USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 14
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utilized by the British, a square fort was erected, near the intersec- tion of the present Henry and Pierrepont streets, the remains of which had not wholly disappeared in 1836. On Doughty Street fronting the little Elizabeth Street, stood an old stone house, thus on the slope of the hill and near the ferry. This was occupied by Hessian troops as a guardroom, and all persons arrested for any of the numer- ous offenses created by military law, were brought hither for safe- keeping. The headquarters of the British wagon department were also located near the ferry. The main entrance was about where Main Street joins Fulton; the fence thence followed Prospect Street to Jay, and along Jay to the river, coming up from the river again along Main to the gate. The inhabitants having been notified to have in readiness the produce, grain, and other supplies demanded for the army, the wagons would issue forth from this great yard and collect these necessaries, and woe to the farmer who was not ready with his quota.
The mention of the Wallabout at once brings to mind the horrors of the prison ships, which we declined to dilate on in our previous volume. The tales of these ships are too horrible. They all lay within a short distance of each other in Wallabout Cove, in the waters sur- rounding the half submerged mud flat in the center, which has since been utilized and improved for various purposes by the Navy Yard. The dead were usually buried on the nearest shore, huddled together without ceremony or coffin. It is estimated that eleven thousand bodies were deposited in the soil adjoining the cove. Later genera- tions have been somewhat fitfully stirred up to do proper honor to these remains of veritable martyrs to the cause of liberty. Sometimes the neglect of the nation moved private individuals to perform this duty; but, after the lapse of some years, the necessarily inadequate provisions again exposed the honored bones to the element's or to the depredations of the unfeeling. Finally, when Fort Greene was laid out as a park, the remains were deposited in the front of the terraced eminence that faces the great plaza on Myrtle Avenue. There they rest, however, entirely unmarked. One can see that the structure on the first terrace resembles a tomb, and its top is evidently intended to bear a monument. But there is no monument as yet, and the slabs of slate bear no inscriptions setting forth the sacredness of the deposit within, or indeed that there is anything within at all.
Bedford figures with especial prominence during this period of history, because liere were established the headquarters of the British forces on the island. These were located at the house of Leffert Lefferts, the Town Clerk of Brooklyn, who was a Tory. It was situ- ated on the Jamaica Road (now Fulton Avenue), where the Clove Road from Flatbush intersected it, and thus between Nostrand and Bedford avenues, but quite near where the latter passes southward of Fulton. Shortly after the British had gained possession, the authori-
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ties summoned all the loyalists of the neighboring towns to report themselves here. Having been duly recorded they were required to wear a red badge on their hats. Their loyalty was of such effusive sort that even their women wore red ribbons, and their slaves, cut- ting up the rough petticoats of their companions, placed irregular scraps or rags of red upon their usual apologies for head dresses. Hence the whole body of the Loyalists, who gained quite as much of the contempt as of the protection of the British military, were soon denominated by the convenient soubriquet of " Red-rags," a circum- stance which had a wonderful effect in causing the badges to disap- pear. In the vicinity of Bedford Corners, southward of the Jamaica Road, or Fulton Avenue on the slope running up toward the Eastern Parkway or Sackett Street Boulevard, between Franklin and Classon avenues, a camp of Hessians was estab- lished. This was remarkable for the cu- rious huts constructed for the soldiers, which were deep trenches covered with wooden roofs. The remains of these were found in the neighborhood as late as 1852. A sad interest attaches to the Lefferts house headquarters, because of its association with Major André. A campstool of his was long preserved at the house, but is now in the keeping of the Long Island Historical Society. It was from this house that he was called to New York to arrange with Clinton for the conference with Arnold. We learn also from personal recollections of members of the family that among his COL. WILLIAM S. SMITH (of the Long Island Militia). many other accomplishments André un- derstood the Dutch language. One day two of the daughters of Leffert Lefferts were conversing in that tongue in André's presence, not supposing that he could understand them. To their surprise he addressed them in Dutch, and cautioned them against gossiping about their guests.
