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....

By Michael Capozzi Edgewood Park is located on the western border of Westville, and occupies over 120 acres. In 1889, the City of New Haven seized over sixty acres of land and gave it to the Park Commission.  Prominent citizens of the area also donated additional land. This included the famed literary figure Donald Grant Mitchell. Also know by his pen name, Ik Marvel, he had authored two prominent works titled  The Reveries of a Bachelor  and  My Farm on Edgewood.  Edgewood Park gains its name from Mitchell’s farm estate titled the same name, Edgewood. Mitchell praised Edgewood as a place away from the urban life and a retreat to nature. It was but two miles from the New Haven Green, however, so Mitchell would be surrounded by nature while still being close to the city.  Being heavily invested in the design of the park, among others in New Haven, he drew a map in 1888 titled “Suggestions for Edgewood Park”.   Mitchell propo...