Ithiel Town

Chauncey Bradley Ives, Ithiel Town, 1844. Yale University Art Gallery, 1844.3.

Ithiel Town (1784-1844) was a pioneering and highly influential American architect and engineer. 

Born in Thompson, Connecticut, he trained with the architect Asher Benjamin before moving to New Haven to start his own business in the 1810s. He went on to design major buildings in New Haven and across the eastern United States.

Town’s early works included two major New Haven landmarks: Center Church (1812-1815) and Trinity Church (1813-1816) on New Haven Green. The very different styles of these churches demonstrate Town’s versatility. Center Church was built in a more common Federal style, but Trinity Church was one of the first Gothic Revival churches in America. It was built with 50,000 cubic feet of stone quarried from the edge of East Rock on the Eli Whitney Armory property. In 1831, he also designed New Haven’s State House in the Greek Revival style.

CAPTION: 1831 view northwest across the New Haven green, showing three Ithiel Town buildings in a row: Trinity Church (left), the State House (center) and Center Church (second from right).

Thomas Illman, New Haven, Conn., 1831. Yale University Art Gallery, 1946.9.193.

In 1820, Town patented an innovative new bridge design, the lattice truss bridge, with support from Eli Whitney Sr. The first lattice truss bridge built, known as the Town Bridge, was constructed in 1823 at the point where the Hartford and New Haven Turnpike crossed the Mill River, just north of the Whitney Armory site.

In 1829, Town and Andrew Jackson Davis, one of the leading American architects of the period, founded one of the first architectural firms in America. They designed the Connecticut statehouse in New Haven and several of the mansions on Hillhouse Avenue, including Town’s own home; other important buildings across Connecticut and in New York City, including the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford; and other statehouses in North Carolina and Indiana.