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The buildings and landscape of the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop can tell us a lot about the history of the site, its factories, and its people. On this page, you can explore information about the site and find links to more in-depth history.
An Ideal Location
When Eli Whitney arrived at the future site of his armory in 1798, he found a landscape that offered important resources: water, rock, and transportation.
At the Armory site, the Mill River fell over the gap between East Rock and Mill Rock, creating a small natural waterfall. The waterfall was an ideal source of water power for mills and factories, and the rock outcroppings on either side were a great source of building material. Boats could travel there from the harbor, bringing in supplies and taking away finished products. And at the time Whitney’s Armory was established, the New Haven and Hartford Turnpike was being built alongside it. All of this was ideal for Whitney’s needs.
Other people had been using the site and its resources for many generations. Eli Whitney and his successors would also take advantage of all the site had to offer.
First Residents
The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop is located on the ancestral lands of the Quinnipiac people. No archaeological evidence has been found of Quinnipiac settlement in the immediate area of the Museum and Workshop, but it is likely that the natural waterfall was a fishing site.
Learn More: The Quinnipiac
New Haven Colony and The First Mill
In April 1638, a group of English Puritan settlers arrived with plans to create a new colony, which they named “New Haven.” To feed themselves, the colonists needed to build a mill to grind corn or wheat into flour. The natural waterfall below East Rock was an ideal site. There was still a grist mill there in 1795 when Eli Whitney founded the Armory.
Learn more: The Mill River and the First Mill
Buildings and Surroundings
Very few buildings from Eli Whitney’s time survive at the Armory site. The site underwent frequent change throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, and records of some buildings are scarce. However, there is still a great deal to discover about how the site was built and evolved.
The Whitney Armory was a large, interconnected complex. Mill races, waterwheels, and machinery brought water power to the buildings. In the forge, gun barrels and other metal components were shaped using the heat from burning charcoal. In the main workshop, these components were milled, finished, and assembled into guns. The Armory was a bustling center of activity. People traveled by on the Hartford and New Haven Turnpike, crossing the remarkable new Town Bridge. Armory workers and their families settled on the land nearby, creating a small community, Whitneyville.
In 1861, Eli Whitney Jr. improved the dam at the site, creating Lake Whitney and the New Haven Water Company. Twenty years later, New Haven established East Rock Park, preserving the Armory’s picturesque surroundings - later further enhanced by the creation of Edgerton Park and the Regional Water Authority Park.