The beginning of a great city
Before the advent of urbanization, the body of water we know as Yellow Mill Pond extended north of the present railroad tracks and drained an extensive salt marsh that went north as far as Boston Avenue.  The shores of this salt creek were apparently of spiritual significance to Native Americans, as it was the location of a great medicine wheel — a veritable American Stonehenge -- built along its banks. This ceremonial center consisted of rounded granite posts a foot in diameter and about seven feet in height, arranged in concentric circles. It remained intact until 1846, when the New York and New Haven Railroad plotted their trackline exactly through where the Indian megalith stood.  "We dug out loads and loads of these posts and threw them into the mill pond with brush and limbs and heaped dirt upon them," recalled one of the construction laborers in Orcutt's 1884 History of Stratford.  A Mr. Tuttle of Stratford Center heard about the mysterious relics being disposed of and had one of the posts hauled to his front yard and set up as a curiosity.  It remains there to this day, its origin unknown to all but a few, in front of 753 Stratford Avenue.

In the Algonkian language the word "pan" denotes a waterfall.  At a place where the fresh waters of Stillman's Brook rushed over a precipice to the salt estuary below lived into historic times a band of Indians known as the Pan tribe, the "people of the waterfall."  This spot, at 2 1/2 miles distance the closest water power to the colonial village of Stratford, was coveted soon after settlement as a gristmill location.  And so by 1650 a mill here was grinding the town's corn and other grain, and the "Pan Brook" recorded in early deeds was soon anglicized to Pembroke.  This was the "old mill" the Green was named for.

A village began to coalesce in this vicinity by the onset of the 18th century.  Remarkably, a shipyard making ocean-going vessels was located halfway up Boston Avenue hill (near Bell Street) at the time of the Revolutionary War, when General George Washington himself was given a tour.  The boats were skidded down to Old Mill Creek on winter snows, and when ice broke in the early spring they were maneuvered out to the harbor.

By the beginning of the 19th century the Puritan view of the world was being supplanted by the romantic, and the beauty of this locality was being realized by artists and writers.  "There is not in the state a prettier village than the borough of Bridgeport," wrote Rev. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, in his Travels in New England of 1821. "The situation of this village is very handsome, particularly on the eastern side of the river. A more beautiful and elegant piece of ground can scarcely be imagined than the point which stretches between the Pequonnock and Old Mill Brook, and the prospects presented by the harbors at the mouths of these streams, the Sound, and the surrounding country are, in fine season, gay and brilliant and, perhaps, without parallel."

A Barnum connection
Thirty years later one Bridgeport citizen decided there was room for improvement in this rural idyll.  P.T. Barnum had purchased a half-interest in a 220-acre tract in 1850 on which he set out to develop the new community of East Bridgeport.  Radiating out from its focal point at Washington Park, this residential and industrial community became within a dozen years the world center of sewing machine manufacturing. Barnum described our site in his autobiography:

The eastern line of East Bridgeport, when I first purchased so large a portion of the property, was bounded by a long, narrow swale or valley of salt meadow, through which a small stream passed, and which was flooded with salt water at every tide.  At considerable expense, I erected a dam at the foot of this meadow, and thus converted this heretofore filthy, repulsive mosquito-inhabited and malaria-breeding marsh into a charming sheet of water, which is now known as Pembroke Lake.  If this improvement had not been made, in all probability the eastern portion of my property would never have been devoted to dwelling houses; as it is, Barnum (Avenue) has been extended by means of a bridge across the lake, and the eastern shore is already studded with houses.

