USA > New York > Queens County > Long Island City > History of Long Island City, New York. A record of its early settlement and corporate progress. Sketches of the villages that were absorbed in the growth of the present municipality. Its business, finance, manufactures, and form of government, with some notice of the men who built the city > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01150 8790
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HISTORY
OF
LONG ISLAND CITY, N. Y.
NEW YORK.
A Record of Its Early Settlement and Corporate Progress.
SKETCHES OF THE VILLAGES THAT WERE ABSORBED IN THE GROWTH OF THE PRESENT MUNICIPALITY. ITS BUSINESS, FINANCE, MANUFACTURES, AND FORM OF GOVERNMENT, WITH SOME NOTICE OF THE MEN WHO BUILT THE CITY.
5 974.701 Q 31K
Issued by The Long Island Star Publishing Company. Written by J. S. Kelsey, A.M. 1806.
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1823780
LONG ISLAND CITY FROM TOWER OF THE LONG ISLAND RAILROAD STATION.
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/historyoflongisl00kels_0
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A. T. DE LAMARE PTG. AND PUB. CO LTD., RHINELANDER BLDG., NEW YORK,
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LONG ISLAND CITY.
COAT OF ARMS.
The Common Council in 1873 adopted the Coat of Arms as emblematical of the varied interests represented by Long Island City. It was designed by Alderman George H. Williams, of Ravenswood.
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PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
In view of the fact that a history of this city has not heretofore been attempted, and that the records of the city as a distinct municipality are about to close, the publishers have deemed it befitting to prepare the volume now offered to the public. In the accomplishment of their aim to record only the salient points of interest in the historical survey of two and a half centuries, care has been taken to insure accuracy and time expended to give value. If affairs relating to the city proper receive greater notice, the critical reader is again reminded of the purpose of the work. While it is hoped that the story told upon its pages will not be devoid of interest, it also is trusted that the mechanical features of the volume will make it worthy of a place upon every home table.
THE L. 1. STAR PUBLISHING COMPANY.
..
PREFATORY.
"HE history of a eity originates in individuals. In its frontier days stands a household or two T as lone prophets of better eras. In the lives of men therefore lie the records of society, whether it is developed into a municipality, state, or nation.
Usually also the character of early settlers leaves a distinct impress upon that of the community which they founded, and is traced in their laws, customs, and pursuits.
It is a peculiarity of our nation above every other, that its early settlers are known. We know their names,-their homes, their avocations, whence and why they came, the character they bore, the deeds they performed, and the posterity which succeeded them. We know how and by whom this nation was built, what spirit aroused, what causes inspired, what efforts secured, its free institutions.
Herein consists America's greatest heritage that her early colonists possessed high intellectual gifts, good morals, sturdy energy of will and a love of freedom which challenged the wrath of thrones and dangers of unknown seas.
Those who first trod the soil of Newtown were such men. Their lives were inwrought as a salutary power into the fabric of a rising community for several generations.
Dutch and English, Saxon, and Celt were they. What their names and deeds the following pages will attempt to tell.
Not a little difficulty has been encountered in the fact that until recent years the territory of this city was a part of the town of Newtown. To draw the line sharply at the municipal confines has often been at the sacrifice of important interests, yet the definite purpose of the history imperiously so required.
The olden past is a rich mine of surpassing value. Exhaustive exploration would require years of time. Such has not been the object of compiling these pages. From events, persons, and places, have been gathered the most accessible material, only for the purpose of preparing a souvenir volume historically descriptive of this city ere its .individuality shall have been lost in that of Greater New York.
For favors rendered in preparation of the work we are especially indebted to the Hon Alvin T. Payne *; J. F. Burns, M. D.t; E. N. Anable, Esq. ; F. H. Batterman, Secretary of the Board of Health; Henry P. Titus, Esq. ; Ex-School Commissioner J. H. Thiry; George McA. Gosman, Esq. ; Captain Anthony S. Woods; Charles W. Hallett, Esq. ; John J. Halsey, Esq. ; Henry R. Blackwell, Esq. ; and to the several clergymen who have contributed articles relating to their respective churches.
*The facts in the article upon " The Bar of Long Island City " were furnished by Mr. Payne.
+ " The Medical Profession " is from the pen of Dr. Burns.
HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
CHAPTER 1.
NATURAL, FORMATION .- DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT .- CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND DUTCH. - GENERAL HISTORICAL SURVEY PREVIOUS TO THE REVOLUTION.
ONG ISLAND CITY in becoming a part of Greater New York returns to an ancient 1ยบ allegiance. Its territory was once a part of the mainland. Topographie and geologie traces of this primitive unity still exist in the configuration of its coast line and in the gneiss and granite formations which underlie its hills and islands and rise to the surface in many places, particularly in the vicinity of Hell Gate. The vertical strata of these formations also attest their primary classification and relation to the Laurentian Group.
When the river or lake now called Long Island Sound, receiving the mighty floods of New England river basins, opened its eastern gates to the sea, the tidal battalions swept through with resistless power. The Sound became a Mediterranean Sea. Soil and the detrital deposits of ages were brushed to occan deeps from the narrower channels at the western end of the Island. Naught remained but the granite rocks to defy the violence of marine currents. The channel became the foaming strait of Hell Gate and the East River. North and South Brother, Rikers, Berrian and Luyster islands, were formed on the north. The jutting peninsula of Hallett's Point and the outstretched arm of Blackwell's Island broke the tides into swirling eddies which, like the buckets of the excavator, bore their detrital loads into sheltered places. The wooded hills were corroded by other natural forces and added their wash to tidal deposits. The western shore became scenes of salt marshes, lagoons and creeks, which made other islands of the modern Ravenswood with its then frowning rocky bluff; and Hunter's Point with its solitary hill standing sentinel like at the mouth of Newtown Creek and its jagged reef reaching scores of rods into the snarling tides of the river.
Beaver, deer and other fur and food producing animals roamed the forests, while the streams abounded with fish and other food products of the sea. At the time of discovery our present city domain was occupied by the Rockaway Indians, though ruled by the Mohawks by right of conquest. This latter tribe was one of the Five great nations whose powerful confederacy existed before the discovery of the continent. Their last council house may still be seen at Portage Falls on the Genesee.
It is proper here to recall that the discovery of this Continent had a commercial origin. In Europe the conquest of Constantinople and Egypt by the Turks had closed the door of commerce with the East Indies against the merchants of the West. New paths of trade were a necessity to which, it was believed, the untried seas held the key. East India companies were organized in almost every European state. The golden age of Portugal dawned, but speedily waned upon the alliance of that country with Spain. The end came with the wars of Spain. The East India companies of Holland and England rose into competitive supremacy. Exploration and discovery were the order of the day.
DISCOVERY.
In the summer of 1497 the keen eye of Long Island's savage hunter saw huge white wings upon the horizon of the sea fleeing southward. It was the single vessel of John Cabot, who in the previous year had obtained from Henry VII. a patent to search for lands in western seas.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
In May of the following year the vision was again seen, though even more startling. Two great white winged canoes swept down from the North and vanished in southern mists. Sebastian Cabot, inspired by his father's failure, was searching for a northwest passage to China and Japan with two English ships having on board a large company of volunteers. .
The red man had told this miraculous story to his son and a new generation was hunting hill and stream when again the vision appeared upon the sea. It was in 1524 and John de Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, was abroad upon a discoverer's quest.
Four score and five years passed and aboriginal tradition, akin to that of Hiawatha, had descended from sire to son, when the natives of our present municipal territory received the astonishing news from the Canarsies, their southern neighbors, that the apparition of their fathers was again upon the sea and had entered the bay. It was September 3, 1609. Hendrick Hudson in the Half-Moon-a vessel of sixty tons burthen-was upon his third voyage in search of a northwestern passage to India. In each of the two previous years, while in the service of the English companies, he had failed, and now in the service, of the Dutch East India Company was running up and down the coast hunting for a passage through the great continent. His baffled effort at Delaware Bay had not cooled the ardor of his purpose and he turned into this new arm of the sea through the gateway of Sandy Hook.
MAIN STREET ASTORIA.
The natives, clad in "mantles of feathers " and "skins of divers sorts of good furs," with "orna- ments of copper about their necks," flocked to the coming of the great white winged "Canoe." They told the strange pale faced navigator that their land was "pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as they had ever seen."
