Benedict Arnold - House on Water St. New Haven

This clip starts with a pic of the home Arnold built on Water St. in the early 1770's befitting his status as a successful merchant, pharmacist, trader, and ship's captain. This was prime ocean front real estate and Water St. had a row of handsome colonial mansions that looked out over New Haven Harbor. Arnold would have been able to watch his own ships being unloaded onto the wharf from his front parlor window. After that we see the site as it is today. As best as I can tell the recessed part of the storage garage in the center is about exactly where the house stood. The guys spraying grafitti are standing in what would have been Arnold's front yard. After Arnold's treason the house was sold off by the state. Noah Webster lived there in the late 1700's but it slowly fell into disrepair, as we can see from this picture taken after the civil war. At some point in the 1800's the neighborhood, because of it's close proximity to New Haven's famous long wharf (longest in the country) , became primarily an industial area. A few blocks away was the center of one of the world's largest carriage industries. The house became part of a lumber yard, was completely gutted and used as a shed to protect the higher grades of wood from the elements. Some of the interior fixtures, such as a fireplace mantel, are on display at the New Haven Colony Historical Society. The shell of the house was torn down in 1917. As with his childhood home in Norwich CT, the locals did little to preserve it and were only too happy to have it gone. As you can see if his home were still standing, instead of looking out over the harbor it would look out straight into an I-91/RT34 retainer wall which was built after New Haven harbor was partially filled in and reshaped in the late 1940's-early 1950's. If you take the "Downtown" exit (Rt. 34 west) from I-91 south or I-95 north or south you can see this area down to your right before exit 1, the downtown/Church St./Civic Center exit. The highway was built along what would have been the shoreline in Arnold's time.

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