Thomas Breen photo
The grave of New Haven's first mayor: Not crazy about kings.
Where’s a good place to visit in New Haven in the first days of the Trump administration?
City Historian Michael Morand recommends the grave of Roger Sherman at the National Historic Landmarked Grove Street Cemetery — one of 25 local history stops included on a new list put out by the city in honor of New Haven’s 241st birthday.
Allan Appel Photo
City Historian Michael Morand with a copy of the original 1784 charter.
Morand recommended Sherman’s headstone for a visit this week not just because Sherman was that rare colonial leader who signed all four of young America’s founding documents (can you name them all?). He was also the first mayor of New Haven when the city incorporated in 1784.
And now here comes the most important reason to pay respects to Sherman right now, according to Morand:
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, “Roger Sherman was among the top figures objecting to unchecked power for the executive. He knew there was and never should be a king.”
Morand made that recommendation Tuesday morning at the New Haven Museum where he, Mayor Justin Elicker, New Haven Museum Executive Director Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky and others were on hand to mark the city’s 241st birthday with a gift: 25 in ’25, which is a list of historic places in town recommended to visit in 2025.
The 51st mayor communes with the first, Roger Sherman.
In no order of priority, the list of historically rich locales, now up on the city website, includes, not surprisingly, the cemetery, the New Haven Museum, the Green, Dixwell Community House, Yale Bowl (150 years of the Yale-Harvard Game), Fort Nathan Hale in Morris Cove and Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana, which is also marking 100 years in 2025.
There are other historic anniversaries coinciding with the city’s 241st, which fall under the tenth recommendation on the list: Albertus Magnus, now in the midst of its centennial, and local public elementary schools Nathan Hale, in Morris Cove, and Augusta Lewis Troup, in Dwight.
#19 on the list is the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, now on Huntington Street, which has been helping us identify mosquitoes, ticks, and much else since 1875. Recommendations #21 to #24 include Toad’s Place, Claire’s Corner Copia, Campus Customs, and the Atticus Bookstore, all marking their jubilees this year.
New Haven museum's Whitney Library librarian Emma Norden conducts an "open house" Saturdays at noon where you can look at original materials. Next month the theme is New Haven's Black Panther history.
Why couldn’t there be many more than 25 history-rich destinations in New Haven? asked a reporter.
Morand gingerly held up a copy of the 1784 incorporating charter, which, he pointed out, was printed by Thomas and Samuel Green, whose establishment was also likely on the Green, and in the state house building then planted there — as New Haven was the state co-capital location at the time.
“Recommendation number 25,” Morand replied, is “make your own list.”
The group then moved to the New Haven Museum rotunda, where, under a portrait of William Lanson, celebrants sliced the strawberry-and-chocolate birthday cake for the city.
Morand praised the mayor’s evolving comprehensive plan which, he said, “is turning to history for guidance. For here there’s more accessible history than any place our size. New Haven history is not just about the past, but a living resource for how we can improve where we are.”
Next up are the Museum’s and the city’s planning for the semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) birthday of the United States coming up in 2026.
And now, if you haven’t already Googled: In addition to the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, the fourth founding document that New Haven Mayor Roger Sherman put his name to (he always remained mayor even while participating on the early national stage) was a document called the Articles of Association, adopted by the First Continental Congress in 1774 to boycott British merchants and pressure the English parliament to pay attention to the concerns of their American cousins.
It didn’t quite work, and the Revolution followed, whose success led to the collective confidence sufficient for New Haven’s leaders to write a charter and get it approved to become, formally, the first city in the state (with New London a close second).
See below for the city’s full list of 25 historic New Haven places to visit in 2025.
25 IN ‘25: 25+ HISTORIC PLACES TO VISIT IN 2025!
1 – 4. Spend time on the New Haven Green, a National Historic Landmark district, and places on the Green like the New Haven Free Public Library, with its local history room, and the Center Church, with its historic crypt, and mark your calendar for Wake Up the Green on Saturday, May 10, including a reenactment of Powder House Day and celebrations of the centennial of the New Haven Garden Club.
5. Explore the Grove Street Cemetery, another National Historic Landmark, established in 1797 – the oldest publicly chartered burial place in the nation, organized as a city of the dead with streets and family plots, and mark your calendar for its annual July 4 commemoration organized by the General David Humphreys Branch of the Connecticut State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
6. Go early and often to the New Haven Museum, and its Whitney Library and Pardee Morris House, a vibrant center for exploring the people, places, events, and ideas that shape and define the Elm City, for its exhibitions, events, and research collections.
7. Eat at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, opened 100 years ago in 1925, and eat at many of the other amazing apizza places in New Haven, where every day is a apizza day.
8. Engage with the Beinecke Library and other special collections of Yale Library for their archives, exhibitions, and events – including a special event on Saturday afternoon, April 19, birthday of Roger Sherman, a founder of the nation and first person elected mayor of New Haven after its incorporation in 1784.
9. Read The Life of William Grimes, first published 200 years ago in 1825, the first fugitive slave narrative, written by Grimes, who liberated himself from enslavement and lived most of his life in New Haven, where he is buried in Grove Street Cemetery. In this bicentennial year of Grimes’s book, also note that this year marks the 200th anniversary of the last sale of enslaved people on the New Haven Green, on March 8, 1825.
10. Connect with Albertus Magnus College, also celebrating the centennial of its founding in 1925 (and cheer local schools like Nathan Hale and Troup also opened in 1925).
11 — 12. Check out the Southern Connecticut State University Library special collections – and make sure also to learn about the Ethnic Heritage Center and its five constituent organizations, hosted on the SCSU campus, and get moving with their wonderful Walk New Haven tours.
13. Get to know the Dixwell Community House, first opened in 1924, with its Toni N. and Wendell C. Harp Historical Museum, and the Stetson branch of the New Haven Free Public Library – plus make sure to check out the other neighborhood library branches around town – Mitchell in Westville, Wilson in the Hill, and Fair Haven – all of which have books and resources about local history.
14. Catch a game at the Yale Bowl, another National Historic Landmark, and celebrate the history of football in New Haven. This year is the 150th anniversary of the first Harvard-Yale football game, played on November 13, 1875, at Hamilton Park in New Haven – and note other historic events at the bowl, like the Special Olympics World Games 30 years ago in 1995, a time that also marks the beginning of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
15. Visit the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center to learn about the history of the Knights of Columbus, a global organization founded in New Haven in 1882.
16 — 17. Get inspired at great museums like the Yale Peabody Museum, newly renovated, expanded, reopened, and the Yale University Art Gallery, both of which have great New Haven related items in their collections.
18. Make plans to see Fort Nathan Hale and Black Rock Fort and other Revolutionary War era sites and think about New Haven’s many connections to the American Revolution – considering, for example, the establishment of the Second Company’s Foot Guard 250 years ago in 1775.
19. Get to know the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, celebrating the sesquicentennial of its founding in 1875, the first such station in the nation.
20. Visit the New Haven Preservation Trust online and use what you learn to explore the historic fabric throughout the city’s neighborhoods.
21 — 24. Patronize historic New Haven establishments, such as those established 50 years ago in 1975: Toad’s Place, Claire’s Corner Copia, Campus Customs, and Atticus Bookstore.
25. Keep an eye out for the schedules of places that are temporarily closed or not yet opened, but that will be open in the future, like the Yale Center for British Art, the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, and Lost in New Haven.
25+. This list is just a starting point! Keep your own list, add to it, and share it with friends, family, and neighbors – history is for all of us to explore, to make, to keep, and to pass on!