Hudson spent twenty days ex- ploring the river which bears his name and returned to Amsterdam. After repeated voyages in 1610 and 1612 the merchants of that city, encouraged by the glowing accounts of discoverers, obtained, March 27, 1614, from the States General, a decree granting the exclusive rights of trade for four years in the country which they called New Netherlands.
Thus the ancient title of our municipal territory was claimed by both the English and Dutch, the former by priority of discovery, and the latter by discovery and commercial occupation.
SETTLEMENT.
Events rapidly multiplied as the impulse of trade opened the era of settlement.
In the same year of the decree, Adrian Block, a navigator in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed through Hell Gate, giving its original name of Hellegat, a narrow passage.
Upon the expiration of the charter, a new organization, called the Dutch West India Company, was formed, and in June 3, 1621, was granted the trade monopoly of the province of New Netherlands for twenty-one years. When in 1626 Peter Minuit bought Manhattan Island from the Indians for $24, and was vested with the title of Director General, James I. of England granted a patent to a company which also claimed the entire territory of the Dutch by right of discovery by the Cabots. To establish proprietorship both nations encouraged
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
settlement, the Dutch colonizing New York and New Jersey, the English settling north and south of the Dutch, though claiming all intervening territory and not infrequently mingling with them in chosen localities as colonists.
This explains how both nations were represented in the early settlement and subsequent development of the territory now comprising Long Island City. The Indian name of "Mespat" was given to the town of Newtown. That part of the town north and west of the old Bowery Bay road was further distinguished as the "Ont Plantations," which were nearly co-terminons with our present municipal boundaries.
This section of Newtown was settled under the administration of Gov. William Kieft, who in 1638 succeeded Gov. Van Twiller. The first settlers were Hendrick Harmensen, Richard Brutnall and Tyman Jansen, whose occupancy of the soil appears to have been nearly simultaneous.
In 1640 Harmensen took up a grant in the northeastern part of the city which extended from the bay south along. an Indian trail (now the old Bowery Bay road), "by the way of tlie big tree and James Dickinson's to Dutch Kills." He was a Holland blacksmith and was brained by an Indian with a tomahawk, perhaps forged by his own hands. His property came into the possession of the Dutch Church of New Amsterdam during the official term of Gov. Kieft for a poor farm and was known as the "Poor Bowery." Later, in 1656, Pieter Luyster, another Hollander, purchased the land from its ecclesiastical proprietors from whom the title finally passed to the Riker family, whose ancestor, Abraham Rycken, married Hendrick Harmensen's daughter.
Brutnall settled on the east side of Canapaukah (now Dutch Kills) Creek. He was a native of Bradford, England. Having emigrated to the new world he resided for some time at Hempstead, finally removing to this locality. His grant, comprising somewhat more than one hundred acres, was confirmed to him by Governor Kieft, July 3, 1643.
Jansen, a ship carpenter in the employ of the West India Company, located upon the west side of Canapaukah Creek where he had secured a holding, which afterward came into possession of Joris Stevensen de Caper, from whom was descended the Van Alst family.
This trio of pioneers soon had neighbors and the "Out Plantations" took up its march towards an organized community. To the north of Jansen came "Burger Jorissen," a Silesian from Hersberg. His busy anvil awoke civilization's first echo among the wooded heights of Dutch Kills and only ceased when the tune was changed to the basso of a grist mill, which he erected prior to 1654 at tide water on the Kill, which thereafter, from this circumstance, was called "Burger's' Kill." Jorissen's "ground-brief" bore the same date as Brutnall's confirmatory deed, viz. : July 1643. Having married Lugettia Mans, a Swedish maiden, just before emigrating, his five children were born upon his new patent; Joris, in 1647 ; Hermanns, in 1652 ; Claes, in 1657 ; Johannes, in 1661, and Enos, in 1664. Dying in 1671, his estate passed on till it reached ownership in William and Abraham Payntar.
The river front, embracing Hunter's Point and Ravenswood, was first acquired from the government of New Netherlands by Everard Bogart (Dutch, Bogardus), a minister of the Dutch Church, from whom it became known as "Dominie's Hook." This was the sturdy old preacher who called Governor Van Twiller to his face a "son of the devil," because of his duplicity, and promised to give him such a "shaking" from the pulpit as he had never known. Returning to Europe in 1647 with Governor Kieft, who had been recalled by reason of his ill-success with the Indians, he perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Wales and the property was decreed to his widow, Annettie Jans, November 26, 1652, by Peter Stuyvesant who had been appointed Governor, November 26, 1646.
