in New Haven.