Donald Grant Mitchell's Edgewood Estate

By Sam Jensen

In the year of 1837, at the young age of fifteen, Donald Grant Mitchell’s romance with New Haven began with his arrival at Yale College. Mitchell was, from the beginning, enthralled by the architectural beauty of the city, and the nature which surrounded and complemented it as a whole. In Waldo Dunn’s biography of Mitchell, the scene of his arrival to New Haven is depicted in detail. Dunn writes, “We of the present need, perhaps, to be reminded of the New Haven and the Yale of 1837… New Haven was then an isolated town of some 13,000 inhabitants—a kind of backwoods Athens. Not until two years later was railway connection with the outside world established… Even prior to 1837, however, the beauty-loving zeal of James Hillhouse had been instrumental in transforming New Haven into the ‘City of Elms,’ ” (Dunn, 43). Having arrived before heavy industrialization, Mitchell’s Yale days were set in a more quiet and quaint City of Elms than it had become by the end of his life. Some forty-five years after his arrival at Yale, Mitchell wrote fondly of this initial journey to the city, recalling “the northern end of Temple Street—amazing even then for its beauty of overarching elms,” (Dunn, 44). Despite Mitchell’s interest in the city, he remained in solitude throughout his college days, afflicted by a melancholy brought on by sickness and death in his family. On March 29th, 1839, his mother passed away after battling this sickness. A brother of his passed away shortly thereafter. These dark moments provoked Mitchell to seek out a new sense of identity, and a nurturing force to put him at ease. At this point, he became passionately interested in farming as a complement to his intellectual pursuits.

During his summer vacations from Yale, Mitchell would travel to his cousin’s farm house in Salem, Connecticut. On the fifty-mile trip to the farm, he would take in the beauty of the rural scenery. And it is with the experience of farm work in Salem that his love and admiration for nature was fostered. Mitchell’s personal philosophy began to integrate his academic background with a pursuit of agricultural knowledge. Quite simply, he viewed the prospect of farm work, with all its practicality and industriousness, to be the best place to apply his intellectual knowledge. Graduating from Yale in the summer of 1841, Mitchell fell ill, and believed he only had a few years left to live. His departure from college left him seeking truth outside of the university. From here, Mitchell spent time at the Salem farm, where he went on to write Reveries of a Bachelor under the pen name Ik Marvel. Published in December of 1850, this book quickly propelled Mitchell into the public spotlight, selling fourteen-thousand copies in its first year, (Dunn, 225). Despite this surprise to Mitchell, the widespread positive response to his first book certainly bolstered his passion for literature. And perhaps somewhat ironically, after becoming a publicly famous bachelor, Mitchell fell in love with Mary Frances Pringle, culminating with their marriage in Charleston, South Carolina in June of 1853. Soon thereafter, Mitchell and his wife took an extended stay in Europe.

Upon their return to America, tired and restless from travelling, Mitchell and his family sought a place to settle down. In June of 1855, he put out this ad in local papers, “ ‘Wanted— A Farm, of not less than one hundred acres, and within three hours of the city. It must have a running stream, a southern or eastern slope, not less than 20 acres in wood, and a water view,’ ” (Mitchell, My Farm, 4). His search brought him through White Plains, Fairfield, Norwich, and many other sites in the area. Eventually, New Haven had called Mitchell to return. Upon arriving once again, he noted, “The old drowsy quietude of the place which I had known in the other days, still lingered upon the broad green… The college still seemed dreaming out its classic beatitudes, and the staring rectangularity of its enclosures and buildings and paths appeared to me only a proper expression of its old geometric and educational traditions,” (Mitchell, My Farm, 35). Drawn back in by a sense of familiarity, he had returned to New Haven seeking to nurture himself through an agricultural lifestyle, to bring himself into harmony with nature.

Seeking to balance with his geometric and rigid past at Yale, Mitchell ended up on the outskirts of Westville at a farm property. He recollects, “I remember… threading the ways of a neat little manufacturing village —catching views of waterfalls, of tall chimneys, of open pasture grounds; and remember bridges, and other bridges, and how the village straggled on with its neat white palings, and whiter houses, with honeysuckles at the doors… and how a great hulk of rock loomed up suddenly near a thousand feet, with dwarfed cedars and oaks tufting its crevices – tufting its top, and how we drove almost beneath it,” (Mitchell, My Farm, 38). Mitchell’s descriptions of the quaint Westville village and its synthesis with nature create a vivid picture of a harmonious lifestyle resting on the cusp of the rural and urban. Westville's charm stemmed from its value as a quiet retreat from New Haven without sacrificing its conveniences. His writing quite beautifully and effortlessly conveys his motivations for settling and remaining at the Edgewood Estate for rest of his life. In Mitchell and George Rockwood’s Pictures of Edgewood, this appeal of Westville is preserved by the photograph titled “West Rock & Village,” (Mitchell, Pictures, 38).

Upon settling at the farm in Westville in June of 1855, Mitchell famously observed “a great stretch of forest, which lay in common,, flanked the whole, so that the farm could be best and most intelligently described as—lying on the edge of the wood; and it seemed to me, that if it should be mine, it should wear the name of—Edgewood,” (Mitchell, My Farm, 41). This iconic sentence by Mitchell has carried onward into New Haven’s present with the naming of Edgewood Park, and Avenue. Certainly, the City Beautiful movement, which led to Edgewood Park’s creation, was inspired by Mitchell’s legacy. Prior to the rise of such public parks, Mitchell had opened the Edgewood Estate to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In Arthur Reed Kimball’s “Master of Edgewood”, the essence of Mitchell’s estate was wonderfully described: “a place often visited and greatly admired, its visitors carrying away impressions more or less vague on the literary side, and more or less defined on the practical side, but both nonetheless educative for the mingling. Mr. Mitchell recognized in quiet, natural fashion the ‘mission’ of Edgewood,” (Kimball, 185). Mitchell lived at the Edgewood Estate until he passed away on December 15th, 1908, after a wholesome eighty-six years of life. Today, his legacy of literature and passion for nature live on, serving the people of New Haven, and beyond.

("West Rock & Village", Pictures of Edgewood) (Digitized by Boston College Library)

("New Farm House", Pictures of Edgewood) (Digitized by Boston College Library)

 ("Garden Gate", Pictures of Edgewood) (Digitized by Boston College Library)

 ("The Farm Level and Rear of House", Pictures of Edgewood) (Digitized by Boston College Library)

("Map of Edgewood Farm", Pictures of Edgewood) (Digitized by Boston College Library)

Bibliography

Dunn, Waldo M. The Life of Donald G. Mitchell: Ik Marvel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922. Google Books.

Kimball, Arthur Reed. “The Master of Edgewood.” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 27, Feb. 1900: p.184-193. Google Books.

Marvel, Ik. Reveries of a Bachelor. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1850. https://archive.org/details/reveriesabachel00mitcgoog.

Mitchell, Donald Grant. My Farm of Edgewood. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1863. https://archive.org/details/myfarmedgewooda00mitcgoog.

Mitchell, Donald Grant, and George Gardener Rockwood. Pictures of Edgewood. New York: Charles
Scribner and Company, 1869. https://archive.org/details/picturesofedgewo00mitc.