North Haven

History

In his will of 1714, the Reverend James Pierpont (1659–1714) of New Haven gave to his neighbors in the Northeast Parish, as North Haven was called, "provided those neighbors will set their meeting house there and do their training and burying there." The first meeting house, completed in 1722, stood on the Green, west of what is now known as the Old Center Cemetery. About half of the original Pierpont gift remains today as the North Haven Green. Ezra Stiles enumerated about forty families living in North Haven in the early part of the eighteenth century. All of these people were multipurpose farmers, producing what they needed for themselves and their families. In 1786, the General Assembly permitted North Haven to incorporate as a town, separate from New Haven. New roads were built to facilitate communication, namely the Hartford Turnpike in 1798 and the Middletown Turnpike in 1813. The first United States census counted 1,236 people in the agricultural community of North Haven in 1790. However, the 1789 Grand List had found 1,620 sheep in North Haven, with the sheep outnumbering the residents. By the middle of the nineteenth century, signs of the Industrial Revolution were apparent. In 1838, the New Haven and Hartford Railroad had laid its tracks along the level sand plains by the Quinnipiac River. In addition, small industries such as the manufacture of agricultural implements in Clintonville began in 1830. In the 1850 census, 62% of the population was listed as farmers. One-third of the residents worked in various nonagricultural occupations such as mechanics, brickmakers, and shoemakers. After the Civil War, the expanding production of bricks, especially by the I.L. Stiles Co., brought immigrants to North Haven from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Poland. By…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 21.1 square miles (54.6 km), of which 20.8 square miles (53.8 km) is land and 0.3 square miles (0.8 km), or 1.52%, is water. North Haven is located less than from Long Island Sound. North Haven is south of Hartford, northeast of New York City, west of Providence and southwest of Boston. The center of town is an area stretching along U.S. Route 5, from approximately its interchange with I-91 in the north to Bailey Road in the south.North Haven borders the City of New Haven and the towns of East Haven,Hamden, Branford, and Wallingford. *North Haven Center *Clintonville *Montowese *Green Acres *Ridge Road

Race & ethnicity