USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 21
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 21
USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 21
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" Towne Meeting held this 5th day off May, 1701, by order off Justices Cornelis Sebringh and Machiell Hanssen (Bergen). We the major part off the ffreeholders off Breucklyn doe hereby nominate, constitute, and appoint Capt. Jooris Hanssen (Bergen), Jacob Hanssen (Bergen), and Cornelis Van Duyn, to bee trustees of our Common and undivided lands, and to deffend and maintaine the rights and privileges off our General pattent, as well within as without."
Again, at a
" Towne meeting held this second day off February, 1701-2, by order off Justice Cornelis Sebringh. Purposed iff the order off Bedford, made the 12th day off April, 1697,? shall bee conffirmed concerning the lying out of the common or undivided lands, or that the said land shall bee lyed out according to the last tax, concerning the deffending off our limitts.
1 As we understand this clause, the Justices of Brooklyn were to have cognizance of the offence, as much as if the offenders resided within the town.
2 See ante, p. 208.
211
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
" Resolved by the ffreeholders aforesaid, that the chosen townsmen shall ley out the commens according as by the said order off Bedford was con- cluded, with the ffirst opportunitie, and that all the lotts joyning to the common woods shall be surveyed according to their grants."
These lands were accordingly surveyed, during the same month, by Messrs. Pieter Corteljeau and S. Clowes, surveyors, and were by them divided into three divisions. The first, or west division, con- sisting of 62 lots, containing about 5 acres each, comprised near 310 acres. The second, or middle division, consisted of 62 lots, of about 10 acres each, amounting to 620 acres; and the third, or east divi- sion, also of 62 lots, of about 10 acres each, also comprised about 620 acres. The total number of acres was about 1550.1
The common lands having been thus equitably divided among the freeholders, and a portion annexed to each house in town," the fol- lowing resolution was adopted for the better protection of those inhabitants to whom portions had been allotted in their enjoyment of the same :
" Att a Towne meeting held att Brookland, in Kings County, this 14th day of March, 1701-2. Present Machiel Hanssen (Bergen), Cornelis Sebringh, and Hendrick Vechten, Esquires, Justices .- Resolved, by the major part of the freeholders of the saide towne of Brookland, that every man that has now a right, lott, or lotts laid out in the quondam Common and undivided lands of Brookland aforesaid, shall forever free liberty have for egress or regress to his said lotts for fetching off wood or otherwise, over all or any of the said lott or lotts of the said freeholders in the lands aforesaid. And further, that if any of the said freeholders shall at any time or times hereafter, come by any loss or trouble, cost or charges by lawe or otherwise, of, for or concerning the title of any of their said lott or lotts, by any person or persons, either within the township of Brookland afforesaid or without, that it shall be defended and made goode (if lost), att all the proper costs and charges of all the freeholders of said towne equally."
1 Furman's Notes, 45.
2 This appears evident from the fact that a deed, dated April 17, 1705, after convey- ing a house and lot of land in this town, conveys " alsoe all the rights and priviledges in the common woodlands of the towne of Broockland aforesaid, to said house belong- ing as per record of said towne may appear."
212
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
Owing to the complete absence of the town and county records, from the year 1700 to the close of the American Revolution, we are unable to glean much material for a history of Breucklyn during that period. The slender data on which we are obliged to base our chronicle of the progress of the place, are mostly derived from pro- vincial records, stray deeds and documents, newspapers, letters, etc. Two bitter controversies agitated the public mind during that period : the first between this town (together with Flatbush and Bushwick) and Newtown, concerning their respective bounds, which ended only in 1769 ;' and the second between this town and the city of New York, relative to town and ferry rights, which has not yet (1867) ended. This latter topic, however, will be more fully dis- cussed in another portion of this work.
April 21, 1701, a piece of land, about 200 feet square, lying within the limits of the subsequent village of Brooklyn, was sold for £75, " current money of the Province of New York."2
August 30, 1701, John Bybon sold to Cornelius Vanderhove, for £37 10s., the one equal half part of a brew-house, situate at Bedford, in the town of Brookland, fronting the highway leading from Bed- ford to Cripplebush ; together with one equal half part of all the brewing-vessels, etc.3
In the year 1703, ." Brookland's improveable lands and meadows, within fence," were surveyed, and found to amount to 5,177 acres.4 The greatest landowner, at that time, was Simon Aerson, who owned 200 acres.
