USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 16
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facing on Fulton above Front Street, with a distant glimpse of teams passing Front in Main Street, and furnishes vistas along Front and James streets, where resided some of the prominent people of the village. The houses are mostly frame; tapering poplars stand like sentinels at the distance of a few feet from their fronts; in the background, looking toward Columbia Heights, a few scattered houses crown the lofty hills. Almost the first thing that met the gaze of the visitor who had landed at the steamboat dock, or had climbed the stairs from a rowboat, was the market, standing squarely in the center of the Old Road, hardly fifty feet from the slip, its long, untidy, straggling buildings stretching up as far as Elizabeth Street. There were six stands in it, occupied by as many butchers, who were fa- nous citizens in their day, and became men of substance in body as in nurse. The proximity of their slaughter-house was not a desirable feature. The hardware store of Birdsall & Bunce, on the upper corner of Front and Fulton streets, was also a center of interest for the community as the Postoffice, Mr. Joel Bunce serving his country and his neighbors in the capacity of Postmaster. It must not be forgotten, however, that Mr. Thomas Kirk had occupied this corner with his printing and newspaper office when he published the Cour- ier. Towering above the ferry landing, the market, and the lowly dwellings on the left side of the Ferry Road going up, were the Heights, which the art of man and the mighty street-maker have never been able to rob of their glory. Still, at Columbia Street, the steep pitch is in evidence, and along Furman we must crane our necks from the opposite side of the street to get a bare glimpse of the houses whose yards come down in gigantic terraced steps to the lofty granite wall rising perpendicular to the lowest grade of the gardens. Upon the hill then in pristine boldness, washed at its foot by the waves of the East River, whose shores were innocent of wharves, there re- sided merchants or landholders who had accumulated wealth and were disposed to enjoy the fruits of it in elegant mansions, whose piazzas and windows commanded a prospect of unrivaled beauty. Ludlow, Hicks, Waring, Middagh, De Bevois, Pierrepont, Joralemon, these were some of the names whose sound is still familiar to our ears, as denoting streets that have been run through their property. There was a road along the shore under the heights, and here and there a shop or dwelling house, or slip for landing. One man evaporated the salt water in shallow vats; another was a famous boat builder; a third was a waterman, with pumps and casks galore, who would go out in his scow or piragua, and supply the shipping in bay or river with fresh water. About at the foot of what is now Orange Street was a dock for the accommodation of men in the milk business. An- other dock jutted out into the stream about halfway between Clarke and Pierrepont streets, and further south a third one. owned by Samuel Jackson, which bore three wooden storehouses. Large
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stretches of the original shore and beach intervened between these invasions of human ingenuity and business. There large rocks re- ceived the impact of the tides and waves, which advanced and re- ceded over a gravelly beach ; and at specially high tides with westerly winds, the shore road would often be covered with water to such an extent as to be impassable. At the end of this road, where a break in the heights allowed a turn of it back into the interior and among the farms, about where Joralemon Street is now, was Pierrepont's Dis- tillery, which had been Philip Livingston's in earlier times. Here, again, were doeking facilities, a large wharf jutting out into the river. Upon this were erected wooden storehouses, but what was of peculiar interest, and a conspicuous and odd feature of the landscape, or river-scape-a windmill stood to invite the winds of heaven to grind grain for distilling purposes, just as in old Schiedam, the home of " Schnapps," and redolent with gin, windmills are made to serve that purpose, and, therefore, abound and overshadow the quaint little New-York and Brooklyn Ferry. town with their multitude and their gigantic proportions.
SUCH persons as are inclined to compound, agreeable to law, in the Steam Ferry-Boat, Barges, or common Horse Boats, will be pleas. ed to apply to the subscribers, who are authori- zed to settle the same.
