USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 17
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for tuition. The building was now transferred to the uses of the pub- lie school system.
Such then was the village of Brooklyn in several of its features dur- ing the years that it was such, or from 1816 to 1834. In the latter year it was ready to take its place among the cities of the Union. When it became a village its population was less than five thousand; in 1820 it was approaching eight thousand; in 1825 it was past ten thousand; in 1830 it had exceeded fifteen thousand souls. As early as Decem- ber, 1825, a public meeting was called to discuss the question of incor- poration as a city. But the proposition was overwhelmingly defeated, and, in disgust, the attendants voted to adjourn any such meeting for twenty-one years. In 1827, and again in 1833, a project was broached that is peculiarly interesting to us of the present day, name- ly, union with the City of New York into one city corporation. In the latter year a bill for incorporating the City of Brooklyn was brought before the Legislature of the State, and passed the Assembly, but the strong opposition of New York City caused it to be lost in the Senate. The next year, 1834, the people were again before the Legislature, and finally, on April 8, the bill was passed and became a law, which made Brooklyn a city.
The history of a city which has for several decades proudly borne the title of the " City of Churches," certainly requires a careful, low- ever brief, survey of the organization of church societies and the erec- tion of church buildings belonging to the several denominations, during the period now under consideration. And it is eminently proper we take up, to begin with, the fortunes of our ancient land- mark, so placidly obstructing the tide of travel on the Jamaica and Flatbush road, between the present Lawrence and Duffield streets It stood there yet, with characteristic Dutch pertinacity, when the nineteenth century opened. But, in 1810, the church was removed, a new one being built on Joralemon's Lane, now Joralemon Street, where many of us have seen its latest successor, but where now an open space suggests a little park. The building first erected here in 1810 was not much of an improvement in the way of architecture upon the older one, being of gray stone, with small windows, and a heavy square tower. Where the City Hall now stands was an open field, so that the church could be seen from afar. Thus at the time of the in- corporation of the village. the old Brooklyn Church was well within the village boundaries. The plan which had bound the churches of the various towns together under one management and pastorate was broken up soon after the present century began. In 1802, the Rev. John B. Johnson was called as Pastor for Brooklyn alone. English preaching had now been in vogue for nearly ten years, and even in the country churches the Dutch language was not used at all of the ser- vices. The next church in importance, as well as in historical order, was St. Ann's Episcopal. In 1805 a stone church was erected on
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ground donated by Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Sands, on the corner of Sands and Washington streets. A powder mill exploded in its vicinity in 1808, and ever after that the people were suspicious of the strength of the walls. Hence, steps were taken to erect a new edifice, which was dedicated in 1825. The Rev. John Ireland, whose name we have already met with in connection with important movements for the publie good in the village, was the first rector. Among his successors in the early years of the century were the Rev. Henry U. Onderdonk, who became Assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania, and the Rev. Chas. P. Mellvaine, who became Bishop of Ohio. The parsonage of the church was at the corner of Clark and Fulton streets. As the village grew in population other Episcopal churches followed in the wake of the mother church-St. John's, on the corner of Washington and John- son streets, in 1826; and St. Paul's, organized in 1833 as a mission of St. Ann's, in Middagh Street, but removing to a building of its own and with a separate organization, in Pearl Street, near Concord, in 1834. In 1810 the Methodist people had so increased that their old church was too small, and a new building was put up on the Sands Street site. Ground for a parsonage back of it, fronting on High Street, was donated by Mr. Joshua Sands, of St. Ann's, whose liberal- ity was not limited by denominational lines. In 1817 the colored members of the church organized a church of their own. Six years later the mother church sent ont another daughter enterprise, organ- ized then into the York Street M. E. Church. In 1831 the Washington Street M. E. Church was added to the other societies, giving to the Methodist persuasion a prominent place among the Christian people of the village. At the beginning of the century no separate church organization had been provided for townspeople of the Catholic faith, and very few were found here. It was not till 1822 that they were mimerons enough to think of establishing