On the 28th of March, 1704, the main road or " king's highway," now called Fulton street and Fulton avenue, was laid out by Joseph Hegeman, Peter Cortelyou, and Benjamin Vandewater, commis- sioners, appointed by act of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York, for the laying out, regulating, clearing, and preserving of public highways in the colony. The record of this road, which now forms the chief thoroughfare of the city of Brooklyn, is as follows :
" One publique, common and general highway, to begin ffrom low water marke at the ferry in the township of Broockland, in Kings County, and
1 See Appendix No. 7.
2 Furman's Notes, 91.
8 Furman's Notes, 91.
4 N. Y. Col. MSS., Ixxii. 31.
213
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
ffrom thence to run ffour rod wide up between the houses and lands of John Aerson, John Coe, and George Jacobs, and soe all along to Broock- land towne aforesaid, through the lane that now is, and ffrom thence straight along a certaine lane to the southward corner of John Van Cou- wenhoven's land, and ffrom thence straight to Bedfford as it is now staked out, to the lane where the house of Benjamin Vandewater stands, and ffrom thence straight along through Bedfford towne to Bedfford lane, run- ning between the lands of John Garretse, Dorlant and Claes Barnse, to the rear of the lands of the said Cloyse, and ffrom thence southerly to the old path now in use, and soe all along said path to Philip Volkertses land, taking in a little slip of said Philip's land on the south corner, soe all along said road by Isaack Greg's house to the Fflackbush new lotts ffence, and soe all along said ffense to the eastward, to the northeast corner of Eldert Lucas's land, lying within the New lotts of Fflattbush aforesaid, being ffour rod wide all along, to be and continue forever."
In 1706, all the real and personal estates of the town of Brooklyn were assessed £3,122 12s., the tax on the same being £41 3s. 7}d., and the whole county tax, £201 16s. 13d. There were at this time 64 freeholders in the town. In 1707, the real and per- sonal estates were assessed at £3,091, 11s., on which the govern- ment tax was £116 7s. 3d., payable in two instalments, and the county tax was £448 3s. 7d.
1717. November 21, a bill was brought into the Assembly to erect Kings and Queens Counties into one by the name of St. George's County ; also, to elect six members from said county to the Assembly.
1721. Private encroachments on the old road or " king's highway" (now Fulton street and avenue), leading from the ferry to the old Dutch church, or Brooklyn parish, and which had been laid out seventeen years before, in 1704, gave rise to much contention in the town. At the April term of the General Sessions of the Peace for Kings County, indictments were found for encroaching thereon, against John Rapalje, Hans Bergen, James Harding, and others. These indictments seem to have been predicated as well on the appli- cation of Rapalie and Bergen, as upon complaints from other citi- zens.1 Some of the parties thus indicted, and who considered them-
1 " Fflatbush, April 19, 1721. John Rapalje and Hans Bergen, of the fferry, desires of the grand jury that the Commissioners now being should be presented for not doing
214
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
selves aggrieved, together with others who feared being placed in the same position, applied to the Colonial Legislature, and obtained, July 27, 1721, the passage of a law1 to " continue the common road or king's highway, from the ferry, towards the town of Breuckland, on the Island of Nassau, in the Province of New York," with the following preamble :
" Whereas, several of the inhabitants on the ferry, on the Island of Nassau, by their petition preferred to the General Assembly, by setting forth, that they have been molested by prosecutions, occasioned by the contrivance and instigations of ill and dissaffected persons to the neigh- bourhood, who would encroach upon the buildings and fences that have been made many years, alledging the road was not wide enongh, to the great damage of several of the old inhabitants, on the said ferry ; the said road as it now is, has been so for at least these sixty years past, without any complaint, either of the inhabitants or travellers."
The law then proceeds to establish the road "forever" as it then was, from the ferry upwards to the town of Breuckland, as far as the swinging gate of John Rapalje, just above the house and land belonging to James Harding. Providing, however, against a pos- sible "jam" near the ferry-although, perhaps, scarcely anticipating the great thoroughfare which now exists at that locality-the law enacts that, if a majority of the inhabitants of the town should " adjudge that part of the road near to the ferry to be too narrow and inconvenient," they might cause the Sheriff to summon a jury of twelve, to appraise the land necessary to be taken in the widening, and that said appraisement should be levied and collected upon the town, and paid to the owners. This, however, was never done, and the old lane continued to serve the economical townsfolk of Brook- lyn. Its appearance may be understood by a glance at Guy's pic- ture of Brooklyn, which represents it at its passage at Front street,
their duty in laying out the King's highway according to ye law, being the King's highway is too narrow from the ferry to one Nicalus Cowenhoven, living at Brooklyn ; and if all our neighbours will make ye road according to law, then ye said John Rap- alje and Hans Bergen is willing to do the same as aforesaid, being they are not willing to suffer more than their neighbours. As witness our hands the day and year first above written.