Passing up now over the brow of the hill on the Old Road, or Fulton GEORGE HICKS, Brooklyn, JOHN PINTARD, 52 Wall-st. Street, we find it turns to the right sharply as it does now. A pleasing Commutation for a single person not transferable, for 12 months, $10 00 Do. do. 8 months, 6 67 view is afforded by a row of high May 3, 1814 6m. and spreading ancient elm trees, reaching all the way from Orange COMMUTATION TICKET. to Clinton streets. It was the de- light of Talleyrand, the great French wit, cynic, diplomat, to walk under these trees and watch the farm wagons coming into town. He lodged for a while in a house on Fulton Street nearly opposite Hicks, finding it doubtless expedient at that time to court obscurity, and shunning even the drawing-rooms of New York society. On the return of wagons from New York, he would often request a ride into the country, feasting his eyes upon the fertile fields of Flatbush, Flatlands, and the other towns. And that his interest in what he saw was an intelligent one is evinced by the fact that he persuaded the farmers to try the cultivation of the Russian turnip. We find that elm trees were by no means the only kind that were prized by Brook- lyn's villagers. Brooklyn, even as a city, is much more saving of this delightful feature, and presents many more thoroughfares lined on both sides and for long distance with trees, than New York But in these early days of village life the view from the river as one crossed
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over, or a promenade through its rural thoroughfares, revealed a wealth of foliage, and a considerable, if not a boundless, contiguity of shade. Elins and mulberry trees, locust, willow, cedar trees spread their branches over the roadway, and kept the too fierce sun from beating upon the cozy dwellings. A feature not so happy was a rage for poplars between 1813 and 1818, when these tall and gawky trees shot up in front of many a house, only to die soon at the top and present ghastly decay instead of verdant beauty. On the side of the way opposite to that fine row of elms on Fulton Street, we find a few. houses worth noting in our rapid survey. Some of these were large and roomy, occupied by New York business men. Turning the corner at Nassau Street, we learn that the pressure of misfortune has reached some of the people of the prosperous village; for, on Nassau Street, about one hundred feet this side of Jay, a large frame building an- nounces itself as the village " Almshouse," having a two-aere garden around it. Coming back to Fulton Street there appears before us, a little north of the corner of Nassau, a long one-story-and-a-half house, built of bricks brought from Holland. The Provincial Assem- bly in colonial days had met here once or twice when small-pox visited New York, and it had been General Putnam's headquarters during the Battle of Long Island. None of the streets that we pass extend very far, nor are built upon, much beyond Washington Street. Myrtle Avenue was not yet, but there was a Myrtle Street, laid out rudely a short distance to the left of Fulton Avenue. Near the corner, upon some high ground, was a dwelling house, in which was kept a grocery store, surrounded by a garden where the proprietor entertained pic- nie parties. All the way from this house to Wallabout Bay, no houses were in sight. Yet the region along High, Nassau, Concord, and Myrtle, toward the Wallabout, was the very " Olympia " laid out so elaborately, with such convincing arguments that here was the place for a great city.
Going on now for a brief glance at our original Breuckelen, we dis- cover but few houses on either side of the road from Joralemon Street and beyond. The Dutch Church has been cleared out of the way, and its succesor stands now, as we shall soon see, upon the spot familiar to many of us not so very old. But the graveyard still remains, and some vestiges of it turned up when a great emporium was built upon its former site only a few years ago. Near the junction of Joralemon and Fulton streets, where now the County Courthouse stands, was a famous pleasure resort known as the Military Garden. Musical and histrionic art for Brooklyn began its history here. The de Bevoises, descendants of Brooklyn's earliest schoolteacher, disgusted by the ad- vance of population toward their farm on the heights, near Pierrepont Street, sold it to Hezekiah B. Pierrepont for $28,000, and went further out into the country. They built a house on the site of what many of us have later known as " The Abbey " (by name, if not otherwise ),
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on Fulton Avenue, near where the present Flatbush Avenue forms a junction with it. At that time Fulton Avenne did not go on past this junetion, but the JJamaica Road turned toward Flatbush, and did not defleet on its way eastward until about opposite the junction of Fifth Avenue (then the Gowanns Road ) with the present Flatbush Ave- nue. The de Bevoises were a peculiar pair of brothers. They culti- vated the strawberry with great assiduity and exclusiveness, refusing to give slips of their plants to anybody, and thus securing almost the monopoly of that delicious berry in the New York markets. To the de Bevoises must be traced the origin of a street ery which fills the air of a summer night to this day, and is a domestic feature as unique to Brooklyn as the song of the gondolier to Venice. Who that does not occupy quarters too oppressively aristocratic, where human kind mingle genially instead of trying to keep away from each other, but has listened with delight, feeling that indeed he was at home in his own city, to the cry, " Hot corn, hot corn!" The cry was started, and the peddling of this palatable viand of summer evenings was begun by Mr. de Bevoise's Black Peg. As early as 1807 of 1808. this had become a feature of Brooklyn life. The fresh young corn, hot from boiling, and running with the melting butter, was sent around town by the thrifty brothers, under the care of their negro slave Margaret or Peggy. There was a quick response to the cry from the watery- mouthed denizens of the village, and the great city has not yet out- grown its taste for the corn, or its delight in the cry.