Barnum was never a man to rest on his laurels, and he had to find a way to get more than an aesthetic return on his new lake.  In short order he hit upon a revolutionary idea — a winter resort.  One local couple, William and Martha Mills, were famous throughout the region, for the clambakes they prepared on what is today known as Pleasure Beach during the summer months.  It was Barnum's genius to make use of their estimable talents during the cold season.  An article in the Bridgeport Standard in late November, 1862, announced the opening of the new Pembroke Lake House:

Those of our readers who have enjoyed the clam bakes at Long Beach, and especially the bread, cakes, coffee and pastry, for which the landlady, Mrs. Mills, is so famous, will be glad to see, by advertisement, that herself and husband have leased the new Lake House.  Mr. Barnum erected this hotel for the special accommodation of skaters and social parties in winter... The building is placed near the edge of the lake, and a canal brings water to the very door of the room set apart for skaters.  Altogether, it is a delightful place, and we bespeak for Mr. and Mrs. Mills the patronage which, we are sure, they will strive to merit.

The advertisement follows:

LAKE HOUSE, Pembroke Lake, East Bridgeport - -

The subscribers, grateful to the Ladies and Gentlemen of Bridgeport for the liberal patronage bestowed upon them at the Summer House, at Long Beach, beg to announce that they have leased the above new and commodious Hotel.  The house is newly furnished, and possess superior accommodations for parties desiring Oyster Suppers or other Refreshments of any description at all reasonable hours, day or evening.  We have also leased Pembroke Lake and made arrangements for having it flooded when necessary, so that skaters (for a small fee) will enjoy this healthful sport on an ice surface ten times larger than that in the famed Central Park.  The large saloon, with a cloak room attached in the basement, will be kept warm for skaters to adjust their skates, and they can step from the door directly on the ice.  Call and see how beautifully everything is arranged.

MR. and MRS. WILLIAM MILLS

Barnum spoke of the eastern shore of the lake being "already studded with houses" when he penned his autobiography in 1869. A news item from June, 1865, described the nucleus of this settlement along today's Seaview Avenue:

LAKE VILLAGE -- This is the name given to a little gathering of houses that have recently been put up just across Pembroke Lake in the town of Stratford.  There is a street laid out from Peacock Lane (today's Central Avenue) down to the Lake which connects with Barnum Street on this side, running east and west.  There will probably be a bridge built across the lake in one or two years.  There are at present some ten or twelve houses: the last one was put up this last spring expect to see in a few years quite a large village there.  Mechanics who think of purchasing would do well to take a look at the lots.

A bucolic village grows
Just to the south of Lake Village, Francis O'Came began offering lots for sale at a place known as Deacon's Point in March of 1866:

FOR SALE - Twenty of the most desirable building lots ever offered in this vicinity, situated a short distance from Yellow Mill Bridge in plain view of the Sound and Bridgeport Harbor.  These lots are all one acre each, of light, dry, and early gardening land, and the price is less than the seven by nine city lots, where one cannot stretch without trespass.  To see plans and get particulars call on STAPLES, 12 State Street.

The villages were built up with simple Victorian cottages of picturesque Italianate or Gothic design.  They were constructed usually with wrap-around verandas to take advantage of lake or bay views and cooling breezes during summer months in days before air conditioning was dreamed of.  Every home was equipped with a small barn for the family horse and cow, and a chicken house kept the family supplied with fresh eggs and meat.  The lots were commodious enough so that fruit orchards and vegetable gardens provided a measure of self-sufficiency.

The celebrated beauty of Pembroke Lake attracted the parishioners of St. Augustine's Church, Fairfield County's first Roman Catholic congregation, to acquire land there for a cemetery in 1864.  Here, overlooking the verdant banks, monuments were erected to the progenitors of Bridgeport's oldest Irish families.  In 1878 Pembroke Cemetery -- today known as Lakeview — was established overlooking Stillman's Pond.  "It has the most desirable grounds for burial purposes in the State," proclaimed a contemporary advertisement; indeed, with views that looked across a pristine lake to the wooded heights beyond it must have seemed like a glimpse of the paradise to come.  Poignantly, and certainly by design, neighbors who shared lives together in the old communities of Lake Village and Deacon's Point are often buried in close proximity to one another amid the groves of Lakeview.