The study of the history of New York City on Manhattan Island has already shown us what the British were in the habit of doing with the churches of an alien religion. They pursued the same practice in the Dutch towns. The churches there were almost all turned into prisons or hospitals. The church at Brooklyn, however, was treated with more consideration. It may have been used for secular pur- poses at first, but on Sunday, April 5, 1778, it was opened, and ser- vices after the manner of the English Episcopal Church were con- ducted there by the Rev. James Sayre, who also preached a sermon and baptized a child. Prayers and a sermon were again held there on
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the 12th, on the Good Friday following, and on Easter Sunday, the 19th. After this, English services were conducted on three Sun- days of each month, and on the fourth Sunday the Dutch occupied the church. Flatlands enjoys the distinction of having been allowed to go on unmolested with its church services, as well as with its schools. Domine van Sinderen, the Tory Rubel's colleague, well- known as a Whig, did not trouble the Flatbush Church much with his presence, bnt confined himself more particularly to this section of his parish. No less than seventeen infants were baptized in this church in 1776 alone.
At last came Yorktown, in October, 1781; then provisional peace, at last definitive, and finally the evacuation of New York on No- vember 25, 1783. On that day the American flag was raised over the Pierrepont mansion, where the Council of War deciding on retreat had met, and from whose staff the signals for the Battle of Long Is- land had flown. A celebration of the happy event was held at Flat- bush, where gathered all the returned patriots to give emphasis to their joy at their restoration to country and home. Characteristic of the desolation wrought by the enemy was the appearance there of two stanch Kings County Whigs hailing from Flatlands. These were Elias Hubbard and Abraham Voorhees, the father of State Senator John A. Voorhees. All that each found on his return to his farm was an old horse blind of one eye. They hitched these two dilapidated ani- mals together to one wagon, and thus drove to Flatbush, where their appearance and its significance created quite a sensation. As a pru- dent preparation for the jubilee, the keeper of the King's Arms Tavern at Flatbush, by a stroke of genius, preserved its sign as well as its cus- tom under the changed conditions. An American eagle was added to its device of the King's Arms, represented as flying away with the same. Flatbush remained the county seat, a new courthouse being erected in 1793. In April, 1784. the first town meeting was held in Brooklyn, and thus civil authority as well as independence came to restore the ravages of British occupation. These, however, were hardly appreciated by the new government of the State of New York. The patriots in the Legislature looked only to the fact that in Kings County the enemy had found lodgment and comfort and the supply of necessities, and had been rather effusively welcomed and flattered by the people, who remained on their farms. Hence, in May 1784, the Legislature passed an act laying a tax of £37,000 upon the Long Island counties, to make up for their lack of zeal in the cause of inde- pendence, which had cost other parts of the State so much. It seemed unkind not to remember the $200,000 given voluntarily and clande- stinely at the risk of life and goods by various families with patriotic sympathies, for such a sweeping tax would press with equal heaviness upon these, as upon the others who had been too loyal. A better meas- ure was that of 1786, when there was passed a law giving to the va-
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rious towns the privilege of commuting the old quitrents established by the original patents. This could be done by paying all arrearages (deducting the eight years of the war), and a sum equal to that of fourteen years to come, after which they would be forever rid of all further payments.
On March 7, 1788, Brooklyn was first recognized as a town under the State government. Three years before, in April, 1785, the first Brooklyn fire company was formed. At a meeting of freeholders at a tavern near the Ferry, seven men were appointed members of the company. The meeting also pledged itself to raise £150 to pur- chase an engine. In July, 1784, the Tory John Rapalje's property, con- fiscated by the State, was sold by the commissioners for $12,430 to the brothers Comfort and Joshua Sands, who became residents of the town, and were ever afterward identified with some of its best in- terests. The land extended from Gold Street to Fulton, and reached to the river. Some speculators afterward pictured a prospective city on part of the estate, to be called " Olympia." We shall hear of it again. In 1788 the history of shipping on a large scale began for Brooklyn. Before this none but market boats or periaguas had tonched her shores, and loaded or unloaded cargoes; and therefore we notice what an accession to Brooklyn the brothers Sands proved to be, since in that year, a ship owned by them, called the Sarah, took in a cargo of merchandise on this side of the East River. Thereafter brigs and larger vessels came to land on the Brooklyn side, bringing tar, wine, and tobacco from the West Indies, and carrying thither staves, planks, and flour. In 1798 the first " Indiaman " was built on this shore, and in 1799 the United States frigate John Adams, of 32 guns, was launched at the Wallabout, prophetic of the navy yard soon to be established there. In 1796, as a sort of appendix to the New York Directory of that date, was published a list of the people living along Fulton and Main streets. The latter street had become quite well occupied by reason of the establishment of a second ferry in 1795. It was called the " New " Ferry, and began running on Au- gust 1, William Furman and Theodosius Hunt being the lessees. It ran to Catherine Street, New York, and is known by that name to- day. After the evacuation, Captain Waldron was once more given the lease of the old ferry for five years at £500 a year. At the expi- ration of his lease, in 1789, the New York corporation inaugurated a new plan of ferriage. They let out the buildings at either side independently of the ferry, and committed the duty of transporting persons and cattle to six men, each duly licensed, and their rent to be paid quarterly. They were to keep two boats each, a large one for horses, wagons, cattle, etc., the other a small one for conveying pas- sengers and light bundles only. In JJune, 1799, the first newspaper was published in Brooklyn. It was called " The Courier and New York and Long Island Advertiser," issning weekly, every Wednesday
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morning, and living a brief life of four years. The publisher was Thomas Kirk, who put up his printing press at the corner of Old Road (Fulton Street) and Front Street, opposite John Rapalje's place. In December, 1799, General Washington died, and a pamphlet edition (printed by Kirk) of the funeral oration by " Light Horse " Harry Lee, now a major-general, was the first book published in Brooklyn.