This brief survey of the village of Brooklyn must suffice, and now we must hasten on with an account of events that filled up the inter- val between its incorporation as such, and its attaiment of the dig- nity of city life. As population increased the necessity for care that the people's health be guarded increased also. One of the earliest measures of the village government was to appoint officials whose special function it was to remove dirt and filth from the streets; but there were paved streets as well as unpaved ones, and it seems that the former alone were embraced in this salutary provision. There was no less dirt and filth on the others, and diseases bred, therefore, as they did in the more densely populated city across the river. When the yellow fever ravaged New York in 1822 and 1823 Brooklyn had its share of cases. The pest raged particularly in the neighborhood of the docks and dwellings at the foot of the heights, where ships in- fected with the disease landed and discharged cargoes, and where stores of perishable goods spread insupportable stenches. In 1824 the Legislature incorporated a Board of Health for Brooklyn, and in 1830 a dispensary was established. A year or two later plans for supply- ing the village with water were proposed, but not acted on. By unit- ing several springs on the East River shore, and pumping the water by the action of the retiring tide, as mill wheels were turned, it was thought a reservoir placed at the terminus of Cranberry Street, at the
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highest point on the Heights, could be kept filled with water, whence there would be " head " enough to send water into dwellings in every part of town. In 1820 several small markets had sprung up in various portions of the village, and it began to be thought that the lowlands or mudflats along the river shore should be permanently invaded by streets and buildings, after raising their level by soil from the hills. Such important and well-populated streets as Front and Hicks were still in a condition that left much room for improve- ment. Street lamps were not generally provided by the public gov- ernment, and they had not spread as far as the junction of Main and Fulton streets. In 1821 the village contained six hundred and twenty- six houses, and two years later there were eight hundred and sixty- five. In all the town there were a little over a thousand, of which not quite one hundred and fifty were of stone or brick. A great nov- elty it was for the denizens of the village when the first " skyscrap- ers " of that day were erected. They were a row of two brick houses, arranged for stores beneath and dwellings above, built on Fulton Street, on the right-hand side, opposite the junction of Main and Ful- ton. They attained the then extraordinary height of three stories, and were ready for occupancy on January 1, 1824. A year or two be- fore, however, that dizzy elevation had been attempted, but only the fronts of the houses were of brick. In 1822 the Village Board ordered the numbering of houses on Fulton, Main, Front, Hicks, and High streets, the owners to pay for the improvement, with the usual result that it was done and not done, and it was harder to find a house with a number than one without. Seven years later the authorities set about correcting the numbers of the houses, with the good result that a directory was now possible, which was published by the Star man- agement. At first, gravel sidewalks with curbing were laid along both sides of Fulton, as had been done in Main Street; but in 1825, flagstones were first utilized for the purpose. In the year 1824 the village, in addition to its Almshouse, bought a poor-farm near Fort Greene for $3,750. This was outside of the village bounds, and pre- sumably the benefit was to be shared by town and village. It was not easy always clearly to distinguish between the two, and the diffi- culty lay in regulating the affairs of a populous village by laws appli- cable to the limited numbers of a town. Hence, a committee of village and town met in 1828 to consider the adjustment of relations, and the adoption for the village of modifications in town laws so as to make them suitable for its enlarged being. In this same year, 1828, it was proposed to the Board of Trustees to light Fulton Street with gas, at $14.31 per annum for each lamp.