Astoria was settled by William Hallett, an Englishman, who had previously belonged to the Colonists of. New England. He obtained from Gov. Stuyvesant, December 1, 1652, a grant of about 160 acres extending from Sunswick Creek to Berrian Island. The Indians having destroyed his house and plantation he removed to Flushing, but subsequently returned to his homestead where he lived to the age of ninety years. Mr. Hallett was of the Quaker faith toward which he displayed a loyalty which left a deep impress upon the primitive period in which he lived. From its original owner, that section of the city was known as Hallett's Cove for two hundred years.
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
REVIVAL OF CONTROVERSY BETWEEN ENGLISH AND DUTCH, AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE SETTLEMENTS.
Scarcely had these settlers become established upon their grants in the most strategic parts of our city domain, when the controversy concerning territorial jurisdiction again arose be- tween the English and Dutch. Charles I. had already in April, 1636, issued to the Earl of Stirling a patent for Long Island and adjacent lands. An agent of the Earl in the follow- ing year came fully empowered to assume the management of affairs within the limits pre- scribed. Stuyvesant, however, with sensible diplomacy effected amicable arrangements, not only with the Indians, but with the United Colonies of New England as well. Peace con- missioners met at Hartford. September 19, 1650, and succeeded in adjusting the adverse claims of the colonists. Thus the government remained essentially Dutch for several years without interruption. All English settlers took an oath of allegiance thereto. Titles to land were granted by the Governor, who extinguished native title by purchase.
The relinquishment by the red man of his rights vested in his native soil, is not without a due degree of pathos. Civilization in its westward march was beginning its conquest of the continent, which from time immemorial had belonged to his race. With it he could not copc.
THE OLD WOOLSEY MANOR HOUSE, ERECTED ABOUT 1726.
As if instinctively recognizing the inferiority of his natural endowments, he yielded to the decrees of fate and vanished from his hunting grounds, himself pursued from frontier to frontier by the relentless pale face. It is to the honor of the English and Dutch, who settled in Newtown, that they dealt justly with him, not depriving him of value without an equivalent, least of all wresting from him his rights by the atrocities which marked the advance of the Spaniard in tropical elimes. When he was no longer owner of the soil, he sought other sohtudes rather than adapt himself to the conditions of civilization. Most of the Indians crossed from the island to the mainland and were absorbed in other tribal relations. A few only, remained to perpetuate for a comparatively brief period the lineage and traditions of their race. Naught now marks the previous presence of the Indian within our city bounds save the occasional shell heap, axe of stone, arrow head, or skull, which mother earth reluctantly yields to the modern explorer, having treasured them in her bosom for a decade of generations. On the Kouwenhoven homestead at Steinway, sleep we know not how many of the vanquished race in a burial plot which has lost every trace of its hallowed purpose, and mingled with the common soil of the fields which invite the plowman.
Thus the Governor exercised autocratic supremacy. He extinguished the Indian title and arbitrarily parcelled ont the land to whom he pleased. His selection of magistrates awakened protest. Even in the little "Out Plantations" colony, law manifested its imperfections and justice its short-comings. Grievances were presented to an assembly which was held in New
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
Amsterdam, November 26, 1653. The Governor, however, ignored the popular voice and intimated that the English were the authors of discontent.
Local difficulties attested the presence of much remaining territorial jealousy. It rose into more threatening form in 1664 when Charles II., without a shadow of right, granted to the Duke of York, afterward James II., the whole country lying between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. In the month of August Colonel Richard Nicoll arrived with a naval force to take possession of New Amsterdam in the name of the British Crown. Governor Stuyvesant reluctantly surrendered and New Amsterdam became the English Colony of New York. The effect upon the colonists promised at first to be salutary. The patroon system, which was a kind of modified feudalism, was abolished. The Colonists anticipated the enjoyment of all the privileges of English subjects and acquiesced in the bloodless, though unjust revolution. They swore allegiance to the British Crown. Confirmatory deeds were given under the hand of Governor Nieolls. Hallett had already secured a release of native title by purchase of his claim from Mattano, their Sagamore, August 1, 1664, for fifty-eight fathoms of wampun, seven coats, one blanket and four kettles. This sale was further confirmed by the English Governor.
