NEW HAVEN, the largest city of Connecticut, U.S.A., a port of entry, the county seat of New Haven county and the seat of Yale university; in the south-western part of the State, on Long Island sound, 72 m. E.N.E. of New York city. It is on Federal highway 1, and is served by the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad, interurban trolleys, motor-bus and truck lines and coastwise steamers. Pop. (1920) 162,537 (28% for eign-born white) ; (1930) 162,655.
The city occupies 22.4 sq.m. at the head of a broad, deep bay, into which empty three small streams (the Quinnipiac, the Mill and the West rivers). Its site is a level, sandy plain, behind which rises a line of hills, terminating in two spurs, East Rock (36o ft. high) and West Rock (400 ft.), respectively 21 and 2 m. from the Green. On the central Green of 16 ac., reserved for the public when the town was laid out, are three churches built in 1814: Trinity (Protestant Episcopal), United (Congregational) and Center (Congregational; designed by Ithiel Towne). Facing the Green are some of the buildings of Yale university (q.v.), a large hotel and the principal public buildings. The Harkness tower of the memorial quadrangle of the university can be seen from the Green, and near by is the old Grove Street cemetery, containing the graves of many famous Americans. The Yale Bowl (seating 78,000) is in the western part of the city. New Haven has long been called "the city of elms." Parks, play grounds and public squares cover 1,750 acres. In West Rock park is a cave where the regicide judges Whalley and Goffe are said to have been hid for several weeks when pursued by royal offi cers in 1661. Nathan Hale park contains old Ft. Hale (used in 1812), with its moat and defences well preserved. A large tract at Lighthouse point (the eastern end of the harbour) is developed as a municipal bathing beach and seaside park. New Haven is the seat of a State normal school (established 1893), Albertus Magnus College for Women (Roman Catholic), Arnold College for Hygiene and Physical Education, New Haven college, and Connecticut College of Pharmacy. The public school system in cludes 6o grade and 4 high schools. There are eight parochial schools, and a number of widely-known private academies for boys and for girls, including the Hopkins Grammar school, estab lished in 1664. Among the newspapers are the morning Journal Courier (Independent, established 1766), the evening Register (Independent, 1812), the Times-Union and four Italian weeklies. Several scientific and learned periodicals are published here.
New Haven is an important commercial and industrial city. The general offices of the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad are here, and just outside the city is its Cedar Hill freight classification 'yard, covering 1,160 ac. The traffic of the harbour (nearly all domestic commerce) amounted to 1,282,776 tons in 1926, valued at $112,482,881. There are 277 wholesale houses, doing a large business. The manufacturing industries are widely diversified and highly specialized, with an output in 1927 valued at $124,033,830. Among the leading products are guns, ammuni tion, hardware and clocks. A coke plant manufactures gas which
is piped to towns as far as Hartford. Bank debits in 1927 aggre gated $1,289,211,000. The city's assessed valuation for 1927 was It operates under a mayor and aldermen form of government. The death rate is low.
In the spring of 1638 a company of English Puritans, led by Theophilus Eaton and the Rev. John Davenport, established a settlement here. It was governed under a "plantation covenant" until June 4, 1639, when the "free planters" adopted a theocracy. In 1643-44 the towns of Guilford, Milford, Stamford, Branford and Southold on Long Island were admitted to the "New Haven Jurisdiction." The government of the Jurisdiction was of the strictest Puritan type, but some of the 45 "blue laws" ascribed to it were enactments of other New England Colonies, and some were pure invention. In 1664 New Haven, with the other towns (except Southold) of the Jurisdiction, became part of the Colony of Connecticut, and in 1784 it was chartered as a city. From 1701 to 1873 New Haven was one of the capitals of Connecticut. A State house (designed by Ithiel Towne after the temple of The seus) stood on the Green, or market place, from 1827 until 1889. In 1716 the Collegiate School of Connecticut, which de veloped into Yale university, was moved to New Haven from Saybrook. After 1763 a thriving trade with the West Indies, Newfoundland and neighbouring ports on the Atlantic coast be gan to develop, which flourished, with some periods of depression, until the War of 1812; and after 180o commerce sprang up with China, the East Indies, the Pacific and the South Seas. A col lector of the port was appointed in 1760. In 1769 the merchants at a public meeting unanimously agreed not to import goods from England, but in June 1770, they renounced the agreement and voted to open the port. When the news of the embargo of Boston arrived, a committee of correspondence was formed at once; and through the Revolution the people supported the American cause with ardour, though there were many Loyalists in the town, 75 of whom had property confiscated. On July 5, 1779, the town was invaded and sacked by Gen. Tryon, but he was driven out before he could burn it. When the War of 1812 opened there were fully 600 seamen in the city (among them Captain Isaac Hull), all engaged in privateering or in the regular naval service of the United States. Manufacturing began early. Shoes were shipped from the town in 1647 and iron works were opened in 1656. The loss of foreign trade through the War of 1812, the opening of the Farmington canal in 1828, and the build ing of the railroad in 1833-38 gave such impetus to industrial development that manufacturing rapidly became the chief in terest of the city. In 1820 the population was 8,327; in 1860, 39,267; in 1900, 108,027. New Haven has been the birthplace or the home of many inventors, including Eli Whitney, Eli Whit ney Blake, Charles Goodyear, Thomas Sanford, James Brewster, David Bushnell, S. F. B. Morse, Elias Loomis, Chauncey Je rome and Henry S. Parmelee; and it was the home of Noah Webster and Willard Gibbs.