In the vicinity of the ferry churches began to spring up of a quite different order from that of the one in the middle of the road at old Breuckelen. Some claim that an Episcopal Church existed in the town as early as 1766. In 1785 a society of that persuasion was organ- ized and worshiped in JJohn Middagh's barn, corner of Henry and Pop- lar streets. In 1787 the church was incorporated. In 1785 a " union,"
VIEW OF THE NARROWS FROM THE OCEAN.
or " independent," church had been organized, who put up a small structure where St. Ann's Building is now, on Fulton Street. Dis- sensions arising. the house was disposed of to the Episcopal Church. and consecrated by Bishop Provost. The church continuing to grow, the little building was enlarged and refitted in 1795, but a year or two later Mrs. Ann Sands ( the wife of Joshua Sands ), gave a lot on the corner of Sands and Washington streets, and here, in 1805, a sub- stantial stone building was erected. Its successor of 1824 was swept away in clearing the ground for the bridge approach. The church was not only indebted to Mrs. Ann Sands and her husband for the lot, but also for liberal donations for its erection, and for great activ- ity in the religious work of the parish. It was but natural, there- fore, that " St. Ann's " should have been the name selected as its title.
After some occasional services held at private houses or in the open air, the first Methodist Episcopal Church was organized and incor-
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porated in May, 1794. In the same year they purchased from the Messrs. J. and C. Sands the ground on Sands Street, which bore a church of that society until recently. Meantime a great change had come over the Dutch Church of Breuckelen. In 1765 the Dutch Church of New York had set the example of calling an English preacher (it seemed high time, a century after the surrender of New Amsterdam). In 1792 it was resolved by the old church here that English services and sermons should characterize the afternoon ses- sions. In 1794 the people at Flatlands built a new church, and in 1796 they of Flatbush erected the fine edifice which, with but few al- terations on the exterior, stands to-day, making an occasion for due gratitude and festivity at its century anniversary in 1896. At Flat- bush, schooling since the Revolution was conducted in English. The classical school before established here was broken up by the war, but the town won glory for itself by the establishment in 1786 or 1787 of " Erasmus Hall Academy." A building was put up at once one hundred feet long by thirty-six deep, at a cost of more than $6.000. In 1794 the Rev. Dr. John Henry Livingston, who ten years before had been elected the first theological professor of the Dutch Reformed Church in America, established himself at this hall, receiving his stu- dents here. Among prominent men graduated here may be mentioned William Alexander Duer, son of the vivacious Lady Kitty Duer, who became president of Columbia College later.
CHAPTER VI.
THE VILLAGE OF BROOKLYN.