Municipal progress was both attended and caused by the vigorous advancement of the community in the lines of business and industry. In a community of over seven thousand souls, having its own enter- prises of commerce and manufacture, as well as those which were,
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so to speak, an overflow from the superabundance of New York, it became necessary to facilitate financial transactions. Hence, in 1824, we see that the first bank was organized and incorporated. It was called the " Long Island Bank," inviting thereby the patronage of residents outside of the village. The first directors, as mentioned in the act of incorporation, were Messrs. Leffert Lefferts, Jehiel Jagger, John C. Freecke, John C. Vanderveer, Jordan Coles, Silas Butler, Fanning C. Tucker, Jacob Hicks, Henry Waring, Nehemiah Denton, Elkanah Doolittle, Thomas Everitt, Jr., and George Little. Mr. Lefferts was chosen President of the bank, which he served in this important capacity for twenty-two years. A few months later steps were taken to establish a second bank. The movement was headed by one gentleman of Jamaica and another of Flatbush, and three of Brooklyn. Its title was to be the "Long Island Farmers' and Me- chanics' Bank," and it was to be located in the village of Brooklyn. Three years later saw the organization of the "Brooklyn Savings Bank." of which Adrian van Sinderen was President. He. as well as the other officers, served without compensation. In 1832 the " Brooklyn Bank " began its career, and, as it does not appear that the scheme of the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank came to maturity, it is put down as being the second bank established in the city. A financial institution naturally following in the wake of these was a fire insurance company. The " Brooklyn Fire " was incorporated and began business in May, 1824, on the corner of Front and Dock streets. William Furman was its first President. That commerce was turning its course toward the shores of Brooklyn, making it play its part in the great harboring facilities afforded by bay and river, is shown by some shipping statistics of the year 1824. On July 1, there were lying moored at the wharves in front of the village eight full-rigged ships; six hermaphrodite brigs, three masted, one square-rigged; ten brigs, twenty schooners, and twelve sloops. Such progress in shipping busi- ness necessitated accommodations for custom house purposes, and Collector of the Port Jonathan Thompson caused to be erected (in 1823) a three-story fire-proof warehouse on Furman Street, at the river's edge, near the foot of Cranberry. This was the first bonded warehouse established in Brooklyn. A new market was provided for the convenience of householders and farmers in James Street, which ran in the rear of Fulton Street houses on the left going up from the ferry, but which has been recently obliterated by the bridge ap- proaches. Statistics of industry in the village days are of interest, as showing the remarkable activity in various lines of manufacture and trade. There were eight rope walks and seven distilleries in 1824. There were tanneries, white-lead factories, a glass works, a floor-cloth factory, a pocketbook factory, a comb factory, sealskin factory. seven tidemills, two windmills, seventy grocery and drygoods stores, two printing offices. Real estate in the village in 1824 was assessed at
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no less than $2,111,390. The business thrift and increasing popu- lation naturally led to a rise in prices for lots. These, at a distance of two miles from the ferry, sold for the fabulous sums of from $60 to $200 each! A large property, before used as a pleas- ure garden, at the jmetion of Flatbush and Jamaica Roads, was bought for $57,000 in 1833, and realized nearly $70,000 when sold in lots at auction. The matter of transportation received some attention also during this period. In 1819, Messrs. Bedell and Gibson an- nounced to the public that they would run a stage or wagon, " as cir- (umstances may require," from the ferry to the east gate of the
A BROOKLYN FERRYBOAT OF ABOUT 1820
Navy Yard, established in 1801, as we shall notice presently. The distance was advertised to be one and a half miles, fare 25 cents, but if there were more than two passengers, the rate was only 123 cents apiece. In May, 1820, the people of the village began to enjoy the lux- ury of a daily mail to New York and Jamaica, their privileges that way reaching only a semi-weekly service before. The Postoffice was moved in 1824 from the corner of Fulton and Front streets, a little further up the former, to a stationery store opposite Hicks Street. In 1829, Adrian Hegeman became Postmaster, and held the office for twelve years.
