Historian’s Corner

By Dan Shine

Voice Columnist

A Most Unlikely Hero

Our West Haven city seal shows young Thomas Painter looking out to sea through a pocket telescope—what he was looking at was the approach of a massive force of British infantry, as they prepared to invade this area.  As a boy, Tom Painter had spent many a Saturday afternoon in the study of First Church’s the Rev. Noah Williston, listening as the Reverend practiced his Sunday morning sermons.  On July, 5, 1779, Painter and Williston, along with a certain Redcoat Adjutant would each make their mark in the history of this community.

On that day, Adjutant William Campbell was one of 1,500 British and Hessian soldiers who invaded West Haven as they made their way into New Haven. In the course of that march, Adjutant Campbell performed a merciful act of kindness—one that has been remembered and re-enacted by West Haveners for 236 years.

And on that same hot summer’s day, British and Hessian troopers saw the First Congregational Church’s Rev. Noah Williston running away from the parsonage as they approached the West Haven Green. They threatened to shoot, but the Reverend tripped as he made his way over a fence, breaking his leg in the process.  Immediately, the troopers were upon the fallen Rev. Williston, taunting him and prodding him with their bayonets. Some local Tories egged the troopers on, accusing the minister of using his pulpit as a Patriot recruiting site, which happened to be true. 

Adj. Campbell decided to investigate for himself what all the commotion was about. He spurred his horse into the crowd of soldiers along what is now Main Street, and was shocked at the sight of the stricken minister writhing in pain on the ground. He ordered the soldiers to carry the minister back to the parsonage (ironically located next to the present-day historical society), and admonished the troops by stating that, “We make war on soldiers, not civilians.”  He then ordered his personal surgeon to set the Reverend’s leg and posted a guard outside the parsonage door. 

Williston is said to have recalled the Adjutant’s kindness every year for the rest of his life, with a sermon entitled, “Blessed are the Merciful” from the Seven Beatitudes and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Although Campbell’s mercy was to be long remembered in the area, he himself was killed only an hour or so after saving Williston, during fighting on Allingtown Hill, then known as Milford Hill. He was hastily buried on the north side of the Post Road in an unmarked grave, roughly opposite what is today the main campus of the University of New Haven.

That grave went unmarked until 1831, when historian-artist John Warner Barber placed a small stone on the grave that read “W.C. 1779.” Barber was led to the site by Chauncey Alling, who had witnessed Campbell’s burial.

Treasure hunters eventually made off with the first headstone sometime in the early 1870s. That led to the New Haven Colony Historical Society sponsoring a new memorial for the site in 1879. Part of that ceremony included a plot of land being donated by the Alling and Prudden families for Campbell’s burial site. 

It was also during the 1870s that Harry Ives Tompson, West Haven’s postmaster and editor of its local paper, launched a successful campaign to rename Fourth Avenue as Campbell Avenue in memory of the Adjutant.

West Haven therefore is the only city in this country which has its main street named in honor of an invading enemy soldier.

And what was the outcome of the battle?  The British took New Haven, discovered warehouses full of rum at Long Wharf, got themselves thoroughly drunk and by the next morning they were no longer an effective fighting force.  As Colonists prepared to counterattack, the Redcoats were loaded onto their ships, using carts and wheelbarrows, and they withdrew back to the port of New York.  And the rest, as they say is history.

(Thanks to Peter Malia for supporting information.)

Edward Doerr as Rev. Williston.