USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 42
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middle of this century such efforts were made, and it was ascertained that then the vessel had come quite apart, and was almost completely . embedded in the mud. A sinister story has since been circulated that she lay in Hallett's Cove for a long time, in order to accomplish the removal of the strong-box, and that thereupon the vessel was pur- posely allowed to run upon Pot Rock so as to cover up the theft. This would, of course, account for the failure to recover treasure from the wreck; but it reflects rather too severely upon the reputation of Brit- ish naval officers.
As in the other towns, the woods were remorselessly eut down, and isolated trees, fences, and all available timber utilized for fuel, so that ere long there was no more fuel to be had. In this emergency some of the British troops, accustomed to cut peat out of the bogs at home, turned their attention to similar ground in Newtown, and dis- covered that this form of fuel could be here supplied in abundance. Furman, in his notes, tells the interesting story of the discovery: " It was on the land of my great-uncle, William Furman, at the head of the 'Vlie [i. c., ' Head of the Fly,' the beginning of Flushing Creek and meadows], in Newtown, that the first turf was thus cut. He remoustrated with the British officers, believing that they would ruin his land, and told them that they might cut all his wood, but should leave his meadow. They replied that all his wood would not serve the British troops about New York for a single month; but that there was turf enough on his land to serve as fuel for the whole British army in America. So they cut it regardless of his objections, and without paying him for it, as he was known not to be a loyalist, and had relatives in the American army. They also told him that the deeper it was cut the better it was, which my great-uncle found to be true, and always afterward used turf for fuel, from preference. It was truly a providential discovery for the Long Island people, who were beginning to be distressed for want of wood, which had nearly all been cut off by the British troops." The discovery then made was not allowed to go lost ; for many years after the peat bogs were drawn upon in other places as well as here, although those of Newtown were admitted to be the most valuable of all. Only toward the middle of this century, as the forests reasserted themselves and as coal came into more general use for domestic purposes, did the burning of turf or peat fall into disuse. Thus, at least, one good turn was done to the island by the otherwise so ruinous occupation of it by the enemy. It was with much joy that the time was hailed when the British finally evacuated the country, and left the vicinity of New York and the metropolis to the government of their own countrymeu. It was a sad day for those loyalists who had gloated over the miseries of their neighbors, and had aided to make their burdens more galling. Scarce one of them dared remain, most going along to Nova Scotia when the army departed. On Monday, December 8, 1783, a grand celebration
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took place at Jamaica, at which were present representatives from Newtown. Not content with this general celebration, the people of Newtown organized one of their own at Dutch Kills, at the Stone house, then a tavern. Among other features were thirteen lamps hung up to illuminate the room where the exercises were held.
During the occupancy of the British, town government in Newtown had not been suspended. From year to year, if only in form, officers were elected as in the days of peace. On December 22, 1783, the first election took place under independence, and under the auspices of the sovereign State of New York. Then Samuel Riker was chosen Supervisor; John Gosline, Constable, and Philip Edsall, Clerk. to serve until April following, the usual time for the election of town officials, when the incumbents just mentioned were re-elected. Grad- ually the effects of peace began to tell upon the desolated township; prosper- ity began to return, especially after some fixity had been given to the Re- public by the adoption of the Constitu- tion. In 1790 the population of the town reached over two thousand souls. Enterprise met the demands for inter- course with the outside world. Early in 1798 it was announced that on March 31 there would start from in front of A. Rapelye's house, near the village, "a neat, light, airy coachee, hung on steel springs." It would run regularly to Brooklyn on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, leaving the village at 6 o'clock in the morning, carrying GENERAL EBENEZER STEVENS. only seven passengers at the ut- most, charging 3 shillings for the through trip, and 5 pence per mile for way passengers. The road then followed was that through Maspeth, across Penny Bridge, so through Bushwick to Cripplebush and Bedford. It was not till 1805 that the Flushing Avenue extension of the Cripplebush Road was finished, when the distance to Brooklyn was cut down about four miles. In 1816 the Williamsburgh turnpike was completed, opening traffic from Newtown direct to the new ferries at that point, and curtailing the distance to the metropolis just one-half.
