Built around 1875, the Italianate house at 3341-43 Whitney Avenue in Hamden was built for Joseph H.K. Miller. He was employed by the Mount Carmel axle works factory of Frederick Ives, part of the New Haven area’s carriage building industry. By 1880, Joseph’s brother, Willis E. Miller, became a partner in the company, which was thereafter known as Ives and Miller. The factory was in operation until 1907.
The Coopers were early settlers in Hamden. James Cooper built the house at 2052 Whitney Avenue around 1810 (or perhaps as early as 1780). The widow of Cooper’s grandson William married Thomas Hartley in the 1870s and the house remained in the Hartley family for over a half-century.
The oldest church building in Hamden is Grace Episcopal Church, built in 1821 and attributed to the architect builder David Hoadley. The church’s first meeting house was built in 1790, in Mount Carmel, on what is today Whitney Avenue. The current church once had a large steeple, built in 1847 and designed by Henry Austin, which blew down in 1915. The present steeple was built in 1921. The church was moved in 1966 from one side of Dixwell Avenue to the opposite side. In the 1990s, Grace Church merged with St. Peter’s on the Hill, founded in 1958. The united church is now known as Grace & St. Peters Episcopal Church.
In 1799, Ezra Bassett, son of Capt. Hezekiah Bassett, purchased land in Hamden and within a few years had built a house along what is now Whitney Avenue. Probably a merchant, Ezra Bassett’s business suffered during the War of 1812, leading to the loss of the house in 1815. It was next owned by Jared Atwater and remained in his family for the rest of the nineteenth century. Although later significantly altered for commercial purposes with original decoration removed and display windows added, the house was more recently restored to its original appearance, with a Federal-style entry and tripartite window. The house now serves as a lawyer’s office.
Mount Carmel Congregational Church is located on Whitney Avenue, in the Mount Carmel neighborhood of Hamden. The parish, established in 1758, had previously worshiped in a meetinghouse which stood a little north of the current church. That building was first used in 1761, but was not fully completed until after the Revolution. After it burned down, the present Greek Revival-style church was constructed in 1840, after several years of debate on where to build it.
The Whitneyville Congregational Church was built in 1834 in the manufacturing village of Whitneyville, in Hamden. The congregation began as the East Plains Congregational Church in 1795. It’s original meetinghouse on Dixwell Avenue was replaced by a new church, built after much debate, in a new location, next to the Cheshire Turnpike (now Whitney Avenue), on land donated by the widow of Eli Whitney. The Greek Revival structure was inspired by the designs of architect Ithiel Town. The church was enlarged by Rufus G. Russell, a former assistant of Henry Austin, with a pulpit recess in 1867. The dome atop the steeple was added by the end of the nineteenth century.
One of the many Colonial Revival houses designed by Alice Washburn in the New Haven area is one at 105 Mill Rock Road in Hamden. Washburn was possibly inspired by the Canterbury style of Federal house, as seen in examples like the Prudence Crandall and Captain John Clark Houses in Canterbury. The house in Hamden was built in 1931 for Clyde M. Hill, professor of Secondary Education at Yale University.
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