New Haven Industrial Heritage Trails

For the majority of the 19th century, New Haveners ate a lot of oysters. They were enjoyed by rich and poor alike, prepared countless ways, and served along beer nightly in bars. They were half the price of beef, and added to pies and stews as a cheaper meat substitute. But, it was not just New Haven that was eating shellfish. Oysters were actually one the most ubiquitous and cherished food items in America. However their rise into abundance did in large part start in New Haven and by nature they played an integral part of the development of the city.

My “proposal” is a menu, or bill of fare, of the New Haven Oyster Industry. I imagine this menu to be served at some kind of curated dinner honoring the oyster and the role it played in New Haven. The dinner would also be a way to provoke and promote conversation about the future of the new haven shoreline and the role oysters or the memory of oysters might play in it. So, I’ll invite you now to join me for this virtual meal. 

Course 1: oysters on the half shell

It is the purest way to prepare and consume an oyster and it takes us back to the early history of this city. There is evidence that oysters were harvested and consumed here as early as the 1600s and probably many decades before that. At that time, Native American Algonquin tribes occupied this area and oysters were a primary part of their diet. The shores of New Haven served as the perfect habitat for oysters, consisting of tidal flats, and calm brackish water. These factors also made them extremely accessible for harvesting, which was either done by hand or using rakes and baskets.

Course 2: Simply Prepared Oysters – broiled, fried, and stewed

For this course, we are looking at the built environment beginning to take shape around Oystering. The economy of New Haven at the beginning of the Eighteenth century was based on its agriculture, including its harvesting of oysters. More complex harvesting techniques were also beginning to take shape. Larger tongs, Boats constructed for the purpose of harvesting oysters. Schooners would occupy the water while oyster houses occupied the store along the water. Here oysters were shucked, canned, and sold. Many of the private homes in the area were designed to accommodate oysters. They were usually two stories with a central chimney and had street-level basement entrances wide enough to accommodate wheelbarrows filled with oysters. This is also an architectural style appropriately called “Oystermen’s House Style”. Fair Haven was one primary Oystering site, with a cohesive community clustering along the Quinnipiac River. Oyster Point, now known as City Point, was a prominent Oystering site as well. These two sites together make up the simply prepared landscape of Oystering.

Course 3: Main

The main dishes are fried oysters, broiled oysters, stewed oysters, escalloped oysters, fricasseed oysters, pickled oyster, oyster croquettes, oyster patties, oyster pie, and oyster toast. This course consists of more complex preparation strategies that allude to the growing complexity of the Oystering industry. It also evokes the curated abundance of Oystering in the city. It took a while for New Haven to establish itself as a city of commerce and seaborne trade because the harbor was shallow and therefore unsuitable for large vessels. The coast was manipulated many times to be able to first be able to accommodate steamships, thus beginning a long history of manipulation including being filled for the railroad, and the highway. The parceling, or manipulation of space was happening in the water as well. Because of recurring issues with overfishing, the hunt for the natural oyster was replaced in the mid-19th century by regulated oyster farming. So, the scope of the mission gets wider. This is a map of the designated oyster grounds for fishing. In 1865 onward, the entire transportation game changed with the railroad. Maritime activity, particularly, passenger service and freight handling between City Point and Fair Haven had declined because of its subordination to the railroads. What was left along the coast was still the oyster farming businesses. And technologies in canning, and transportation made them accessible to the rest of the country, reaching all the way to the Midwest.

This dish has a suggested pairing of polluted water, overharvesting, overdevelopment, poor watershed management, industrial discharges, and sewage waste. What came with the prominence of the railroad was also the manufacturing industry. This and a number of other factors contributed to the decline of the Oystering industry. Storms have covered the beds with silt; the mill river and Quinnipiac River were badly polluted from manufacturing infrastructural operations; the beds in clearer water have been attacked by hordes of starfish, one of their natural predators. Because of all of these factors, the Oystering industry, like many of the manufacturing industries that New Haven is known for, has dwindled and disappeared.

What’s for dessert?

Today there is no oyster industry in New Haven and only three oyster farms left in all of Connecticut. The farms and the industry may be gone, but oysters are still around. They are a shellfish of resilience and I hope that they are soon integrated back into New Haven’s legacy and history. Just the other day, I was on the coast nearby in Branford and saw a few men out harvesting natural oysters.