a church and parish of their own; before that, the pastor of St. Peter's, in Barclay Street, New York, regarding them as under his pastoral care. A meeting was held at a private house on the corner of Washington and York streets, at which it was discovered that at least seventy were in a condition to contribute money or labor toward erecting a building. Eight lots were bonght on the corner of Jay and Chapel streets, and, in Angust, 1823, the edifice was ready for consecration and occupancy, the Bishop of New York officiating at the interesting service. The church was called St. James's. Among those active in this enterprise as a layman was Mr. George Mccloskey, who had a farm near Fort Greene, and was in the milk business. His son was destined to become Archbishop of New York, and to be honored with a cardinal's hat. Churches of the Presbyterian order were long represented solely by the Dutch Reformed Church. But, in 1822, the Presbyterians them- selves came to the foreground in Brooklyn village, and organized the First Presbyterian Church, ocenpying the ground later made world-
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famous by Plymouth Church, on Orange Street. These were the days when the Presbyterians were apt to stand arrayed against each other as of the old school or new school, and hence another " First " church comes in to confuse the record. After that, in 1831, a Second for was it Third?) was organized, and in 1834 was able to occupy a fine brick edifice on Clinton Street, near Fulton, now covered up in front by ar- rangements for a store, but yet in the rear retaining its old form, though turned to secular uses. The Baptists began churchwork in Brooklyn in 1822, and, after long worshiping in private houses, and in the district schoolhouse on Middagh Street, the " First Church " built for itself in 1826 a meeting-house on Pearl Street, between Con- cord and Nassau streets. In 1830 a " Second Church " was organized, which built a house of worship on the corner of Tillary and Lawrence streets in 1834, the year of the beginning of the city. Although the " Independents " were early in the town, and, as we saw, before the end of the eighteenth century had a little building on the spot after- ward occupied by St. Am's and its burying-ground, and now by the St. Ann business block on Fulton Street, it seems they were too in- dependent to be adhesive. Hence the sale of the meeting-house to St. Ann's people, and not till ten years after Brooklyn became a city was the first Congregational church organized. We have seen that the village was well supplied with churches, yet the increase was most rapid only after 1820, so that not many years after 1834 Brooklyn could with justice be given the name it has since borne of the " city of churches," the term being prevalent certainly about the year 1840.
In the same year that Brooklyn became a village began that feature of her social and religious life so conspicuous and so mique, the Sun day-school work. New Orleans may have her Carnival Day and New York her Evacuation Day, but neither of these municipalities can equal in the enthusiasm of celebrating those events that which pos- sesses the whole city of Brooklyn when her " Maywalk " of the Sun- day-schools comes around; when armies of children, almost as miner- ous as those constituting the "Children's Crusade " in the Middle Ages, march through her streets, reviewed by the most distinguished people of the Union, from the President of the United States down to men of less official standing, but often of greater personal repute. In December, 1815, a Sunday-school for the instruction of slaves was inaugurated at Flatbush. In March, 1816, a Sunday- school for negro and other children before neglected, was in oper- ation in Brooklyn. It seems that reading and writing were taught as well as religious doctrines. The plan was subsequently modified, with less, if any, of secular instruction, and all the efforts bent on morals and religion. As the result of a public meeting the " Brooklyn Sunday-school Union Society " was organized, with Joshua Sands as President, Andrew Mercein and Abraham Remsen
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as Vice-Presidents, Thomas Sands, Treasurer, and Rector Ireland, Secretary. Sessions of the school, under the former less organized régime, had been held in Thomas Kirk's printing office, which he had moved from the corner of Front and Fulton streets to Adams, be- tween High and Sands. With the new impulse now given, larger quarters were needed, and District School No. 1, at Concord and Ad- ams streets, was utilized. There is a hiatus in the record for a while, and the enterprise seems to have been suspended. In 1818, the Epis- copalians organized a Sunday-school of their own. In 1821, a stimu- lus to renewed effort was given by the example of New York. All the denominations combined in the endeavor to maintain one school where children could be gathered together from the streets on the Sabbath and taught divine truth. But as the movement continued to meet with even greater success, the one schoolhouse became too lim- ited, and, after 1823, the different churches adopted the practice of having their own schools.