E have not advanced very far yet in Brooklyn's history as regards its municipal importance when the present century opens. It is only a township, one of six others in the little County of Kings. In the year 1802 its population counted eighty-six freeholders. Supposing each to be at the head of a family of five, as a safe average, this would give us the figure of about four hundred souls. These, it must be renfembered, too, were distributed over several districts or hamlets as nuclei of population; neighbor- hoods recognized in familiar parlance by names not even yet extin- guished, but not constituting anything like incorporated localities. The districts. we need hardly repeat, were Brooklyn proper (still re- ferred to and written Breuckelen by many), nestling about the old church in the road; Bedford, a little further out along the Jamaica Highway; Cripplebush (from Kreupel bosch, undergrowth, creeping bush), in the vicinity of the present Myrtle, Nostrand, and Flushing avenues; the Wallabout, as of old; Gowanus to the south, touching New Utrecht and the Bay; Red Hook, jntting its point into the Bay at the entrance of Buttermilk Channel, dividing it from Governor's Is- land; and the Ferry, whose conveniences early tempted people both from Long Island and from Manhattan Island to come and reside there. It was here that population and habitations most rapidly in- creased, finally inducing the denizens to incorporate themselves into a village, distinct from the rest of the township of Brooklyn, as we shall note more particularly later. In 1814 the population of the township had run up to 3,805 souls; in 1816 it was 4,402. It is safe to say that less than a thousand of these were to be credited to the other five districts; fully thirty-five hundred possibly lived near the Ferry, or the two ferries, the Old ( Fulton), the New (Catherine). It was in that year that the first movement was made toward village incorporation; in 1817 it was accomplished.
In the very first year of the century a step was taken which began to look like the ultimate incorporation. The portion of the town called Brooklyn was erected into a fire district. This was attended by certain powers and privileges resembling municipal existence; and in the next year. 1802, the foremen of the fire engines were directed to inaugurate a night watch. Buildings were going up in closer
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proximity to each other near the ferry, and hence, in 1807, a. nar- rower fire district was concentrated at that vicinity. It is a pity that Mr. Thomas Kirk's venture into the newspaper business ended in failure and discontinuance of the " Courier and New York and Long Island Advertiser," after a brief life of four years in 1803. For doubt- less we would have had some notice in it then of the great event of August, 1807, when Fulton's Clermont steamed away from the foot of East Houston Street on her way to the dock at Cortlandt Street, and so up the Hudson River. It may have been the length of the title that oppressed the undertaking, or else the lack of population. But in 1809 the latter was creeping up into the thousands, and Mr. Kirk tried his fortune once more with a newspaper which he sensibly called briefly " The Long Island Star." Two years later the publisher sold the paper to Alden F. Spooner, the first real newspaper man who favored Brooklyn with his presence and enterprise. Yet it was not till 1824 that he ventured to publish the "Star " more than once a week. In May of that year he announces that he contemplates the immense undertaking of issuing the sheet twice a week, " the great increase of population and business " warranting so bold a specu- lation then. We find that Mr. Kirk's revival of journalistic ambition was due in part also to a paper which preceded the "Star " by three years. " The Long Island Weekly Intelligencer " was started in June, 1806, by Robinson and Little. In 1821, George L. Birch entered the field with the " Long Island Patriot." Thus, both before and after village incorporation, Brooklyn was already well supplied with jour- nals.
While Brooklyn was progressing with its evolution into a village and preparing for the still higher stage of a city, we are to remember the city by its side, whose extraordinary development was to carry with it the increase and prosperity of all its vicinage. In 1800 New York had already acquired a population of sixty thousand souls. In 1810 New York and Philadelphia were of about equal size, each approach- ing the one hundred thousand mark. But in 1820 New York had distanced Philadelphia, and counted over one hundred and twenty thousand people. In 1827 it had passed two hundred thousand, and in 1834 was nearing three hundred thousand. Bearing these large figures in mind it will be easier to appreciate why a community so near the heart of its business also felt the stir and impulse of grow- ing municipal life. About the means of communication the nucleus for city-being gathered its thickest deposits of habitation. And the original means were of necessity multiplied and improved to invite as well as accommodate the overflow. Hence, an account of " ferry " history, so vital to the development of the " Ferry District." will be appropriate, and we shall consider it from the beginning to the end of the period now in hand, so as to have a complete view at once. without regard to the other events that attended and modified Brook- lyn's progress.
