Edward Street Honors Legislators Past and Present

When Michael Albis was a boy, he and his friends would congregate in his home’s driveway to play basketball. However, the rule was that they had to disappear when one of Dad’s patients walked down the drive to the office behind the family home.

Dad was Dr. Frank Albis, who was one of the few pediatricians serving East Haven when he moved here in 1953. Shortly afterward, his brother Michael joined the practice. In time, he would also become the medical adviser to the East Haven School System. During his 40 years of practice, he took care of hundreds of East Haven youngsters in the building behind his home on Edward Street.

When Dr. Albis and his wife, Helen, moved into the commodious home, they were looking for quarters to accommodate their seven children. The fact that he could be in his office in less than a minute was an added bonus.

“According to family legend,” Michael Albis said, “the original building behind the home at 60 Edward Street was a garage that was blown over on a neighbor’s property during the Hurricane of 1938. Rather than move it, the Barclays, who owned the home then, built the present structure. They used it to host parties, but my Dad fitted it up as a medical office with patient examining rooms.”

However, when his son Michael became a lawyer, he turned part of the office into quarters for him. After Dr. Albis retired in the 1990s, Michael Albis and his firm, Hilcoff and Albis, took over the entire building.

The beautiful wood paneling in the reception room and other offices was made from wood milled from trees felled by that ’38 hurricane. The reception room is presided over by his sister, Helen, who was also her father’s receptionist.

Michael Albis no longer lives in the house in front of the office, still his mother's home, but he does live on Edward Street where he and his wife, Jackie, have raised their three children.

“My walk to the office is a little longer than my Dad’s, but not by much,” Albis said. “Since I was the Probate Judge for twelve years, I had an office in Town Hall. That’s just a block away from my law office. There were days when I never got in a car. I could walk everywhere in just a few minutes. It meant I could go home for lunch and spend more time with my kids.”

Albis was elected Probate Judge for East Haven in 1998 and served until last year when the probate courts for New Haven/East Haven were consolidated. He was recently appointed Administrative Judge of the New Haven Regional Probate Court for Children's Matters. He is also an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University where he teaches an upper-level course at the School of Law.

Jackie Albis, who grew up in the Foxon area, has taught English in the East Haven High School for the past16 years. She is also a former member of the East Haven Board of Education.

“I was actually one of Dr. Albis’ patients when I was a child. But Michael and I didn’t meet when I came for my appointments,” Jackie said, “we were introduced later by mutual friends.” They will celebrate their 30th anniversary next April.

In 1988, they moved into their home on Edward Street to raise their children. While the children are grown now, they still use the house on Edward Street as their hub.

James, the eldest, was elected East Haven’s new State Legislator in early 2011.  Mark is now employed at Yale’s School of Medicine as their webmaster. The youngest, Katherine, recently received her Master’s degree in education from the University of Chicago and is now using the home as her headquarters while getting settled in her new career.

Now if we move back in time about 100 years on Edward Street, we discover another East Haven family that had its own long history of service to the community - and the source of the street's name.

John Thompson came to East Haven almost as soon as it was settled; signing the new colony’s constitution in 1657. He was followed in East Haven annals by his grandson, Stephen. According to records, he was on the Old Stone Church Building Committee, and was even injured on the site as he helped in the construction. He had three sons with Hannah Rowe, and one with Mary Foote.

He built homes for all of his sons. The Amos Thompson home, built in 1771, still sits at 27 Park Place, near the Christ and the Epiphany Episcopal Church. The Moses Thompson home on Hemingway Avenue, and young Stephen’s house at the corner of Main and Hemingway, have both been demolished.

The last home, for his youngest son, James, was built at the corner of Main and Thompson, where Town Hall stands today. This son seems to have assumed the mantle of public service more seriously than his brothers.

James was born in 1797, married Lydia Chidsey and had nine sons and one daughter. He served 11 times as a state representative to the Connecticut Assembly and was a town selectman nine times. He died in 1860. Succeeding him was his son, Edward Ellsworth, who had four sons, including the Edward for whom the street is named.

Edward Foote Thompson was born in 1858 and was listed in the census as a farmer. However, he owned a large property that surrounded his house at the corner of Thompson and Main streets, and had other business interests. He also took seriously his duties as a public official.

He married Charlotte Lancraft Thompson, who was, herself, a force of nature. While her husband was spending his time as Town Assessor, State Representative and one of three New Haven County Commissioners, she was busy running the non-political side of East Haven as president of the local Federation of Women’s Clubs.

While he served in the State Assembly, she appeared before the legislators to push them to name the Mountain Laurel as the Connecticut State Flower. Needless to say, she was successful. She also seems to have coerced President Teddy Roosevelt into sending a tree for planting on the Village Green in 1908, just a month before her husband died.

At the time of his death, E.F. Thompson was serving his second term as a New Haven County Commissioner. The flags on county buildings in New Haven flew at half mast in his honor.

E. F. Thompson was destined to be the last of his long and prominent line. He had no sons to carry on the Thompson name' and his brothers had all died before him. His large home across from the Old Stone Church, which had been the social center of East Haven thanks to Charlotte, burned about a year after his death. The family estate finally sold the land to the town of East Haven for its current Town Hall.

However, his influence did not died completely. When his land was divided into building lots, the street nearest his family home was named for him.

Thus Edward Street, associated with a long line of men who had served their community in the Connecticut State Assembly, became the street the current State Representative, James Albis, has called home, along with his father and grandfather. The street's history seems to have come full circle.