1 N. Y. Col. Doc., v. 621.
JAN RAPELJE. HANS BERGEN."
215
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
but so narrow as hardly to lead one to suppose that it was a street. The " swinging gate" here referred to was on the east side of the present Fulton street, about where Sands street now enters, and there commenced the four-foot road. On Ratzer's map, prepared in 1766-7, this road is laid down, with the buildings thereon, show- ing conclusively that it was then the same as Fulton street before the widening in 1839.
For the few remaining incidents of interest in the history of the town, previous to the Revolutionary period, we are indebted mainly to the New York newspapers of the day.
1732, March 27. The New York Gazette contains an advertisement by Edward Willett, offering to sell, on reasonable terms, a very good negro woman, aged twenty-seven, with two fine children. She is described as understanding all sorts of business in city or coun- try, and speaks very good English and Dutch.
1732, July 17. Edward Willett advertises for sale the large, well- furnished house where Mr. James Harding lately lived, near the ferry, at Brooklyn, finely situated for a gentleman and a country- seat, or a public house. With it was also a "large barn, well cov- ered with cedar ;1 a large, handsome garden ; and ten acres of good land, in a fine young orchard."
Brooklyn's relative population in 1738, as compared with the other Kings County towns, is exhibited in the following table :
TOWNS.
White males
above ten yrs.
White females
above ten.
White males
under ten.
White females
under ten.
above ten. Black males
Black females
above ten.
Black males
under ten.
Black females
under ten.
Number of
whole.
Flatlands.
83
76
32
27
19
19
7
5
268
Gravesend.
75
70
22
25
15
16
6
6
235
Brookland.
191
196
66
84
74
49
31
30
721
Flatbush .
148
138
56
64
44
41
18
31
540
N. Utrecht.
72
65
26
32
36
23
17
11
282
Bushwick.
85
86
33
32
22
21
5
18
302
654
631
235
264
210
169
84
101
2,348
Total of Whites, 1,784. Total of Blacks, 564.
PETER STRYCKER, Jun' Sheriff .?
1 Dwellings and barns were, at this period, very generally covered with straw thatch.
2 N. Y. Col. MSS., Ixxii. 31.
216
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
March 20, 1745-6. The General Assembly of the Province met at the house of the Widow Sickle, in this town, in consequence of the prevalence of the small-pox in the city of New York, and continued sitting at Brooklyn, by several adjournments, until the 8th day of October.
1752. The Colonial Legislature, during the prevalence of the small-pox in New York, held their session at Brooklyn in a large building on the west side of Fulton street, just below Nassau. This very ancient edifice was constructed of small brick, said to have been brought from Holland, and was demolished in 1832. At this house, also, on the 4th of June, 1752, 2,541 bills of credit issued by the colony of New York, and amounting to £3,602 18s. 3d., were cancelled by the Colonial Commissioners. The building was further honored by being made Gen. Putnam's headquarters during the stay of the American army on Long Island, in 1776.
1757, January 24. Jacob Brewster, at Brooklyn ferry, offers for sale a pole-chair, or curricle, with excellent good harness and extra- ordinary horses.
1757, March 14. Garrett Rapelje, of New York, offers for sale a new house on the Jamaica Road, about a mile from Brooklyn ferry, with forty acres of land, west side of John Conover's, and adjoining the place now in possession of Capt. Pikeman. Some of the land has a prospect of the Narrows, New York, and Turtle Bay.
1758. This year the sum of £122 18s. 7d. was assessed in two assessments, by the Justices of the Peace on this town, towards building "a new court-house and gaol" for Kings County. The whole amount assessed on the county was £448 4s. 1d.
1759, Nov. 26. "On Sunday week last past, a large bear passed the house of Mr. Sebring, Brooklyn, and took the water at Red Hook, attempting to swim across the bay, when Cornelius Sebring and his miller immediately pushed off in a boat after him. The latter fired and missed, on which Mr. S. let fly, and sent the ball in at the back of his head, which came out of his eye, and killed him outright."-N. Y. Gazette.
1761, Nov. 5. "On Tuesday morning, a grist-mill of one Mr. Remsen, on Long Island, a few miles from this city, accidentally took fire and was entirely consumed, with a large quantity of grain."
