Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 171

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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In 1865, STILLES issued (limited edition ) two volumes relating to the sufferings and experiences of the Prison- Ship captives in Wallabout Bay, under the title of The Wallabout Series ; and, in 1867, he brought out the first volume of his History of the City of Brooklyn, of which two remaining volumes appeared in 1869 and 1870.

HENRY R. STILES, M. A., M. D., was born in New York City, March 10, 1832; obtained his education at the Grammar School of the University of the City of New York; was freshman at the University, and sophomore at Williams College; ill-health prevented his graduation there, but in 1876, he received the de- gree of A. M. from that college. He studied medieme at the Medieal Department of the Umversity of City of New York, graduating 1855; as, also, same year,

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LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

from the N. Y. Ophthalmic Hospital. Practised III New York City; Galena, Ill .; Brooklyn, N. Y., and Woodbridge, N. J. In 1863, was one of the originators of the Long Island Historical Society, at Brooklyn, of which he was a director and the librarian until 1866. In 1868, was appointed Chicf Clerk in the Brooklyn Bureau of Vital Statistics, of the Metropolitan Board of Health; and remained in that office until the legisla- tive abolition of the Metropolitan Commissions in 1870. He was then appointed Sanitary Inspector in the New York City Board of Health (serving as such in the 2d, 4th, and 6th Wards), until the creation of a new board in June, 1873; passed the civil service ex- amination, instituted by the new board, with honor, and was re-appointed Sanitary Inspector, June 17, 1873; in July, same year, he was appointed Medical Superin- tendent of the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane, located at Middletown, Orange county, N. Y .; he there superintended the erection of the first two buildings, organized the service of the asylum, and placed the institution on the foundation of success which is now universally accorded to it, as the first and (thus far) the only homeopathic insane asylum in the world under governmental control; resigning his posi- tion in 1877, he removed with his family to Dundee, Scotland, where he was appointed to the charge of the Dundee Homoeopathic Dispensary; and where, in the enjoyment of a good practice, he remained until December, 1881, when he felt obliged by his wife's health and his own, to return to America. He is now engaged in a consultation practice in New York city. He is a member of the N. Y. County Homoeopathic Medical Society, and a permanent member of the N. Y. State Homoeopathic Medical Society; has also belonged to the Kings and the Orange County Homo- opathic Medical Societies; is a member of the Clinical Club (medical); the N. Y. Medico-Legal Society; a founder and officer of the Society for Promoting the Welfare of the Insane; was one of the organizers and first members of the Public Health Association of New York City, in 1872. He has also been Lecturer on Hygiene and Sanitary Science, at the N. Y. Honuro- pathic Medical College, and is now Professor of Men- tal and Nervous Diseases, at the N. Y. Women's Medical College and Hospital, New York city.

In 1859, Dr. Stiles published The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Conn, and in 1861, a supplement to the same; and also a monograph on Bundling in America; in 1863, he published the Gene- alogy of the Massachusetts Stiles Family; in 1865, he was (see page 1318) an active member of the "Faust Club " (publishing), of Brooklyn; in 1865, issued two volumes of the Wallabout Series, and edited The Genealogy of the Stranahan and Josslyn Families; and in 1867, he issued the first volume of his History of the City of Brooklyn; in 1869, the second volume, and in 1870, the third; he was, also, from 1863 to 1870, a contributor

to the Round Table, and to several works of history and biography edited by other parties. He has, for many years, been an active member (and was for eight years, the Recording Secretary) of the American Ethnological Society; and was one of the organizers and Recording Secretary of the (now defunct) Ameri- can Anthropological Institute; in 1869, he was one of the seven founders of the N. Y. Genealogical and Biographical Society, and its President from 1869 to 1873, and still a member of its board of trustees and of its publication committec. He is honorary and corre- sponding member of various historical societies, among which are the New England Historic- Gencalogical Society; the Dorchester (Mass.) Antiquarian Society; the Wisconsin and the Arizona Historical Societies; the Antiquarian and Numismatical Society of Phila- delphia; the American Philological Society, etc. He is a life member of the Long Island Historical Society.

PRIVATE LIBRARIES.

As to private libraries-and, by this we mean those collections of books which have been gathered with well defined purpose, as illustrative of some special subject, or indicative of some peculiar fancy or taste of their owners-Brooklyn has had, and still has, some which are well worthy of note.