Meanwhile, what was going on among the people themselves, aside
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from their civil and business life? Amusements were not to be for- gotten. In Guy's picture we find marked a house on Front Street, second from the corner of James, which is called Mrs. Chester's " Cof- fee Room." The history of the stage in Brooklyn begins with this modest resort, as the " cradle of the drama." Here, in the long room, Brooklyn's best people used to come to be entertained by young Gorge H. Hill, " Yankee Hill," in recitation, song, war dances. Hill had graduated as a " super " from the Park Theater in New York, and was but fifteen years old in 1824. At the Military Garden men- tioned above, near the junction of JJoralemon Street with Fulton Avenue, a great attraction appeared in the Assembly Room in the person of the colored comedian, John Hewlett, who had learned to imitate the actors Cooper and Cooke, having been their valet. More satisfactory histrionic exhibitions, however, were provided in 1826 at Mrs. Chester's Coffee Rooms by companies from New York theaters, who were " off " for a week or more from their own boards. In 1828 a large frame building was erected on Fulton Street, below Concord, which was intended for equestrian displays, or, to be plainer, a cir- cus. It was called the " Brooklyn Amphitheater." Fortune forsook this ambitious enterprise, and the Amphitheater was changed into a theater. It did not last long. Its final scene was an andience withont a play to entertain it, which, naturally, produced an uproar and a precipitate vacating of the premises. So the people of Brooklyn were fain to get amused as well as they could at Du Flon's " Military Gar- den " aforesaid. Its Assembly Room, after being provided with a stage, could accommodate an audience of eight hundred people. 1 more sinister feature of the town was the diversion of a low character sought by young men in the abundant taverns of the place. In 1831 there were one hundred and twenty-eight places licensed to sell liquor. which provided a tavern for every thirty-two male inhabitants. It is no wonder that dissipation was prevalent, and that a contemporary writer, who was familiar with the facts, declares that three-fourths of the prominent young men of the village were destroyed in reputation and life by the habit of drink.
Yet the best remedy for the deterioration of morals and character, the schools, was already in flourishing operation in Brooklyn. At the beginning of the century a good school, with two teachers and sixty scholars, was maintained at the Ferry. In 1810 there were two or three schools besides, held at the houses of the teachers. There was also the " Brooklyn Select Academy," tanght by John Mabon, who went a little beyond the common branches. But hitherto the idea of providing instruction free of charge to every child in the community had not yet taken hold of the people on this side of the river. As in New York, so in Brooklyn, the idea of free instruction at all arose in connection with religions charity; neglected children, from irreligious homes, not identified with churches, must be re-
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claimed and educated by means of voluntary gifts of money by Chris- tian people. In 1813 a number of pious women established a school called the Loisian Seminary, taking as its patron saint, Lois, the grand- mother of Timothy. Here poor children were to be taught the com- mon branches, and the girls sewing and knitting, free of cost, a suit- able room in a private house being provided. Young ladies were ex- pected to give their services as teachers; of twenty-four thus accepted, two by two took their turns each week; one of the five trustees (all ladies) taking her turn each week to act as superintendent. Mrs. Sands was at the head of this enterprise, which continued in active operation during five years. By this time the volunteers had ex- hausted their zeal, and now a salaried teacher was engaged. In 1816 a public meeting was held to consider the project of a public school on a larger basis than this benevolent enterprise. Andrew Mercein, John Seaman, and Robert Snow were elected a Board of Trustees, with John Doughty as Clerk. Relations were at once established with the Loisian Seminary, and steps taken to bring over this school under the general system, and utilize it till building and teacher could be secured. A frame schoolhouse was built on the corner of Concord and Adams streets, the expense for house and lots being laid as a tax on the inhabitants. John Dikeman was the first teacher of this school, which was called District School No. 1, and upon the site of which Public School No. 1 was built later. Even yet, however, the vicious principle of discrimination prevailed, for the Trustees were author- ized " to exonerate from the payment of teacher's wages all such poor and indigent persons as they shall think proper." Schooling was not yet free to all; to some it was a " charity." In 1827, at a meeting of citizens, it was resolved to erect a female seminary of learning. This resulted twelve years later in the incorporation of the " Brooklyn Collegiate Institution," which spent its whole capital of $30,000 in building a fine structure on Hicks Street, familiar to a later day as the Mansion House; for the Seminary had to be abandoned and the building became a fashionable boarding-house. As another impor- tant educational movement may be recognized the organization in 1833 of the Brooklyn Lyceum, for the promotion of moral and intel- lectual improvement. P. W. Radcliffe was its first President. In 1827, No. 2 of the District Schools (becoming No. 7 when those of other " neighborhoods " in the township were ranked with those of the village), was begun in a rented frame house corner of Adams and Prospect streets. The Lancasterian plan of teaching was pursued here as in No. 1. In 1838, No. 2 (then No. 7), was removed to a build- ing on Bridge Street near Plymouth, and again, in 1840, to its pres- ent location, Bridge and York streets. In 1830, District School No. 3 (later No. S) was started in the Dutch Reformed Schoolhouse on Mid- dagh Street. Here children of the church had been taught under the care and at the cost of the officers of the society, if unable to pay
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