New Haven – Every building in the city has a creator, and each builder has a unique life story. To learn these stories, Susan Goodshall said, is a stepping stone to learning “part of our architectural heritage.”
The book consists of biographies of 23 builders who built homes, commercial, academic, monuments, and other buildings in the city between 1810-1930, and color illustrations and maps of the 55 buildings featured in the book.
Allah , A longtime resident of the city who participates in NHPTShe said she came across these builders’ life stories when she was searching the Historic Resources Inventory for various Preservation Trust properties.
She said that initially the book was only going to be 28 pages, with only one page per builder, but “the more we got into it, we realized that these builders had life stories,” she said. “They had families, they had civic office.”
Thanks to a government grant, NHPT was able to print 900 physical copies of a 200-page book for people for free and publish the book for free on the Internet.
“I’m very proud of that,” Goodshall said. “I’ve never written a book before and I never thought it would be this prolific. You spray them all over town, and it’s so much fun.”
Goldshall said of two masons that stood for her: William Lanson And Alice Washburn.
Lanson was a free black man who moved to New Haven around 1803 and was hired to extend Long Wharf’s dock by 1,325 feet in the shipping channel, which at the time was the longest wharf in the country, according to the book. He was one of the most famous black rulers, also known as the “African Kings” of New Haven.
“His stones, which he put there in 1810, are still there today,” Goodshall said. “If you go out at low tide, you can see them still holding up the entire Long Wharf pier 212 years later.”
Washburn was the only woman among the 23 builders of the book. Designed by the self-taught builder and architect Approximately 90 homes in New Haven, Hamden, and Cheshire, according to the book. Those shown were 30 Alston Ave, 86 Elmwood Road, and 11 Alden Ave. – all in the Westville neighborhood.
Goodshall said Washburn was known for her close supervision of every detail in the process of building her crew, “which was very unusual for a woman at that time”.
“If you live in Alice Washburn’s house and move it in and sell it, that’s a great selling point,” she said. “Still very desirable homes.”
Co-author Jack Tripp, a senior at Yale University, took the lead through the research process, putting nearly 200 hours into it. It involved searching non-digital information from the New Haven Museum, the New Haven Free Public Library, the Institute’s library, scrapbooks and city directories, he said.
The people at the New Haven Museum, Tripp said, “helped me find any book I wanted, and gave advice when I couldn’t find what I was looking for.” “I was using microfilm for the first time, because that’s not something we normally use anymore, but the museum actually houses a huge collection of microfilm.”
“You could really see how these people were part of the same community,” he said. “They’ll work together on different projects and then they’ll work together on a lot of different civic organizations” including at the local, state, and national levels.
With the city’s older buildings, Goodshall said the book was an idea to let people know that these buildings were built “with heart and soul.”
“This is a starting point for looking around and saying, ‘This is an interesting building, I wonder who built it for whom and how it has lasted so long,’” she said. “Wake up people’s curiosity.”
Asked if there was any project planned to capture the stories of builders from a different period, Godshall said not now. But if anything, she said it had to be a different approach because architecture and style “changed dramatically” after World War II and the Great Depression.
NHFPL hosts Book talk With Godshall and Tripp Jan 26 6-7pm at Ives Home Library.
chatwan.mongkol@hearstmedia.com