In 1750, when Capt. Thomas Clarke bought a tract of farmland for his retirement, he named it Chelsea after the Chelsea Royal Hospital, an old soldiers’ home in London. Captain Clarke’s grandson, Clement Clarke Moore developed Chelsea as a garden suburb. Moore, known as Chelsea’s founding father, incorporated guidelines for building that are still in effect today.
Today, Chelsea is known as that small town community where everybody knows your name. The resident population is made up of artists, a sizable gay community as well as some government subsidized housing tenants.