Of such was the princely library, now lately dispersed, of the late Hon. HENRY C. MURPHY (see page 364), a notable collection of Americana; especially of rare volumes on early American exploration, navigation and Colonial Dutch history. It numbered 3,142 titles, and brought, under the auctioncer's hammer, nearly $52,000. In Dr. Wynne's "Private Libraries of New York," will be found a full description of the treasures of this splendid collection.

Dr. WYNNE's Private Libraries of New York, in- cludes among its descriptions, that of the library of our fellow-townsman J. CARSON BREVOORT. It orig- inally contained some 10,000 volumes, of which nearly 6,000 were collected by the late Henry Brevoort, father of the present owner. He began to collect, about 1810, while abroad; and the French Revolution of 1830, as well as the numerous book sales which followed the cholera visitation of 1832, opened to him a rich field for the purchase of fine and valuable works, of which he liberally and judiciously availed himself. The orig- inal editions of "Smith's Virginia," " the Warres of New England; " " The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam; " " Hubbard's Indian Wars; " " Mather's Indian Wars," and a number of other early and rare American tracts, presented to Mr. Brevoort by Sir Walter Scott-who had collected them with a view, subsequently aban- doned, of writing a novel of the early New England times -are among the gems of this collection; which Is also extremely rich in priceless MSS., autograph let- ters, official and military journals, order-books, etc., etc.

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

To this valuable library, bequeathed to him in 1848, Mr. Brevoort made large additions, consisting of works illustrative of the progress of geographical discovery in America, such as maps, narrations, topographical memoirs; his tastes, in this respect, running parallel to those of his friend, Hon. Henry C. Murphy, whose library we have referred to on page 364. Peter Martyr; Ramusius ; Hakluyt (ed. 1589, 1599-600, and the later quarto); Purchas; the Spanish writers, Herrera, Torquemada, Clavigero, De La Vega, and Charlevoix; Kingsborough, De Bry, are all represented, besides many less known, but equally valuable and rare. In charts, maps, atlases, government and state publica- tions, geological and geographical reports and surveys relating to the American Continent, and especially in the line of Arctic and Antarctic exploration and Pa- eifie voyages, the collection is very rich. Next to voyages and travels, the main feature of this library is its works in Natural History, including about 2,000 volumes on Zoology. This department is especially strong in transactions of natural history societies, both foreign and domestic; but its completest seetion is that of Ichthyology. American history and pamphlets upon special political topics, etc., have also been extensively collected by Mr. Brevoort.

Wynne's sketch of this library, though written in 1860, deseribed it as it was until 1875. Mr. Brevoort's health and eyesight becoming seriously impaired about that time, he has, since then, gradually bestowed the greater part of his library, and its accompanying col- lections, upon those scientific bodies and societies to which he felt that they would prove of most serviee, such as the Long Island Historical Society of this city, the American Geographical Society, and the Natural History Museum in the Central Park, New York city, and the Entomological Society of Phila- delphia. To the Long Island Historical Society, of which he was President during its first ten years, he has been a constant and liberal donor, almost dennding his own library of his very large accumulation of American local history, biography and pamphlets.

So generous and judicious a giver of books to our public libraries deserves some slight biographical notice at our hands.

JAMES CARSON BREVOORT, ellest son of Henry and Laura (Carson) Brevoort, of New York city, was born July 10, 1818, and gained his education in his native city, in France and Switzerland. Upon leaving school at Hofwyl, near Berne, he studied for three years at the "Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures," at Paris, and graduated with a diploma as Civil Engineer. Returning home, he was, for a while, employed on the Survey of the North-eastern Boundary, in Maine, under his uncle, the late Prof. James Renwick, who was then a Commissioner on the Survey. In 1838, he accompanied Washington Irving, on his appointment as Minister-Plenipotentiary to Spain, and passed a year

with him in the capacity of private secretary, after- wards traveling through Europe.