217
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
-N. Y. Post Boy. This mill was probably the one at the Walla- bout Bay.1
1764, April 16. James Degraw, Brooklyn, offers for sale his farm opposite the church, and joining Mr. Harvey's, a mile from the ferry. It is convenient for the New York market, having ten acres of land and forty fruit-trees.
1764, Oct. 11. Aris Remsen offers twenty shillings reward for the apprehension of a runaway negro named Harry. "He had on a Scotch bonnet, short, wide trowsers, and half-worn shoes, with steel buckles. He is apt to get drunk, and stutters. He speaks good English, French, Spanish, and a little of other languages."
1765, Feb. 28. "James Leadbetter and Thomas Horsfield have opened their brewery in Brooklyn, where may be had English ale, table, ship, and spruce beer."-N. Y. Gazette.
Long Island.
VIEW OF BROOOKLAND, IN 1766-7.2
1767, Jan. 8. " Last week, on Wednesday, a very valuable negro fellow of Mr. Samuel Waldron, who keeps the Brooklyn ferry, in pushing off the boat from the ferry stairs with an oar, lost his pur- chase and fell out of the bow of the boat, and by a sudden rise of the sea, his head was crushed between the boat and dock, so that he died in a few minutes after he was taken up."
1767, February. "JOYCE's great wound BALSAM is a corrector of coughs and colds, and cures ulcers and fistulas ; and has many other virtues too tedious to mention. Sold at Edward Joyce's shop, near
1 Ante, p. 81.
? From Rutger's map, of that date.
218
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
Brooklyn ferry." The same remedy, under the name of the " great American balsam," is again advertised in January, 1769, by Edward Joyce, Surgeon, as for sale by him, and also at Capt. Koffler's at Brooklyn ferry.
1767. Israel Horsfield, sen., Brooklyn ferry, advertises to sell at outcry to the highest bidder, Sept. 8th, at the brew-house, "two negro men, one of which has lived with a ship-carpenter, and is a good caulker, and has lately lived with a brewer and malster, and is very handy." On the 2d of November following, Mr. Horsfield offers for sale his brew-house, malt-house, drying kiln, dwelling, and store- house, built of brick, one and a half feet thick, after an English plan ; a horse-mill, for grinding malt and pumping water, a copper kettle holding thirty-six barrels, two lead cisterns, which will steep seventy bushels of barley each.
1767, Nov. 16. Francis Koffler1 offers a reward for a runaway indentured Irish servant, John Miller, "which kept the bar and made punch at his house," at Brooklyn ferry, and who is particu- larly described as wearing " deer-skin breeches, speckled yarn stock- ings, double-soled shoes with brass buckles, and a beaver hat."
1768. A New York paper chronicles the fact that, "in the hard gale of wind and snow-shower we had here on Saturday night (March 19th), a servant man and valuable slave of Mr. Pikeman, of Long Island, were drowned in a periauger, going across the river with manure for their master's farm."
1768. " To be run for, April 5th, at Mr. James Noblett's, Brook- lyn, a neat saddle, with hog-skin seat, valued at £5, the best two out of three single mile heats ; free for any horse not more than quarter blood, carrying ten stone. Entrance fee 5s., cash."
1768. "Liberal Reward. On July 8th. the house of Widow Rap- elye, Brooklyn ferry, was broken open and robbed of one gold ring, marked M. D., heart in hand ; seven silver spoons, marked J. R. D. ; one pair gold sleeve-buttons ; two Johannesses ; one doubloon ; two
1 This gentleman's obituary is found in the N. Y. Journal of Aug. 29, 1771 : " Last Friday, departed this life, after a lingering sickness, at Brooklyn, in an advanced age, Captain Francis Koffler, an honest, upright man, greatly lamented. In the last war he had command of several privateers out of this port, and acquired great honor by the bravery and resolution with which he acted in the several engagements he was in."
219
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
New York £5 bills ; one of 40s. ; and about £40 in Jersey bills and dollars." Speedy justice overtook the thief, "Garret Middagh's negro fellow, Cæsar," who was tried on the 1st of September fol- lowing, convicted, and executed on the 15th of the same month, at Flatbush, the county town.
1770, Feb. 25. The New York Mercury states that Thomas Hors- field's malt-kilns, at Brooklyn ferry, were burned. Loss, £500.
1770, March 22. "On Monday last was celebrated the Anniver- sary of the repeal of the Stamp Act, by a number of gentlemen, who dined at Mr. Waldron's, Brooklyn ferry, and spent the day in great cheerfulness and good order, and drank the usual toasts."-N. Y. Journal.
