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Old Yale: The Birthplace of Scientific Farming
Once
an elegant New Haven residence, the estate at 52 Hillhouse Avenue
has since been home to agriculturists and business researchers.
March
2000
by Judith Ann Schiff
Scholars
of corporate strategy and other business topics now prowl the halls
of 52 Hillhouse Avenue, but this stately School of Management building
was once the home of much more bucolic concerns.
The mansion, designed in the late 1840s in the Italianate style
by Henry Austin, actually started out life as the residence of John
Pitkin Norton, the nation's first professor of agricultural chemistry.
"It
is as quiet here in the evening as though the city were miles away,"
wrote Norton. The avenue's almost rural feel provided a perfect environment for the researcher to pursue his academic interest -- the
study of "scientific" farming.
Born
in 1822, Norton was the son of a wealthy farmer in Farmington, Connecticut.
As a youth, he was attracted to the natural sciences, but Norton
was not interested in most of the liberal arts courses that were
required at Yale and other colleges. Instead, he devised his own
course of study, attending lectures at Yale and studying chemistry
privately with Professor Benjamin Silliman Sr. from 1840 to 1844.
Norton
then studied agricultural chemistry in Scotland for two years, and
upon his return, Silliman, convinced that it was the time to start
the first systematic instruction in science -- especially applied science -- persuaded
the Yale Corporation to act. In 1846, the 24-year-old Norton, even
though he lacked a formal degree, was named professor of agricultural
chemistry. At the same time, Silliman's son Benjamin Jr. was appointed
professor of practical chemistry, and together, the two men organized
the department of scientific education, an endeavor that would evolve
into the Sheffield Scientific School.
After
a few years, Benjamin Silliman Jr. left Yale to teach in Kentucky,
leaving Norton in sole charge of the department. Not only did Norton
pioneer the development of science education at both the undergraduate
and graduate levels, but he continued to be concerned with the practical
problems of the farmer, publishing many general articles and offering
courses for farmers at Yale. In 1850 he published Elements of Scientific
Agriculture, a textbook for schools. (Earlier, Norton had befriended
the Africans who were acquitted of murder charges in the Amistad
affair, helped arrange for them to live in Farmington, and taught
them modern farming methods while they waited to return home.)
Norton
had the means to live in a liberal and elegant manner. After he
married Elizabeth P. Marvin in 1847 and began to raise a family,
he decided to build a comfortable home near his mentor's residence
on Hillhouse Avenue. Architect Henry Austin, who was already well
known for his work on the Yale Library (now Dwight Hall), the Grove
Street Cemetery gateway, and the New Haven railroad station, had
begun to transform the architectural look of New Haven residential
streets by creating designs in the Italianate style. On Hillhouse
Avenue, the designer developed two variations on that theme. The
first, built for Professor James Dwight Dana and now the headquarters
of Yale's statistics department, is a rather prim Italianate cube.
Norton's home, on the other hand, is of a more romantic and daring
design modeled on the Italian villa.
A watercolor
painting and floor plans of Norton's house in Austin's architectural
plan book vividly document the original design. Inspired by a published
design by Andrew Jackson Downing, Austin incorporated many of the
Italian Villa style features, including an asymmetrical campanile
tower, rows of tall windows with balconies and awnings, bracketed
cornices, and a front arcade. A two-story stained glass window illuminated
the grand staircase.
Unfortunately,
Norton's time at 52 Hillhouse was brief. After suffering from tuberculosis,
the professor died in 1852 at age 30, and his wife and young son
moved away. Over the intervening years, however, the house has had
many Yale occupants: John Davenport, Class of 1802, who was a direct
descendant of John Davenport, a cofounder of the New Haven Colony;
the Drama School; Arnold Gesell's child study center; the Center
for Alcohol Studies; and the Economic Growth Center, among them.
The city feels much closer than it did in Norton's day, and Yale
never became a center of scientific agriculture. But the professor's
feelings about his residence are still apt. "The house,"
Norton wrote, "seems more and more lovely every day."  |
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