He returned to this country again in 1843, and, in 1845, married the only daughter of the late Judge Leffert Lefferts, of Bedford. Sinee that time he has resided in the Lefferts homestead, engaged in manag- ing the estate of his late father-in-law, as well as the property which he himself purchased in the neighbor- hood, and modestly but honorably identifying himself with the progress and institutions of his adopted eity. He served, for some years, as a member of the Board of Education, and as one of the Construeting Board of Water Commissioners, and is the author of the Preface to that Board's Report, published by the city authorities. From 1863 to 1873, he was President of the Long Island Historical Society; and, for two years, Superintendent of the Astor Library, New York eity, of which he had been a Trustee sinee 1852. In 1861, he was made a Regent of the University of the City of New York, being now the third eldest member of that distinguished body ; and, in 1863, received the diploma of LL. D. from Williams College, Mass. Mr. Brevoort is a resident-member of the N. Y. Historical, 1845; the Acad. of Natural Sciences, 1840; American Geographical Society, 1856; corresponding member of the N. Eng. Geneal .- Hist. Society, 1858; the Mass. Hist. Society, 1858; the Penn. Hist. Society, 1859, and the Entomological and Numismatical Societies of Philadelphia; honorary member of the Numismatical Society of Boston, 1882; and of various other learned bodies at home and abroad.

Mr. Brevoort commenced his study and collectious in Entomology in 1833, and in Ichthyology in 1842. In this latter department his collection of books and specimens have been extensive and valuable; and he has recently turned them over to Mr. Eugene G. Black- ford, the N. Y. State Fish Commissioner, who has iu- corporated them in his Ichthyological Museum in Fulton Market. Mr. Brevoort wrote the Ichthyological department of Commodore Perry's Report of the U. S. Expedition to Japan.

llis collection of coins was commenced in 1850. Ile has contributed to the Am. Journal of Numismatics, a series of (illustrated) papers on " Early Spanish and Portuguese Coinage in America," of great in- terest.

In the Historical Magazine he has published a paper upon the " Discovery of the Remains of Columbus;" and in 1874, a volume on "Verrazano, the Navigator, or Notes ou Giovanni de Verrazano, and on a Plani- sphere of 1529, illustrating his American Voyage in 1524," this being a revision of a paper read by him be- fore the American Geographical Society, Nov. 28, 1871.

CHARLES E. WEST, the well-known principal of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary, possesses literary and art collections of no mean value and interest. The three buildings in which the Seminary is located, are filled

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in every part with that which cannot fail to attract and mould the taste and intellect of his pupils. Every- where are books, prints, casts, statuary, mineralogical and conchological cabinets, educational apparatus, an- tiquities, bric-a-brac. Among these collections we may especially note the Abbott collection of paintings, copies by the Chevalier Chatelain, of Rome, of some of the most celebrated paintings in Italy ; a cabinet of ancient and almost unique specimens of early Grecian, Roman, Egyptian and Peruvian art; a rare collection of Jewish, Grecian and Roman coins; a very complete collection of Anglo-Saxon works of the 15th and 16th centuries, old Icelandic sagas, etc .; special collections of the Bibliography of Art, etc., etc., the scattered condition of all which, however, scarcely does justice to its great collective value, comprising, as it does, nearly 12,000 volumes.

Prof. West has long been a connoisseur in engravings and etchings, not alone for the gratification of his own tastes, but for educational uses ; and his collection is unrivalled in this county. Among them are Joh. Fred. Wm. Muller's Raphael's " Sistine Madonna," one of the five only impressions known to exist from the first plate; the "Hundred-Guilder Piece " of Rembrandt, in the second state; the same master's "Crucifixion" in its first state; as well as the " Three Trees " and " Burgomaster Six;" eight of Sir David Wilkie's etchings (of which only seven were thought to exist), among them, in red and black, the exquisite "Guess My Name ;" the rarest of Seymour Haden's etchings, in varieties of im- pression; a series of Fortuny's and Whistler's etehings; Hamerton's also ; the finest of Albert Durer's works, in wood and copper ; Claude Lorraine's, Bartalozzi's, Jacquemart's, Wille's before the letter ; Edelinck's, Nanteuil's, Drevet's, Schmidt's ; a grand collection of Strange's, Woolett's, and, above all, of Sharp's glorious engravings.