Thomas Lawrence, an Englishman, who came to the "Out Plantations" from Massachusetts had obtained from Stuyvesant a grant of Berrian Island, then called "Round Island," which patent was also confirmed by Governor Nicolls, August 23, 1665. Lawrence also was vested, by purchase from several smaller landholders, with the title to about three hundred acres which is now held by the Woolsey estate.
Hewlett Island, so called from its original occupant who was driven from it by the Indians, was patented by the Director General, August 19, 1664, to Abraham Rycken, and by English authority became the established posession of this ancestor of the Riker family, December 24, 1667.
Brutnall's Manor in 1659 was acquired by Thomas Wandell from whom it descended to Riehard Alsop, a nephew, in 1691. The Alsop mansion stood near the Penny Bridge on the English Kills, as that part of Newtown Creek was then called.
Dominie's Hook, which appears to have been unoccupied for about fifty years after it became the feudal domain of Parson Bogardus, was confirmed by Governor Nicoll to Anneke Jans Bogardus, widow of the minister, March, 1669. This original document is still carefully preserved in the library of Union College, Schenectady, N. Y.
But while validity of title was secured to the colonists by the new government, there was little progress toward an increase of civil liberty. Under the Dutch system, the patroon was lord of the manor. Could he within four years bring fifty individuals above sixteen years of age into his colony, his rights to legislative privileges were maintained. He was allowed as many African slaves as were required by demands of the soil, and was withal not an unworthy type of the ancient feudal chieftain. .
The conquest of the English could not efface the impress of the Dutch upon the colonial life of New Amsterdam. To this day that impress lives, as lived the national character of the Greeks long after their subjugation by the Romans. But measures were employed to thoroughly Anglicize the people. A new code of laws known as the "Duke's Laws" was promulgated. Deputies were elected, and a provincial assembly was organized, which met at Hempstead, February 28, 1665. Newtown became the West Riding. Yet popular representation was as unknown as under the former regime, and the colonists, whose numbers had considerably increased, were not British subjects in respect to their immunities and privileges. Even this early stage of colonial history evinced the fact that no government can be successful which is not in intimate touch with the people.
Events near at hand set this principle in clearer relief. When Louis XIV. of France and Charles 11. of England, united without adequate cause in war against Holland, Lovelace supplanted Nicolls in authority lest New York should be wrested from the Crown. But when the Dutch troops, recruited by discontented colonists, marched down Broadway, Captain Manning, the English Commandant, marched out of Fort Amsterdam, and the English rule was as effectually broken as was Manning's sword over his own head for cowardice. New York became New Orange, August 14, 1673, and the forefathers of this city bent the knee to the States General once more and the Prince of Orange besides. The Dutch, how-
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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND CITY.
ever, could not seal the fate of the province, for King Charles in the succeeding summer repeated the grant of 1664, and before the coming of Mayor Andros, October 31, 1674, New Orange again became New York. The popular demand for a share in legislation enlisted the counsel of William Penn, and a popular assembly convened October 17, 1683. Thus in the development of this city after nearly fifty years from the time when its site was first chosen for settlement, popular government began its victorious career.
"Ridings" were abolished, conatics constituted, the "Dutch laws" abrogated, and courts of justice everywhere established. True, the Duke of York upon his accession to the throne as James II., despotically overturned these achievements of progress, but the interruption was temporary. Upon his abdication in 1688, Mary, his daughter, and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, were hailed with delight by the colonists of New York, though their territory in the same year was annexed to New England.
GENERAL. HISTORICAL SURVEY TO THE REVOLUTION.
The founders of state on this continent were men of sturdiest faith and character. They built our institutions while braving hardship. A realm of liberty seen only in the visions of faith they translated into a land where liberty was actual. To this class belonged those who, whether English or Dutch, lived on the historical frontiers of our city's history.
The development of Dominie's Hook began with its purchase in 1697 from the heirs of Annettie Jans by Peter Praa, a Hollander of Huguenot origin. To escape religious persecution in the Old World he transported his family to the New. The original purchase extended from Ravenswood to Wil- liamsburgh, the manor house being erected in Greenpoint.
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