It has been sufficiently indicated that, when throughout this period of 1800 to 1834 we speak of Brooklyn township, we embrace more than when, in 1816, we begin to speak of Brooklyn Village. Outside of the village the neighborhoods of the town were as yet distinct from it, and distinct from each other. Such was the case even with the Wallabout. otherwise so closely contiguous. In the history of the Wallabout, as yet separate from that of Brooklyn, the first thing that looms up is the establishment of the Navy Yard. This took place in the very first year of the century, or, in February, 1801. A Mr. John Jackson had bought an extensive territory here from the Remsen family, and upon this he erected a dock and shipyard. The government bought about two hundred acres, but leased the ground to some one for a number of years without putting it to the uses intended. It was not indeed till 1824 that the Secretary of the Navy, in a report to the President, recommended that a first-class navy yard be established here, and the admirable appointments seen there now all date subsequently to that year. In 1805, the Wallabout, by a single simple construction, came to be on the highway of travel between a populous and prosper- ous part of the Island and the ferries at Brooklyn. Before 1802 the Flushing people were wont to travel to Brooklyn via Jamaica and the Jamaica Road, through Bedford to the ferries. At that time a Mr. William Prince, of Flushing, combined a number of gentlemen into the " Flushing Bridge and Road Company," who built a causeway and bridge over the salt meadows at the head of Flushing Bay. This reduced the distance to Brooklyn by four miles. The farmers now came through Newtown, and so, by the Cripplebush Road, still through Bedford. In 1805 the enterprising Mr. Prince saw a chance to cut off another three miles, by a causeway and bridge over the meadows or flats at the Wallabout Cove. He organized the " Wallabout and Brooklyn Tollbridge Company." Leaving the Cripplebush Road about
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where Flushing Avenue is now, the new road led toward the hills, of which Sands Street now forms the ridge. The bridge and causeway extended from the end of Sands Street to about the corner of Flushing and Portland avenues, where was the tollgate. Naturally, this diver- sion of traffic hitherward caused a nucleus of the later city to gather here. Mr. Jackson's ship-carpenters had already built a number of lit- tle dwellings in the vicinity. In 1830, there was population enough to constitute it a village by itself. In 1832, streets were laid out. The Old Mill Pond, which had covered the space of the present City Park, was now no more. A ropewalk stretched from Classon Avenue to Graham Street, and its employees came to swell the number of residents in 1830.
Turning now for a brief glance at the his- tory of the component towns we shall find but little to record in the way of secular matters, and we shall observe the breaking up of the cu- rious collegiate system, which had hitherto made of them all one ecclesiastical unit. Even in the nineteenth cen- tury the dwellers in Flatbush had not for- gotten the fatherland. In 1801, John C. Van- REV. DR. JOIN H. LIVINGSTON. derveer, whose farm was in the southern portion of the town, near the Flatlands line, engaged competent mechanics to build him a mill, such as abounded in Hol- land, and did such splendid service there. A solid foundation wall of stone was laid. rising three feet above the surface. Upon this rose a framework of immense oaken timbers, twenty-eight feet high and two and a half feet thick. This was carried to a height of four stories, so that the flat country in the vicinity could be surveyed from its top far and wide. The crossbeams for the attachment of the sails, or the arms to turn with the wind, were twenty-six feet long. They turned three sets of stones. In 1804 it was completed, and stood in pristine vigor, although a tempest in 1821 and another in 1831 tore off the sails, until 1879, when fire put an end to the sturdy mill. In 1820, a second windmill, circular in form, but only twenty-five feet high. was erected on the corner of the present Erasmus Street and Nostrand
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Avene. It turned but one set of stones, and was taken down in. 1868. In 1809 steps were taken to make a turnpike of the road to Brooklyn. upon which a tollgate was placed near the junction of the Jamaica Road, about where Fifth and Flatbush avenues now cross. It has been already noted that in 1815 a Sunday-school of negroes was started in Flatbush, which embraced instruction in the common branches; that same year the undertaking was extended so as to fur- nish classes every evening in the week. In 1821 a fire department was organized, but not much was done by it until 1825, when an en- gine was procured from Connectient. It was worked by abont eight men. Water was introduced into a large square box, supported upon wheels, which had to be filled by passing pails from hand to hand from the nearest pond or creek, the pumping being required to throw the water upon the building on fire. not to fill the tank. In 1827 sidewalks were neatly constrneted in front of each property. giving a handsome appearance to the road through the village. Flat- bush was already famous for its trees in Revolutionary days, one fa- mous old linden tree having enjoyed the honor of sheltering Wash- ington from the fierce rays of the sun. While the Rev. Peter Lowe, pastor of the Dutch Church (now having English preaching), was acting as Principal of Erasmus Hall, the actual teaching force was placed under the direction of Mr. Joab Cooper in 1806. Those whose schooldays, like those of " Felix Oldboy," reach back to the " forties," will remember this famous teacher's name as the author of " Cooper's Virgil." In the last year of the period now in hand, 1834, the Rev. William H. Campbell was appointed Principal of old " Erasmus." He, too, attained fame in the educational world as the head of the Albany Normal School, Professor of Hebrew in the Theological Semi- nary of the Reformed Church at New Brunswick, N. J., and, finally, for many years the President of Rutgers College, in that city, In 1826 Erasmus Hall was enlarged by the addition of a wing fifty feet long by twenty-five deep. In 1830 a line of stages between Flatbush and Brooklyn was established by Smith Birdsall, a stage leaving in the morning and returning in the evening. Postoffice facilities were prim- itive; letters for Flatbush people were addressed to Brooklyn, and were brought over informally as a matter of courtesy by some one who daily went to Brooklyn on business. In this same year the Conn- ty Poor-Farm was bought at Flatbush. In 1832, fire destroyed the Comthonse, and, therenpon, the county seat was removed to Brooklyn Village, now approaching the dignity of a city, and thus well de- serving of being the capital. In 1834, we notice the first feeble be- ginnings of a system of streets, since completed on paper at least, and merging with the plans of the city that now is. Erasmus and John- son streets, at right angles to each other, and still so named, were laid out, and soon occupied by a number of English mechanics, giving rise to the " English neighborhood."
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The breaking up of the collegiate church system was gradual. Do- mine Schoonmaker, whom we saw the pastor of Gravesend and Har- lem combined, became pastor of all the Dutch towns in 1785, when Gravesend first came into the compact. In 1787, the Rev. Peter Lowe became his colleague. Five years later he was charged with the English services, while Domine Schoonmaker preached in Dutch un- til his death in 1824, and was thus the last preacher in that language on Long Island. Piece by piece the combination had been broken. In 1802 Brooklyn learned to stand by itself again. In 1808 Flatbush and Flatlands separated from the rest, with Mr. Lowe as their pas- tor, who thus served them until his death in 1818. Four years later (1822) there was another break, Flatbush standing now by itself, with the Rev. Thomas M. Strong as the first sole pastor. Meantime the " New Lots" of Flatbush ( now Brooklyn's Twenty-sixth Ward ), had become so well populated that a church was organized there in 1823, and in 1824 a building was dedicated. Flatlands formed one parish with this, under one pastor.
Before this, Flatlands had shown its progress in wealth and mmm- bers by improving the interior of the elmrch shortly after the com- bination with New Lots. A modern pulpit took the place of the " wineglass," with its " lid" or sounding-board; and the novelty of stoves was ventured on, considered by many a grievous infringement upon the arrangements of Providence, who meant that people should freeze in winter and swelter in summer. In 1831, Flatlands, whose jurisdiction embraced the now malodorous Barren Island, was there- by brought in connection with some movements in the outer world. For here the Pirate Gibbs buried part of his ill-gotten gains just be- fore his career came to an end. Gravesend plays another part in that tragedy. For at Leonard's Hotel, at Sheepshead Bay, Gibbs and two of his companions were denounced as murderers by a third one, whereupon the proprietor seized the culprits and delivered them over to justice, thereby doing a service to the commerce of the country, to which Gibbs had become a terror. During the war of 1812, Graves- end redeemed its earlier record somewhat by sending a good quota of men to fight the English. Gravesend, as a church, was served for many years by pastors of the other towns; but, in 1832, the separation from the others was completed by a call upon a pastor, the Rev. Isaac P. Labagh, exclusively for themselves. The next year steps were taken to put up a new building, and it was dedicated in January, 1834. The building stood and was in use until only a few years ago. New Utrecht also became a separate congregation in 1809, when the Rev. John Beattie became the pastor solely for this church. In 1829 the old Church on the corner of Sixteenth Avene was abandoned, and the present stone edifice erected at the turn of the broad King's Highway toward Flatbush. Hence, it looks, from a distance, as if the church ocenpied the approved location of old Dutch towns-the middle of the
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road. New Utrecht seems to have been before the outside towns in harboring men of other faiths, for, in 1831, a Methodist Episcopal church was organized at Bay Ridge; and, in 1834, St. John's Episcopal Church was inaugurated at Fort Hamliton. The United States pur- chased the land for this fortification in 1814, but work was not com- menced until 1825. In July, 1831, the fort was completed sufficiently for occupancy by a garrison, which arrived in November, 1831. It commemorates the name of Alexander Hamilton, who, during the brief expectation of war with France in 1798, was asked by New York City to formulate a plan of defenses for the harbor. According to the plans of this fertile and versatile mind, to whose financial genius the country owed its credit, and New York its financial prestige, the works at the Narrows and at the entrance of the Sound, were tardily built years after his death. It was well that one of these forts should bear his name, and that another should be called after General Schuy- ler, the father of his estimable wife.