Twin to this collection of engravings, and equally unapproachable in variety and interest, is Prof. West's collection, in numerous pieces, of Japanese art. Gatlı- ered by Mr. Charles L. Sanderson, by royal permission of the Mikado, and under exceptionally fortunate eir- cumstances, it is, without doubt, the oldest, richest and most elegant collection of the ancient wares of Japan, ever brought, or which will ever be brought out of that country. Among them are royal robes, satsuma wares, gold lacquers, bronzes, and works in silver from the Imperial Palace; from the oldest and largest temple in Japan, Nishi-Kongwanji of Kioto, are shirines, altars, holy mirrors, the high-priests' robe chest, bronzes of the gods, incense vases, a 450-year old temple clock, bronze candle-holders 1,800 years old, a carved ebony table given by the Emperor of China, over 2,000 years ago, to the Mikado of Japan, the Golden Picture, probably the first which ever embellished a temple, and a superb specimen of Sand-Painting, a now "lost art," Space, however, forbids an cnumeration of this

wonderful and unique collection. We are glad to know that several of its choicest pieces have been chosen to illustrate Mr. G. A. Audsley's elaborate vol- umes, now in preparation in Paris, on "The Orna- mental Arts of Japan."

Although Prof. West writes freely and gracefully upon any subject which he takes up, his printed works have been but few and of an occasional character. He lias edited an Analysis of Butler's Analogy, as a text- book, whieli has passed through several (amended and enlarged) editions; also several school-books. His ad- dress, before the first annual meeting of the Brooklyn New England Society, December, 1880, on "the 21st of December, as the true anniversary day of the land- ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth," is an exhaustive paper of rare historic value; and his recently published address on the 50th anniversary of the Union College Class of 1832, entitled, " Fifty Years of Progress," is a most thorough, brilliant and permanently valuable record of that wonderful half century in the history of science, literature and art, in which he and his classmates have lived, and of which the professor has been so close an observer. For more than fifty years a teacher, lis habits of trained observation, his pro- gressive spirit and intellectual enthusiasm, have kept him en rapport with all worth knowing in every de- partment of knowledge.

Prof. West has the degree of M. A. from Union and from Columbia Colleges; of M. D., from the Univ. of the City of N. Y .; of LL. D., from Rutgers College; was elected Fellow of the Royal Antiq. Society, of Denmark, 1849 ; is a member of the Am. Ethnologi- cal, the Am. Philological, the New York Historical, the Long Island Historical Soc. (of which he was one of the founders), the N. Y. Century Club, and various other scientifie, educational and learned societies.

The Indian collection of Thomas W. Field, was another remarkable Brooklyn library.

THOMAS W. FIELD was born in the village of Onon- daga Hill in 1820. His father was a native of Connecti- cut, a descendant of the Pilgrim fathers, and connected with Gov. Bradford. Mr. Field received a good common-school education, and taught for several years in Onondaga county. At the age of 23, he became a resident of Williamsburgh, teaching school in New York. Subsequently he engaged in business as a florist; he also made a specialty of the cultivation of pears, and in his little 12mo work on Pear Culture, published in 1858, was regarded as an authority. He was also a surveyor, and did much official surveying. His connection with Williamsburgh's educational in- terests dates back to 1843. For some years he was Principal of a school there, and was a trustee when the consolidation took effect, becoming a member of the Board of Education of the consolidated city. In 1873, he was appointed Superintendent of Schools, which office he held at the time of his death, Nov. 25, 1881.

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Hle was four times married, and left a widow and four children.

His first literary production was a small volume of poems; next followed by the work on Pear Culture be- fore referred to. His connection with the Long Island Historieal Society, in its earlier years, seemed to turn his literary tastes into a new channel. From bio- graphical memoirs, mostly of foreign origin, he became an enthusiastic collector of Americana, at first, mostly relating to Long Island; and he published his Ilistory of the Battle of Long Island, and Historic and Antiqua- rian Scenes in Brooklyn and Vicinity. Then his studies and collections took a wider national scope, finally, to works on the Ethnology of the Aboriginal Americans; and, in 1873, he published An Essay towards an Indian Bibliography, at that time the only extant work on that subject. His collcetion of works illus- trative of the literature, history and archeology of the aborigines of both Americas, came under the hammer in May, 1874, and was the most extensive and complete in that department of research, which has ever been offered for sale. Its line of public documents relating to Indian affairs was unapproachable, containing many works which the Indian Department at Washington had not succeeded in obtaining. His set of De Bry's Voyages was " the most perfect ever sold in America;" while his copy of Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities was one of the few with colored plates. He had, also, eleven of the very rare Eliot Tracts, eight of the Las Casas Traets, and about sixty of the later Indian Mis- sions and Tracts, costing from $70 to $150 each. This collection, which comprised 2,663 titles, as cata- logued by Mr. Joseph Sabin, brought about $10,000. Mr. Field also left a very considerable volume in manuscript, of Aphorisms, both selected and original.