And so we cross the threshold of the present century, whose hap- penings are more briefly told than those of the other two through which the history of Newtown extends, because there is not the charm of distance to lend importance or interest to affairs essentially pos- sessing otherwise but little of these qualities. What is the building of a church or the starting of a stage, in any of these regions within the
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last ten or twenty years, compared to those same simple occurrences when we can fix their dates at the beginning of the settlement, or dur- ing the days of the Revolution? Bushwick remained rural in its char- aeteristics, and was consequently void of much material for the pen of the historian, until the settlements began on either side of Grand Street which resulted in the City of Williamsburgh. Greenpoint was not roused out of its bucolic conditions till still later in the century, or 1832. As Newtown was more remote than either of these localities from the overshadowing metropolis, it was to be expected that its rustic retirement would be invaded still later by the busy tread of municipal progress. As we shall see presently, not till far past the middle of the century was any portion of Newtown, and that a small corner of it. touched with at least the nominal dignity of a city. Whether it was much more than a city in name, and in mockery of that name. we leave to the dispassionate critic.
The war of 1812 occasionally made itself felt ar wen to the in- habitants of Newtown. Those of them who resided long the shores of the East River and were accustomed to hear the roar of the tides in Hell Gate, beheld a gay sight on September 11. 1813. On that day a flotilla of gunboats, thirty in number, came sailing and floating with an incoming tide, past the northern extremity of Blackwell's Island. It was a delicate and difficult feat to thread the way of so many ves- sels, small as they were, around the formidable obstructions which then imperiled progress through the Gate. But the exploit was safely and successfully accomplished, and opposite Sands Point the little fleet exchanged shots with the British frigate Acasta. The wind was too strong to permit the proper maneuvering of the American flotilla, or else it might have gone hard with the Acasta or its one or two mates, which were endeavoring to make good the formal declaration of the British Admiral that Long Island Sound was in a state of block- ade. Toward the close of the war, in 1814, when all of New York and Brooklyn were astir throwing up fortifications against a foe hourly expected, but who never came, Newtown offered some points of van- tage for defense. A fort was built upon Hallett's Point, around which swept the waters of the East River into the Hell Gate passage, called Fort Stevens in honor of Gen. Ebenezer Stevens, who about this time or later occupied a country-seat at Astoria. An observation tower, combining some of the features of a blockhouse, was placed upon the hill rising abruptly from the river near this point, affording an exten- sive view along the dangerous strait and into the broader waters be- yond. so that an enemy's approach could have been observed from afar. But no " war's alarms " came to further disturb the quiet of the neighborhood, and while peace was being concluded at Ghent, in Bel- gium, and Jackson was preparing for his glorious finishing blow at New Orleans, the good folk. English and Dutch, of this township. were contending with foes at home, who were using the exigencies of
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war to lay siege to their pockets. This we learn from an advertise- ment in the Long Island Star, one day in December, 1814, which read as follows: " Those inhabitants of Newtown who prefer the interests of their family and country to the paltry schemes of speculators, are requested to meet at Bernard Bloom's inn on Friday, January 9th [1815], to consider the expedieney of denying themselves the use of tea and sugar, till the exorbitant prices are reduced." Fortunately a list of those prices is preserved. While coffee was 23 cents per pound, Hyson tea was quoted at $1.94 and Souchong tea at $1.50. Sugar was put at $22.50 per hundred-weight. A little later sugar's price rose to $25 per hundred-weight, but when the news of peace arrived in New York on Valentine's Day. 1815. it promptly fell down to $13.
After the War of 1812, or rather the peace of 1815, as we saw. New York really began to make its big strides toward the present great- ness. It was in 1819, and after, that the immigration from Europe began to assume astonishing proportions, first attaining its tens of thousands, and then its hundreds of thousands. The deposit of this immigration fell upon Long Island as well as upon the metropolis. while the greater numbers went westward to develop the resources of unoccupied regions. Williamsburgh and Brooklyn came to village- hood and cityhood as the result of it, and gradually the rills of popu- lation sought an outlet into Newtown. In 1790, as we saw, the town- ship had a population of 2,111. Forty years later, or 1830, it was but 2,610, an increase of one less than five hundred. In 1835 the figure had grown to about thirty-five hundred, or almost a thousand in five years. Fifteen years later, or 1850, and the latter figure was more than doubled, the population then counting 7.207. Naturally enter- prise invaded the rural quietude with the influx of population, and it is interesting to note that the awakening to the importance of in- dustrial activity took shape within the township in ways closely al- lied to its time-honored devotion to the products of the soil or the workings of the farm. Nurseries for the culture of trees and flowers sprang up everywhere, and are to this day a prominent feature of Newtown. At Astoria, as we shall note more fully later, were estab- lished the famous seed farm and nurseries of Grant Thorburn. In 1834 an undertaking was started worthy of the encomiums and en- thusiastic description by one of Long Island's honored historians. This was the milk farm of D. S. Mills. Mr. Mills purchased for eight thousand dollars a farm of two hundred acres, located southeast of Newtown and a little east of Middle Village, near the junction of the Williamsburgh and Jamaica turnpike with the road that comes down from Newtown. The farm was divided into fields of five to ten acres, separated from each other by substantial stone walls. A barn two stories high, one hundred and fifty feet long, and forty wide, was con- structed of stone. The interior was arranged into two rows of fifty stalls each, three feet by twelve, with a broad passageway between,
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affording room for a loaded wagon. These hundred stalls each con- tained its cow comfortably and cleanly housed, and well fed every day, for they were given one ton of English hay per diem, and eight hundred quarts of Indian meal. In 1839, when Thompson wrote, the average quantity of milk obtained daily was nine hundred quarts, and he goes on with a very interesting arithmetical statement: this, sold at 7 cents per quart, amounted to $63 a day, or $22,995 per annum, which we assume to be correct without further verification. A remark at the close is somewhat puzzling to us at this date, but may have had much pointedness in his time: " It is much to be la- mented that the inhabitants of our cities should not be fully supplied
RAPELYE HOUSE, NEAR HELL GATE.
