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Around 1828, New Haven dentist and amateur artist William Giles Munson (1801-1878) painted the Armory site and its surroundings. It is the earliest-known image of the full site and an important record of the Armory and its surroundings just after Eli Whitney Sr.’s death in 1825.
William Giles Munson, The Eli Whitney Gun Factory, c. 1826-28.Yale University Art Gallery, 1946.36.
Munson’s view was from East Rock, looking northwest across the Mill River valley towards Mill Rock and the fields of Hamden. The Mill River winds through the painting, not yet dammed to create Lake Whitney. The Hartford and New Haven Turnpike runs across the middle of the scene and crosses the river on the Town Bridge to the right.
On the near side of the river, below the bridge, you can see the forge and line of four coal storage sheds.
The main workshop buildings of the factory are shown above the forge and to the left of the bridge. They are large, grey buildings of two stories, with attics above. To their left, a low footbridge links the two sides of the factory site.
A line of white houses stretches away to the left at the foot of Mill Rock. There were the armory workers’ homes, the heart of the new Whitneyville community. [LINK] These houses faced the road now known as Armory Street. Between the workers’ homes and the tree at far left, beyond the line of much smaller trees along the turnpike road, you can see the boarding house and barn. [LINK]