REPORT: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT SURVEY LONG WHARF PIER STRUCTURE NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT Prepared for Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc. March 2008 Archaeological and Historical Services, Inc. Author: Bruce Clouette 569 Middle Turnpike P.O. Box 543 Storrs, CT 06268 (860) 429-2142 voice (860) 429-9454 fax
[email protected] REPORT: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT SURVEY LONG WHARF PIER STRUCTURE NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT Prepared for Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc. March 2008 Archaeological and Historical Services, Inc. Author: Bruce Clouette 569 Middle Turnpike P.O. Box 543 Storrs, CT 06268 (860) 429-2142 voice (860) 429-9454 fax
[email protected] ABSTRACT/MANAGEMENT SUMMARY In connection with environmental review studies of proposed I-95 improvements, the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) in August 2007 requested “information regarding the historic use, development chronology, and archaeological integrity of the Long Wharf pier structure” in New Haven, Connecticut. Extending approximately 650 feet into New Haven harbor, the wharf is the home berth of the schooner Amistad. This report, prepared by Archaeological and Historical Services, Inc. of Storrs, Connecticut, presents in detail the information about the structure that was requested by the SHPO. In its present form, Long Wharf is a concrete slab and riprap structure that was created in the early 1960s in connection with a massive urban renewal project. The base of the modern wharf, however, is a stone and earth-fill structure built in 1810 by William Lanson, a prominent and sometimes controversial member of New Haven’s African American community. That structure was a 1,500-foot extension of an 18th-century timber wharf, making the whole, at some 3,900 feet, the longest wharf in the country at the time.