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CHAPTER VIL.
THE EARLIEST CITY OF BROOKLYN.
HE incorporation of Brooklyn as a city had been strenuously opposed by its big neighbor across the East River, from its first inception to its final accomplishment. The reasons for this objection were perhaps none of the noblest. Some of these were frankly stated in a public paper; some of them suggested themselves as obvious, but received no distinet statement. It was asserted plainly that two cities on opposite sides of a narrow channel, both deriving their prosperity from the pursuit of commerce, would produce a rivalry between them hurtful to both. But it is hard to see how a city of nearly three hundred thousand souls could fear with justice the rivalry of one scarce twenty-five thousand strong. The increase of the trade of the one would be but the reflection or the over- flow of the other; what was business for one was six times the business for the other. We are inclined to think, therefore, that the less open and less worthy motives for opposition charged by champions of Brooklyn were at bottom the causes that actuated New York to use every means of persuasion at Albany to defeat the bill for incorpo- ration. " Capital, speculation, and monopoly," says Dr. Stiles " joined hands in a most formidable league against the aspirations and en- deavors of Brooklyn." There was danger that, under the benefits of city life, the business men of New York, professional men and clerks, and even merchants, would find it more convenient to cross the river than to work their way uptown beyond Fourteenth Street. In comparison with Harlem, Brooklyn was certainly a far more ae- cessible place for residence. Those, therefore, who owned property in the upper portions of Manhattan Island, saw peril to their interests in the scheme of Brooklyn's incorporation. A mere township or a village, too, might not very strenuously dispute with the metropolis its curious hold upon land on the opposite side of the river from itself. This nnnatural extension of territorial rights had been quietly slipped into one charter after another, while the plain farmers on Long Island only thought how nice it was that a wealthy corporation should put up houses on both sides of the river and provide increasingly con- venient means of transportation. But a city at the river's edge would have something to say about jurisdiction over the shores within its bounds, and be apt to dispute the validity of the claim. And now the
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ferry control had come to realize for the corporation of New York a very handsome income as rental, and no expense whatever for boats or ferryhouses. These considerations of possible personal loss would explain, if they do not justify, the hostility of New York men to the measure of incorporation while pending before the Legislature of the State.
We are not disposed to enter into the merits or demerits of this con- troversy, nor to assume to act the judiciary part. We extract from the incident only the historian's just measure of information as to the state of things and the opinions or feelings of men at a period now long past. And certain phases of the discussion afford us a clear insight into the opinions of a past generation on a question of very great interest to the present one. We are apt to imagine that what our days see accomplished our own days also have originated. It is most instructive and startling to notice with what quiet unconcern the peo- ple of these earlier decades appropriated the notions that seem only warranted by the developments of a later date. A special committee of the Common Council of New York was appointed to formulate the plausible objections that could be brought against the bill for incor- porating Brooklyn as a city. Among these formulated arguments opposing it we find it quietly remarked that the time would soon be when a population of two millions would occupy the territory of the three counties of New York, Kings, and Richmond; and that the lim- its of the City of New York ought to embrace all of its county and also the other two! How little of New York Connty had the city on its island then as yet covered. How narrow was the space which even the proposed extent of the City of Brooklyn took in of the small county of Kings. And what was there of Richmond upon its distant Staten Island, to reach which men addressed themselves to a serious journey, not to be taken more than once a day? Clear across the days of im- proved steamboats and railroad facilities and great bridges and elec- tric wonders of all kinds, these people looked from their small sur- roundings and hampered movement, and already gazed firmly at the possibilities which only the later decades have been able to bring about, and which we would otherwise have thought these later times alone would have been likely to suggest!
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