What was the new haven colony

By , New Haven had grown to be the village center of a mainly agricultural township and became co-capital of Connecticut, along with Hartford. It was not until that New Haven lost its status as co-capital. Eighteen years later it moved to New Haven, and, after receiving a large benefaction from Elihu Yale, was renamed Yale College. It would eventually become a world renowned university and a major economic factor in the city. By the time the Revolutionary War began, New Haven had evolved from a colonial village into a growing town of about 3, that would contribute men, financial support and arms to the revolutionary cause.

At one point in the war New Haven was invaded by 3, British soldiers. Unlike Norwalk and Fairfield the British did not burn the city and casualties were relatively few. In , New Haven was incorporated as a city and Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was elected first mayor. Shortly before the turn of the century Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate, invented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the cotton industry in the South.

Later, Whitney established a gun factory along the Hamden border. New Haven's status as one of the major American arms-manufacturing centers has its roots in the Whitney Arms Company.

Whitney's operation was eventually bought by the Winchester Arms Company, which became one of New Haven's largest employers. While off the coast of Cuba aboard the Spanish schooner Amistad they mutinied and were eventually found by a United States patrol boat.

At the end of a three-year trial that would receive national attention, the court ruled that the Mendi had been kidnapped into slavery in violation of Spanish law. The return of the Mendi to their homeland would be remembered as a triumph of the anti-slavery movement in the North. New Haven's economy flourished during the Civil War era. The city's carriage industry became for many years one of the nation's largest.

New Haven also produced rubber goods, clocks, beer, pianos and a wide range of other products. The city's population also surged after the Civil War. Museum Map. The Whitney Library. Library Services. Pardee-Morris House. Museum Shop. Current Exhibitions. Photograph Collections. Rights and Reproduction Requests. Online Exhibitions. Upcoming Exhibitions. Past Exhibitions. Donating an Object to the Museum.

Online Collection Catalog. Catalog of Manuscript Collections. Research Guides. Whitney Library Associates. The rivalry between New Haven and Hartford lasted for centuries.

For many years, Connecticut had two state capitals , one in each city, and the legislature moved back and forth between the two. This unusual and unwieldy situation lasted until Richard Upjohn completed his monumental new state capitol building in Hartford three years later. Today few people remember but that for a turn in fortunes, Connecticut might have been two states instead of one.

Nancy Finlay grew up in Manchester, Connecticut. By Nancy Finlay Political boundaries can be arbitrary things, accidents of history that might have turned out differently if a certain sequence of historical events had a different outcome. New Haven Museum. Jones, Mary Jeanne Anderson. Congregational Commonwealth Connecticut, Atwater, Edward. New Haven: Edward E. Atwater, Lambert, Edward. Van Dusen, Albert.

Puritans Against the Wilderness: Connecticut History to Chester, CT: Pequot Press, Hoadly, Charles. Love, William DeLoss. The Colonial History of Hartford.