1771, Aug. 7. Ares Remsen, at the Wallebocht, offers 20s. reward for a runaway " negro man, Newport, Guinea-born, and branded on the breast with three letters. He speaks good English, and is a great talker."
1773, March 4. Sunday, Feb. 24th, was "the coldest day for more than half a century. The harbor was so full of ice last Thursday, that many people walked over to Brooklyn and back again. By the fall of a little rain at night, scarcely any ice was to be seen next morning."-N. Y. Journal.
1774, Feb. 21. " A Ferry is now established from the Coenties Market, New York, to the landing place of P. Livingston, Esq., and Henry Remsen, on Long Island, and another from Fly Market, and a third from Peck Slip to the present ferry-house at Brooklyn." -- N. Y. Mercury.
The " landing place of P. Livingston, Esq., and Henry Remsen" was near the foot of the present Joralemon street.ª This ferry was called "St. George's Ferry," but did not exist long, being discon- tinued in 1776, and the ferry-house, together with Livingston's dis- tillery, was burned after the war.
1774, March 31. "Many persons have been misled by an opinion that the church proposed to be erected by lottery, at Brooklyn, is to be under the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Bernard Page. It will be a truly orthodox church, strictly conformable to the doctrine and dis-
1 Ante, pp. 72, 73.
220
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
cipline of the constitutional Church of England as by law estab- lished, and under the patronage of the Rev. Rector and Vestry of Trinity church."-Rivington's Gazette.
1774, May 9. John Cornell announces, in the N. Y. Mercury, that he "has opened a tavern on Tower Hill, Brooklyn, near the new ferry, called 'St. George's.' Companies will be entertained if they bring their own liquor, and may dress turtle, etc., at the said house on the very lowest terms." And, in August following, he adver- tised that " there will be a bull baited on Tower Hill, at three o'clock in the afternoon, every Thursday during the season."
" Tower Hill" was a slight eminence on the Heights, on the site of the old " Colonnade Row," on Columbia, between Middagh and Cranberry streets.
221
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DOMESTIC HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE, FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY TO THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
THE unsettled and wandering life led by the earliest Dutch traders in the New Netherlands, had a natural tendency to assimilate their habits and customs to those of the untutored savages with whom they associated. Freed from the restraints of civilization, they cohabited with the native girls, and every change of temporary location which occurred in the course of their traffic, afforded them the opportunity of selecting new companions, while former ties were carelessly sundered. The children, in these cases, remaining with their mothers, were left to be brought up amid the influences of savage life. Under such circumstances, fostered alike by the reck- lessness of the white, and the loose morality of the Indian, it can scarcely be a matter of surprise that the life of the former presented little or no trace of the domestic civilization which should have been a distinguishing mark between him and his red neighbor.
The domestic history of the country, however, commenced with the arrival of the thirty families brought over in the good ship "New Netherland," in the year 1623. Rapidly, under the repeated blows of the stalwart woodsman's axe, the forests bowed their lofty heads, and the sun, for the first time in many centuries, peeped in here and there upon the little "clearings" where the settler had commenced to raise his first scanty crop of maize or vegetables. Fences, too, divided men's possessions from their neighbors', or restrained the cattle (imported from Europe) from extensive wander- ings into the neighboring woods after food, as had been their wont during the first busy days which had succeeded the disembarkation. Houses, or at least temporary shelter, were also furnished-and the foot of civilization was, at length, firmly planted on these hitherto silent shores.
222
HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
The first dwellings of these pioneer families were mostly con- structed, as we learn, in the Indian fashion, of saplings and bark ; with here and there a wooden chimney, or glazed window, -- improve- ments suggested by the experience of civilization. Others again, consulting comfort rather than show, constructed cellars, sided with bark and covered with thatched reeds, which, although deficient in light, were snug and warm. In a few years, however, the establish- ment of a saw-mill on Manhattan Island, supplied timber for more substantial abodes; and the improving circumstances of the set- tlers were gradually evidenced by the appearance of a better class of dwellings, one story in height, with two rooms on a floor, and a garret overhead. These humble cottages were roofed with straw thatch, and had fireplaces constructed of stone, to the height of about six feet, having an oven of the same material at the side of the fireplace, and extending beyond the rear of the house. But, in the absence of bricks, the chimneys above the stone-work were made of boards, plastered inside with mortar. Each dwelling was sur- rounded by strong palisades, as a protection against the savages.
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