by Allan Appel The New Haven independent
Two New Haven mayors walk into a bar . . . No, start again.
Two New Haven mayors attend the same press conference. One is alive and full of plans because he’s the current and 51st. The other is also very much there, in spirit. He’s Roger Sherman, elected the first mayor of New Haven in 1784 and one of the key figures in the America/New Haven 250 celebration that has now officially begun.
Wednesday morning Mayors Elicker and Sherman and a dozen members of the city’s America 250 Commission — among many representatives from Yale University, the New Haven Free Public Library and other participating institutions — were on hand for an enthusiastic press conference in the rotunda lobby of the New Haven Museum.
Their job: To kick off the celebratory year of living history by way of previewing 60 events. These events are designed to help focus New Haveners not only on learning history, but also on applying the lessons of the past to the current challenging moment in the unfolding story of our democratic republic, the first in the world, that itself officially began on July 4, 1776.
“Roger Sherman is key,” said City Historian Michael Morand, the co-chair of the commission along with city Deputy Director of Arts & Culture Kim Futrell.
“He’s likely the most important person to the era” having been not only the first New Haven mayor but also the only figure from the period to have signed all four of the founding national documents: Articles of Association, Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.
And he’s got a very cool final resting place, a “table tomb at the Grove Street Cemetery.”
Click here for the site of the commission and for the running list of events, coordinated by the city at the libraries, museums, and other venues citywide. To date about 60 are already lined up that include lectures, movies, map studies, craft workshops, walking tours, exhibitions, gallery talks, concerts, and readings of the Declaration and of Frederick Douglass’s 1852 oration “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Events so far are planned through mid-September, and more are in the works.
Because discovering and celebrating lesser known New Haveners is as central to the year as gaining a better understanding of the famous, Morand and Futrell urged those with an idea for an event to email the commission’s chairs at kfutrell@newhavenct.gov or michael.morand@yale.edu.
Orchestra of New England conductor Jim Sinclair checking out the prices on the Derby Turnpike
Of Sherman, Morand went on: “He’s [famous enough to be] taught in the eighth grade in New Haven schools, but he’s a normal human being too.”
One of the stories, perhaps apocryphal, about Sherman is that he was known to have given one of the briefest dedication speeches of all time. Attending the opening of a new bridge, he’s reported to have been asked to say a few words. And he did just that. He tapped the boards with his foot and pronounced, “I think it will hold.”
Another part of his “normality,” Morand went on, is that among the founding fathers he was one of the most serious about what we are, alas, calling today the “no kings” issue confronting the republic.
“He’s someone increasingly relevant to the present moment,” Morand added.
So are the subjects of Jill Snyder’s lecture/discussion scheduled at the Ives Main Library –Black women in the American Revolution, scheduled for Sept. 10. And actor Kevin Johnson’s portrayal of Jordan Freeman, an African American body servant to a Revolutionary War colonel, scheduled for June 17 at the New Haven Museum’s historic Pardee-Morris House in the East Shore.
And some history A-list star power — in the person of filmmaker Ken Burns — is also converging on town to make that point. Burns will be part of a presentation at the Yale University Art Gallery during a conference running between March 26 and 28 entitled “First America: The Legacies of Independence for Native Nations.”
“When we elevate stories,” said Karen McIntosh, Yale University’s Director of Community Relations, “. . . when we repair the record, we don’t destroy it, we improve it.”
“This is about everyone. Every neighborhood, everyone is important,” said Morand.
Rarely, in fact, to this reporter’s experience, has the potential of New Haven’s local history — a long under-utilized resource IMHO — been so movingly appreciated.
“I look at this as a reset,” said America 250 Commission and Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison. “Even as a native, growing up here, there was a lot I wasn’t exposed to. America’s birthday is a celebration of freedom. Look at me standing here: a Black woman, a politician! Yet we have a long way to go.”
The New Haven Museum’s Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky termed the event one that will be “ushering in an era of engagement” with history for New Haveners. She said in addition to the exhibitions and many programs being staged at the museum, on display will be important items mined from the collection that were not put on display 50 years ago during the city’s bicentennial celebration.
Community Foundation of Greater New Haven President and CEO Karen DuBois-Walton referenced the practical, palliative power of history and caught the spirit of both the presser and the hope for the year ahead when she likened the programs to conversations her colleagues have about New Haven’s “civic health.”
That means, she said, “who’s seen, who’s heard, who feels they belong. E pluribus unum should be not only a slogan.”
Commissioners Susan Weisselberg and Will Ginsberg
The presser and launch were specifically scheduled for Jan. 21, which was the day in 1784 that New Haven formally incorporated as a city following the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, making it (along with New London) one of the earliest incorporated cities anywhere in the newly independent United States.
And less than a month later, guess who was inaugurated as mayor?
“Roger Sherman spoke a lot about New Haven being a welcoming city,” said Mayor Elicker. “And so do we. Happy 242nd birthday, New Haven.”