with milk of this description, seeing that no reasonable impediment exists to prevent it." We should have imagined that Mr. Mills's re- markable milk-farm existed exactly for the purpose of supplying the city or cities in the vicinity (Brooklyn became such in 1834). It is hard to see how he got his twenty-two thousand, or nearly twenty-three thousand dollars yearly, except the city people paid that to him for the milk brought to their doors. Surely he did not work off his nine hundred quarts daily on the rural denizens of Newtown or Flushing or Jamaica. At any rate. in 1852, when Riker wrote, the enterprise was still in full swing, and is mentioned with pride by that annalist as among the biggest in the land.
The growing population made necessary an improvement in the
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facilities of communication between the different settlements In 1847 there was quite a furor for building plank roads on Long Island, and twenty years ago some of these remnants of an earlier day were still something more than names. Indeed there may still be found sections where the frayed, and frilled, and dangerously bobbing planks come jumping out of the dust as you inadvertently step on one of the multitudinous loose ends. Newtown's turnpikes, run- ning through from Jamaica or Flushing to Williamsburgh, Bush- wick and Brooklyn, were soon supplied with these boards or planks. which, while new, relieved the tug of the horses upon the heavy truck- wagon very materially. Stages continued to make infrequent and slow journeys along these highways. After the middle of the century (1854) the Long Island Railroad built its branch on the " North Side " to Flushing and beyond, so that various points in Newtown were placed in rapid communication with the cities on the East River. In 1876 a line of horsecars was extended from Brooklyn to Newtown village, which even in its later stages did not present any very ex- hilarating spectacle to the beholder, or very tempting accommoda- tions to the patron. The stables were at the terminus in Newtown, near the railroad station, and to-day they stand in ghastly desolation, a relic of the past, though that past reaches back only to the centen- nial year. Within the past decade the trolley-car has come to bless these rural regions. More than one line traverses the township from end to end, east and west, north and south, carrying passengers rap- idly from locality to locality within its borders, and also with satis- factory promptness. expedition, and frequency to the great centers of business at the west. Thus have been built up and are rapidly grow- ing several of these neighborhoods which, without special incorpora- tion, are yet recognized as distinct villages. Some of them bear the old names that carry us back to the very beginning of Newtown; some of them are known only to these later days. It becomes time to take a brief survey of a few of the principal ones.
When Newtown was a designation as yet far in the future, and Wandowenock an Indian name of which official circles took no note. Maspeth was already both official and native, as we have duly noted. We know it now as the seat of extensive manufactures, and for its proximity to one or two famous cemeteries. Early in the century it received distinction as the favorite residence of the famous De Witt Clinton, who figures so prominently in the history of New York City and State. As we have noted more than once, he married a daughter of the merchant, Walter Franklin, and the fair Quaker milkmaid of Flushing, Hannah Bowne. Mr. Franklin, whose city house in the present Franklin Square became Washington's first Presidential resi- dence, had a country-seat at Maspeth, which eventually came into pos- session of his daughter, Mrs. De Witt Clinton. We get some notion of the estate from an advertisement placed in the papers shortly after
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the Revolution by the widow of Walter Franklin, before she married Samuel Osgood, the Postmaster-General under Washington. From this we learn that the place covered twenty-nine acres. It was located at the head of Newtown Creek, " two miles from church," and upon it were a double house, a barn, a stable, and a coachhouse. It was not offered for sale, but to let. Here Clinton was wont to enjoy rest from political agitations and his contention for the Erie Canal. The passenger on his way to Manhattan Beach or to JJamaica may get a brief glimpse of the old and substantial mansion on the left side of the railroad, just after he has dashed past Penny Bridge and Calvary Cemetery.
