By Marilyn May
Milford History
The calm waters of the Wepawaug behind St. Peters Episcopal Church made it the perfect setting for a rowboat ride c.1874. Photo courtesy of the Daniel E. Moger photo collection.
“Up a Lazy River” lyrics as sung in the 1930s by Hoagy Carmichael and others describe the Wepawaug River in the 1870s almost perfectly:
Well, up a lazy river, by the old mill run/
The lazy, hazy river, in the noon day sun/
Linger in the shade of a kind oak tree/
Throw away your troubles, dream a dream with me.
The river behind St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was much wider in the 1870s, with space for rowboats, picnicking and simple relaxation, and young folk would sometimes ply the river in their Sunday best.
Today, this part of the river is narrower and not that visible. But in 1723 a cart bridge was built just south of St. Peter’s Church to a ledge called Blue Rock on the other side. The bridge was built for people traveling between town and their homes on East Town Street (today’s Prospect Street) and beyond. Clergy and mourners also used the simple bridge to take the deceased across the river and up to the Old Milford Cemetery. That bridge, however, crumbled away from neglect, because starting in 1802 the first Jefferson Bridge near Town Hall was built, and it carried all the foot traffic and wagons.
What is a blue rock ledge? Well, that story starts 465 million years ago.
Dan May, a geologist, professor of environmental science at the University of New Haven and Milford-Orange Times columnist, kindly took time to examine the ledges in the Prospect Street area.
“The rocks that make up the bluish gray ledges in the Wepawaug River bottom near Saint Peter’s are metamorphosed volcanic rocks that were formed about 465 million years ago during a continental collision that expanded North America eastward,” he said. “They formed at a depth of nearly 15 miles beneath earlier ancestral Appalachian Mountains and were slowly exhumed as that ancient mountain system eroded away. These and similar rocks underlie most of Connecticut.”
The path people took to get to this Blue Rock bridge was between the Episcopal Church and where today’s River Street railroad bridge is located. Look today and see how the road dips at that part of River Street. In the early days, this area was swamp land.
From Nathan Stowe’s book, Sixty Years’ Recollections of Milford, we learn that “From the railroad north to the old Town Hall, the land had not been fully reclaimed from its former state as ‘Little Dreadful Swamp’ (and) at times the roads were almost impassable.”
He mentions the railroad, so that sets the time around 1848 when Milford’s first stretch of rails was completed.
From Stowe’s book we also learn that north of St. Peter’s Church there was a brook, “an open water course,” that entered the Wepawaug and was a favorite place for watering horses.
What was the source of all this water?
Up on Ford Street (this side of the Boston Post Road), mostly underground water flowed down the gently sloping landscape of Swamp Lane, or Peck Street as we call it today. Water continued down the hill past the Colonel Stephen Ford house once on the corner of West Main Street and High Street. The water worked its way to the low areas on River Street, eventually draining into the Wepawaug River. No doubt there were many small streams seeking sea level in that same area.
Downtown today there is still a large culvert on the riverbank, tucked close to the railroad bridge, to carry runoff directly into the river.
No story about the Wepawaug would be complete without mentioning the flood of June 1982. After three days of torrential rain, the river was raging, and it cascaded over its banks and into the City Hall basement where the oldest records were kept. Most records were rescued and freeze dried to restore them. River Street was flooded, and it actually became a street turned into a river. Many downtown businesses suffered water damage, and the current Milford Library lost an estimated 10,000 children’s books. Besides all that, tax records had floated out of Town Hall and were stuck on the sides of buildings and on the metal fences of the Episcopal church. The problems of heavy rain and the overdevelopment of wetlands and flood plains farther north combined to make a costly flood.
The river, however, has many moods and most often it is placid. Next we go under the railroad bridge and arrive at a large pond.
This pond was dammed about 1640 to hold back the river so that there would always be a consistent supply of water to turn the mill wheel for the first Fowler grist mill. A gated sluice was built on the pond side, and by raising or lowering the gate, the flow of water could be regulated. The water flowed underground through a millrace long before New Haven Avenue existed.
There have been some relatively new additions along the river.
In 2019, a fountain that shoots streams of water 22 feet in the air was installed in this pond as a memorial – or perhaps more of a celebration of life – for the late chef Thomas Brockert, who worked at the nearby Stonebridge Restaurant. The fountain is there thanks to Rich Conine, owner of the restaurant. In fair weather, the sprays of waters are highlighted by colored lights. A bonus is that the fountain circulates the water and helps aerate the pond.
The next bridge down the river is Memorial Bridge, which was discussed previously. The earlier wooden bridge there was called Fowler’s Bridge. It was torn down in 1886 in preparation for the building of today’s Memorial Bridge that was dedicated in 1889.
As the fresh water and salty water mix to form the brackish water at the head of the harbor, there is the last and newest bridge, the 1998 Hotchkiss walking bridge that links the banks of the harbor. It was dedicated to Al Hotchkiss with “gratitude for a lifetime of dedication to Milford Harbor.” He was a lifelong Milford resident and marine engineer. From the center of the Hotchkiss Bridge looking north, there is a beautiful view of the arch under the Memorial Bridge that frames the waterfall.
Near the west end of the Hotchkiss Bridge, on the Factory Lane side, there is a stone and plaque that marks the very spot where the English Puritan founders of Milford arrived in 1639 and spent their first night there – no doubt hearing the waters of the Wepawaug River coursing through the gorge.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and a member of the Board of the Milford Historical Society.