North Haven

The house at 2 Church Street, corner of Broadway, in North Haven was built in 1794. Its original resident was Dr. Joseph Foote, who is described by Sheldon Brainerd Thorpe in North Haven Annals (1894):

Prior to 1760 but little is known of the medical history of the parish. In that year Dr. Walter Munson came here and is the first known practitioner. In 1790 he was the regularly established physician of the town. In the latter year, a rival entered his field, in the person of Dr. Joseph Foot, born in Northford, Conn., 1770.

Dr. Foot was hopeful and enthusiastic, and his devotion to his calling, gave him in a brief time a place among the North Haven people. Dr. Munson abandoned the field in a few years and his successor thus became fully installed as the “town physician.” He purchased of the widow of the tory Lemuel Bradley, the corner, now known as the Cowles property, and in 1794 began the erection of the present dwelling.

Having made a home ready, he married Mary Bassett of Hamden, February 16, 1797. [. . .] Dr. Griggs says of her: “She came to do her husband good; she was a prudent woman from the Lord; she was not content to promote his temporal interests, she endeavored to win him to Christ by her own consistent piety.”

These counsels, it is recorded, he did not always heed. It was not until her death, after only four years of married life, in which two children, Mary and Jared, were born, that he realized her value. Her loss proved in a measure his salvation. He became thoughtful attentive to his Bible, and a participant in many religious duties.

His second wife was Eunice Foote of Northford Conn., second cousin to him and likewise a descendant of Nathaniel Foote. Her he married January 26, 1803. Four children were born of this union [. . .]

As a physician his skill early won for him the confidence of the public. He was highly esteemed by his medical brethren. His specialty was the
treatment of febrile diseases.

At his advent here, his sole possessions were a horse and a watch. He accumulated a goodlv property by his industry. His circuit was not confined to
North Haven, for he frequently visited Durham, Wallingford, Cheshire, North Branford, “Dragon,” Hamden, and had he so chosen, could have farther widened his area of practice. His charges were moderate, from twenty-five cents to half a dollar being the usual fee for a professional call, except in cases at long distance. The main stock remedies he always carried, esteeming it a hardship to compel his patrons to ride to New Haven for medicines which he could easily carry in his “saddle-bags” or tin box. He died April 24, 1836, aged 66 years, and was buried in the old cemetery. An imposing red granite obelisk marks his resting place, on the south face of which is written:

AN EMINENT CHRISTIAN PHYSICIAN.

The house was later owned by Rev. Orson Cowles and then by Frank L. Stiles, a wealthy brick manufacturer, who also built a house on Broadway in North Haven.

Reverend Benjamin Trumbull (1735-1820) was a notable Congregational minister and an early American historian. Born in Hebron, he graduated from Yale in 1759 and then studied under Reverend Eleazer Wheelock. Ordained in 1760, he was pastor in North Haven for sixty years and also served as a chaplain during the Revolutionary War and in 1777 as a captain of sixty men from Mt. Carmel (Hamden) and North Haven. Rev. Trumbull was the author of a number of works. He wrote a series of letters in the Courant in support of Connecticut’s claim to the Susquehanna purchase. These were collected in a pamphlet published in 1774 entitled A Plea, In Vindication of the Connecticut to the Contested Lands, Lying West of the Province of New-York. Rev. Trumbull also wrote a Complete History of Connecticut from 1630 till 1764, a two-volume work published in 1797. He labored many years on his three-volume General History of the United States of America, only completing the first volume, which was published in 1810. He was awarded a D.D. degree from Yale in 1796.

Rev. Trumbull’s house, which faces the Green in North Haven, is discussed in Vol. 1 of J. L. Rockey’s History of New Haven County (1892):

It was in the summer of the latter year [1760] that he came to North Haven church, and November 14th was ordained as its pastor. The following year he purchased a tract of land of Joseph Pierpont, and began the erection of a dwelling house upon it. The old mansion is still standing and in excellent repair. It is the property of Hon. Ezra Stiles, who has occupied it something more than 60 years. As a historic point, there is none greater in the town. The great double doors were ever ajar. Over its threshold were ceaselessly trooping scores of busy feet. Ministers, messengers, committees, referees and strangers made it a religious caravansary and rested in its shadow. Hither came during the revolutionary war aids and officers with despatches, and later eminent historians and theologists tarried within its walls.

The house is more fully described in North Haven Annals. A History of the Town from Its Settlement, 1680, to Its First Centennial, 1886 (1892), by Sheldon B. Thorpe:

It stood a few rods east of his meeting-house, upon the summit of a gentle ridge, and commanded a view of the entire village. The late Hon. Ezra Stiles owned it a little more than sixty years. Its admirable preservation to-day attests the work of the painstaking, careful builder of that period. The “Society Lott” doubtless furnished the lumber. The frame of the building is of oak, dimensions 28×35. The timbers are massive and hard as iron. The covering of rent oak clapboards, smoothed beaded and jointed to a line, has defied heat and cold, sun and storm, upward of a century and a quarter and is apparently good for another term of service full as long. Exteriorly, with the exception of a bay window on the southern end, the old parsonage is as the aged divine left it. The quaint mouldings and devices surmounting windows and doors attest that unusual ornamentation was bestowed upon it. It presented a striking contrast to the humble domicile on the plain below where the Rev. Mr. Stiles [Rev. Trumbull’s predecessor] lived, and was indeed what it came at length to be called, “the quality house” of the village. Every part was builded for service, and long service at that. The enormous chimney contains a mass of material. Six separate flues connecting with as many wide fireplaces are constructed within it, and it is five feet square where it emerges from the roof, while its base, hidden deep in the earth, covers probably not less than one hundred square feet. The original color of the mansion was red, White houses were uncommon until after the year 1800, and only two places in the town had blinds for their windows in 1829.

Thorpe also attests to the many visitors Rev. Trumbull entertained at the house:

The great double doors of this hospitable mansion were ever ajar. Over the threshold tradition tells us, were ceaselessly trooping many busy feet, and its owner soon became widely known. Ministers and messengers journeying to and fro to religious gatherings, took roundabout roads to call on this rising divine. Referees, committees, consociations, came to test his judgment and his wife’s hospitality, both exhaustless. As he came in later years to be still more widely celebrated, the calibre of his visitors increased. Many an eminent man visiting Yale college thought his mission far from complete until he had ridden out to North Haven and Visited “Dr. Trumbull.”