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It has already been noted in the preceding chapter that Catherine Street Ferry was started in 1795. From the " New " Ferry at once a thoroughfare formed itself to the junction with the Old Ferry Road, near the brow of the hill over which it wound away to Breuckelen hamlet and the lands and villages beyond. That is. we find Main Street growing up and touching Fulton at Prospect, just below Sands. Even the huge bridge to-day has not obliterated, although it has con- siderably modified, these old landmarks. It took fourteen years to start the third ferry. A special necessity called for a change of ter- mini in the year 1809; for the yellow fever was ravaging the thick- ening habitations near the old ferries, and it was thought prudent to cross over from the foot of Joralemon Street to that of Whitehall Street in New York. The arrangement must have been temporary as Joralemon Street was rather too far out of town for convenience. Prime mentions what was called CENTS in his day the Jackson Street Fer- ry, plying between Little Street in Brooklyn, running by the Navy FOUR Yard, and what was then Walnut Street, New York. Walnut Street downtown had its name changed to Jackson, the present one of the NASSAU.C former name being far up in the Bronx Borough. This ferry was ADMIT THE BEARER. established in 1817, and was still in existence when Prime wrote, in BROOKLYN FERRY TICKET. 1845. It is worthy of record, as indicating the increase of traffic between Brooklyn and the metropolis, that in 1827 the first night boat was run on the Fulton Ferry.
This could never have been accomplished under the old and primi- tive mode of transportation. For several years after the beginning of this century, the dangers of crossing the ferry were as real and great as at the time of the very first settlements. The rowboat, the flat scow propelled by long sweeps, or feebly pushed by an insufficient sail; the periagua at best, with two masts and form more trim, and, therefore, speed much greater, but not yet great; these were the craft used for ferriage until the year 1814. But the best and swiftest ferryboats could do nothing without wind, or would hardly venture out if the wind were too violent. This meant waiting for man and beast, for, proverbially, the winds and tides would neither wait for nor wait upon any man. The delay of three hours at the ferry after a ride of four hours from Cortelyou's house, around the corner of the Narrows, to which our Labadist tourists were subjected in 1679, was an experience not at all unusual a hundred and thirty-five years after their visit. Then if the risk were taken at half a gale, or with a ram- pant tide, there was no telling where your boat might fetch up. It
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might go sailing gayly past Governor's Island, and be brought about in the lee of Liberty (Bedlow's) Island. You might be landed in the his- torie Kip's Bay, or still further up the island at Turtle (or Deutel) Bay, where then, as yet, Manhattan was innocent of city habitations. With ice-floes tumbling about in the water, peril was added to vexatious delay; indeed, at any time some sudden excitement among the half frightened beeves, calves, sheep, or horses, among which the human passengers were fain to take their places, was apt to send every crea- ture to a watery grave. Add to this the item of boatmen habitually drunk, and we can not wonder that casualties were constantly occur- ring, and furnished many a thrilling incident for the newspapers of the day. It was, therefore, a great event in the history of Brooklyn when a ferryboat was put into service which was independent of wind or tide. It seems incredible that this did not occur till seven years after the Clermont had made its epoch-making run to Albany and back. It was five years after that, or in 1812, that the first steam fer- ryboat crossed regularly between Paulus Hook, or Jersey City, and Courtlandt Street; yet there was no such population on that side as there was on the Brooklyn shore. On April 3, 1814, a Sunday, Catha- rine Street Ferry sent over the first horse or team boat. It resembled the one running on the North River; two keels joined together, cov- ered by one deck over all, and a huge wheel between, which was turned by means of a turnboard or treadmill, upon which eight horses were made to walk. The trip was made in eight minutes at the very best, and with unfavorable conditions in about twenty minutes. Wind and tide, while thus somewhat disturbing yet, now could make but little difference in the traveler's time, and safety was added to swiftness as well as comfort, for there were covered cabins as a pro- tection against the weather and to separate human passengers from those belonging to the brute creation. At first the boats had to turn about in going from landing to landing, but soon an ingenious device made it possible to reverse the application of the power to the big paddle-wheel, and the boats simply went back and forth as they do now. All this was a vast improvement on former times and methods. But it was only a month later when the motor power of steam was substituted for the eight horses upon the Fulton Ferry line. Robert Fulton, who had the monopoly of steam navigation in New York wa- ters, had put into operation the steamboats on the Paulus Hook Ferry. In 1812 he applied for the lease of the old Brooklyn Ferry; it was granted by the Corporation of New York, but not executed till January, 1814. It was to run for twenty-five years. On May 8, the first steam ferryboat, appropriately called the Nassau, crossed from Beekman's Slip to the landing at the foot of the Old Road, or Fulton Street, in Brooklyn. It was again a Sunday, and hundreds crossed over to enjoy the new sensation. The time of crossing was less than that of the horseboats, varying from five minutes at best to twelve
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