The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A HIDDEN HISTORY
New Haven’s zoo, ghost ship, whipping post and more
Did you know:
— That East Rock Park once had a zoo, where a bear mauled to death the zookeeper?
— That Eli Whitney’s New Haven nephew Philos Blake invented the nutcracker and corkscrew?
— That Doris Day and Richard Widmark did a scene for the 1958 movie “The Tunnel of Love” by riding in the tunnel through West Rock on the Wilbur Cross Parkway?
— That New Haven had America’s first female dentist?
— That novelist Sinclair Lewis was a reporter for the Journal Courier at a salary of $9 per week?
All of these nuggets are contained within Robert and Kathleen Hubbard’s book, “Hidden History of New Haven” (The History Press).
As a history buff who has lived in New Haven for decades, I was drawn to this book. Much of it was familiar to me but there were some startling discoveries.
The Hubbards also wrote about Elm City disasters and tragedies that were news to me, including the death of a West Point cadet who was tackled during the Yale Army game on Oct. 24, 1931 at Yale Bowl. Richard Sheridan was knocked unconscious; his neck was broken. Two days later he died.
The Hubbards covered as much ground as they could last Wednesday night when they put on a slide show and talk at the Guilford Free Public Library.
As I was crossing the beautiful Guilford Green before the event, I was feeling sorry for those two writers; who would come to a library on a gorgeous summer’s evening to hear about New Haven history? I figured they would be lucky to get 15 people.
The room was packed! There must have been 70 folks in the audience, many of them transplanted New Haveners and a few who still live there.
Robert began by telling us he spent many years teaching at Albertus Magnus College and Gateway Community College. Kathleen taught at Middletown public schools. Both of them are retired.
Their paperback book, which sells for about $22, is only 148 pages long but has lots of evocative, oldtime photos along with the text. The cover photo shows a group of newsboys, ranging in ages from 721, clutching their newspapers as they stood on the New Haven Green in 1924.
Early in the talk at the library, Robert told us “one of the first supernatural stories of this country: the ‘ghost ship’ of New Haven.” In 1647 that large ship sailed off from New Haven Harbor, headed for London with plenty of goods to establish a trade relationship.
“But they left in the middle of the winter!” Robert noted. “The harbor was frozen and they had to cut a threemile slice to get the ship out onto open water. “A year later people in England said they had heard nothing about the ship. Eighteen months after it left, a lot of people in New Haven saw a giant ship in the clouds; the image lasted 3060 minutes. Some people said they could see the face of the captain. But then the vision disappeared.”
Then Robert offered a story with a happier ending. In colonial times, corporal punishment was common; criminals were punished by being tied to whipping posts or put into stocks while large groups of people came and watched. New Haven’s whipping post was near Trinity Church on the Green. Shortly before that post was torn down in 1831, an impoverished man was sentenced to be whipped because he had stolen a suit of clothes. Constable Elihu Munson, who was handed the whip, “felt so sorry for the man that he lightly whipped him. Then he took up a collection from the spectators in order to buy the stolen clothes from the owner. He donated it to the thief.”
Robert concluded this philanthropic story by saying: “We need more people like that today!”
Turning to the “Disasters” chapter of the book, Robert started to tell us about poor old Gustave Anderson, the zookeeper who was attacked by the bear.
“That’s my greatgrandfather!” a woman shouted from the library audience.
This was Donna Maturo of East Haven, who was interviewed by the Hubbards for the book and was on hand to hear what they had to say about that terrible event in November 1930.
“The East Rock Park Zoo had parrots, burros, a monkey, pheasants and two Canadian bears, among other animals,” Robert said. “The zookeeper, Gustave Anderson, had been caring for the largest bear, Teddy, for eight years. The bear loved him and he loved the bear.”
“But one day some people were teasing Teddy and the bear attacked Gustave. This
man was 74 years old. Another zookeeper came in barehanded and fought the bear; that man lost his legs. Then a third keeper came in and hit the bear in the head with a wooden mallet, driving him into the woods. Three days later, Mr. Anderson died.” (Teddy later returned to the zoo and was euthanized.)
The Hubbards didn’t have time during their hourlong presentation to cover all the disasters that are in their book, including the Rialto Theater fire of 1921 that killed 10 people; the 1941 Franklin Street fire that killed 10 men; and the 1957 Franklin Street fire that killed 15 factory workers. Then there was the Allegheny Airlines crash at Tweed New Haven Airport on June 8, 1971, that killed 28 people. According to the Hubbards, many of them perished because the exit doors could not be located or opened.
Kathleen told us that as they neared the deadline for completing their hidden history, “I said: ‘We’ve got to get more women in this book!’” She showed us a photo of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and Constance Baker Motley. She was a native New Havener who became a nationallyknown civil rights lawyer, arguing groundbreaking cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Later she became the first African American woman to serve as a federal judge.
Kathleen also introduced us to Blanche Green, who began as a farm woman but was so successful in the corset business that she “was believed to be the highest paid businesswoman in the world. Her annual salary was $100,000.” This was in 1927.
As for that first woman dentist in America, she was Emeline Roberts Jones. “Her husband (who was also a dentist) didn’t want her to do it,” Kathleen said. But after Jones’ husband died in 1864, she opened her own dental practice, traveling around with her portable dentist chair. In 1976 she set up a permanent dental office in New Haven.
Robert told us about some of the entertainers featured in the book, including big band musician Artie Shaw. He was married eight times; his wives included the actresses Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. The Hubbards quoted him saying: “I wasn’t a badlooking stud. But that’s not it. It’s the music; it’s standing up there under the lights. A lot of women just flip; looks have nothing to do with it. You call Mick Jagger goodlooking?”
When I asked Robert why the Penney Serra murder wasn’t included in the crime chapter and why the Five Satins and the Carpenters didn’t make it into the entertainment chapter, he said, “We were limited in the number of pages and photos. It’s very selective. It’s not meant to be allinclusive.”