Mr. Field was a man of positive convietions and speech; of very philanthropie disposition, and of untir- ing mental activity. As a historieal writer, he be- trayed the lack of early mental training, and his imagination somewhat unduly influeneed his judgment. Ilis humanitarian tendencies were manifested as plainly in his writings as in his daily speech; especially on the subject of our governmental relations with the Indians, slavery, and other great topies involving the principles of right and wrong-on all of which he spoke and wrote with a free and scathing use of invectives and adjectives, which would have been amusing, had it not been redeemed by the evident honesty of his convic- tions. An amusing instance of his graphie vigor of speech is remembered of him, when, during the recent Civil War, he introduced to Rev. Dr. Bellows, then President of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, a man who was desirous of entering the active service of that Commission in the field and hospital service, in these words: " Here is . He wants to go the front in the service of the Commission. He has the heart of an angel, and the stomach of a horse?" It is needless to

add that the applicant with these necessary qualifiea- tions was promptly accepted.

DANIEL M. TREDWELL, well known to frequenters of the County Clerk's Office, is the author of a most charming little volume, entitled 1 Monograph on Privately Illustrated Books; a Plea for Bibliomania, 1882, being the outcome of a paper read by him, in 1880, before the Rembrandt Club of Brooklyn, of which he was one of the founders; and in its present extended and annotated form possesses great value and interest to the book-lover. Mr. Tredwell began, nearly forty years ago, to offset the tedium of business cares by spending a portion of his evening leisure in " the seductive art of privately illustrating books," and this is not only the record of his experience, but a most important collection of data in regard to the history, methods, and results of this seience in America. When he eommeneed, private illustrating was almost an unknown passion in this country. His first work was a copy of GIRAUD's " Birds of Long Island," a common oetavo, published in 1844, which he illus- trated with 147 prints of great beauty, from other sources. His last work, STILLES' " History of the City of Brooklyn," in three volumes, he has extended to nine, by the addition of some 2,300 pages of various kinds of matter and decorations, mostly portraits and prints of old historie landmarks; there are 780 prints, 260 pages of new matter in manuscript, 60 photographs, 51 old maps (some quite unique), 22 original sketches and water- eolors, besides original letters, etc. Since Mr. Tred- well was bitten with this rabies, he has thus illustrated about 60 works in all, or about 120 volumes. These form, of course, the gems of his fine library; although he is an omnivorous reader, an industrious student, and particularly interested in ethnological and anti- quarian subjeets. He has, also, been engaged for several years, upon a work which, it is hoped, will soon ap- pear from the press, and the title of which will pro- bably be A Sketch of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, or A Literary History of the First Ten Decades of Our Era. If we ean judge from the taste of the quality of his authorship which Mr. Tredwell has given us in his brochure already referred to, it eannot fail to be a most important addition to the store of our knowledge of the World's literary history. Mr. Tredwell is a well-known member of the L. I. ITist. and .Im. Ethnological Soei- eties, and Rembrandt Club; and was, for many years, President of the Philosophical Club of Brooklyn. He resides in Flatbush. (See also Addenda, p. 1332.)

His son, FREDERICK TREDWELL, Very naturally and very successfully earries on the book and print busi- ness, at the corner of Fulton avenue and Boerum place; a pleasant lounging-place for Brooklyn's book- men and artists.

Among other libraries, of which we can only give a passing mention, is that of WHITMAN W. KENYON, President of the Rembrandt Club, rich in works on

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Art and Art-Culture; that of Mr. HAVEMEYER, which is strong in the department of General History and Po- litical Economy; that of HENRY T. Cox, Esq., another member of the Rembrandt. Mr. Cox's privately illus- trated copies of " Walton's Complete Angler," with its 200 water-colors, 130 etchings, and 700 prints (proofs, and on India paper) and titles, original designs, executed in water-colors by F. O. Darley, is a chef-d'œuvre of the illustrator's art. His large paper copy of "Madame Sevigne's letters," extended to fourteen volumes by 750 extra illustrations, chiefly proofs, and many in three stages, is a superb example of the art of illustrating, and his library is otherwise marked by its splendid col- lection of art literature. WILLIAM MATTHEWS, of Brooklyn, is also a " bookish man," largely given to il- lustrating.

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 171

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360