Middle Village and Middletown seem to be distant echoes of the old name which the Dutch Director compelled the English settlers of 1652 to give to their township, Middelburgh, of which the latter is an exact English translation. Middletown is now hardly more than a name, Middle Village is even vet a settlement distinet. It derives in- terest from the fact that here was built, lit- tle more than a year after the Evacuation, or in 1785, the first Methodist Church on Long Island. The southern edge of the settlement is skirted by the Williamsburgh and Jamaica turnpike, and naturally population gravitated that way, so HELL GATE EXCAVATIONS-SHAFT AT HALLETT'S REEF. that in 1836 the Metho- dists built a church on that road. But in 1850 the site of the older church was still to be identi- fied, it having been turned into a private dwelling. It fronted on a road running northerly at right angles to the turnpike. The erection of the new church brings into view another circumstance which well entitles Middle Village to the attention of citizens of Greater New York. It was built largely by the liberality of Mr. Joseph Harper, the father not only of James Harper. Mayor of New York in the early forties, but of all those enterprising Harper Brothers, who have raised the printers' and the publishers' business in New York to such honorable prominence and remarkable proportions. At Middle Village the air was made fragrant by an essence and chocolate factory years ago, something that can not be said of factories established along the New- town Creek in later days.
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Following the line of the Long Island Railroad, the first rural set- tlement of more modern times is Woodside. As a neighborhood it dates from 1849, and as a postoffice from 1864, its name having its origin from a series of articles written for a newspaper, which were dated at " Woodside " by the author. John A. F. Kelly, because his residence adjoined the forest. In 1882 there still stood here on the road to Middletown an old and immense chestnut tree, which was said to be three hundred years old. Winfield. also dating its existence from 1849. comes next. In the same year Fisk's iron foundry was established here, which later became famous for the manufacture of metallic coffins, an industry quite appropriate to Newtown with its superabundant cemeteries. In 1872 Winfield obtained a postoffice. We meet with a new development and a modern name as we ap- proach the old village of Newtown. Its ancient parts lie all between the railroad and the street on which stand the old and new Presby- terian churches, and these still bear the original designation which finally gave a name to the whole township. But north of the tracks whole streets have been recently laid out, and handsome modern cot- tages are rapidly filling them, and for these a new name had to be invented. The prevalence of certain noble old trees in the vicinity suggested the poetic title of Elmhurst, which is unfortunately much affected even by residents in the older portion, and is a term recog- nized by the postoffice, it is to be hoped not to the exclusion of the historic title. Still farther east, north of what erstwhile was dubbed the White-Pot, we now find the populous neighborhood called Corona. Here industry claims the making of porcelain and eke of portable houses and even churches. Otherwise there seems nothing remark- able except the larger population as compared with the other settle- ments mentioned. All these places present one similar and prominent feature: they abound in small houses, mostly frame, many only a single story high, which have been built and are occupied by thrifty German people. For many years they have been in the habit of spend- ing the Sunday away from the restrictions of the metropolis, to enjoy in the various localities in Newtown the fresh air and cool beer, in the beer-gardens with their various attractions that are here seen in plenty. Thus many have come to fix their homes permanently in the township, and they are happier and healthier here than in the crowded and smothering city.
As we look on the map of Greater New York, we see these and other places too numerous or unimportant to mention dotting the ter- ritory of rural Newtown. There is much open country yet, which for the most part is taken up with habitations for the dead. The township is noted for the facilities it affords for burial, a half-score of cemeteries more or less famous springing to mind: Cypress Hills. Evergreens, Maple Grove, scattered along the Jamaica boundary, and Calvary, Lutheran, Olivet, and others, occupying a more interior position;
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while at a place called Fresh Pond is one of the few crematories to be found in this country. The living will soon be crowding around the dead, and the open spaces be filled up. As improvements prevail and city conditions shall more fully remove the rural ones, it will be more thoroughly realized that Newtown belongs to the vast munici- pality of the Greater New York.
CHAPTER XVII.
QUEENS-LONG ISLAND CITY.
LIVER WENDELL HOLMES, in his lively way, remarked that as the result of wide observation in many places throughout our happy Union he found it true of all of them that in the fond opinion of the residents " the axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the center of each and every town or city." He evidently went around the country too early to get any experience at Long Island City. No inhabitant of that place has pride enough in the corporate collection of localities which make it a city to think that the axis sticks out anywhere within its bounds. If it came to a question of this or that neighborhood or settlement now included within the city. perhaps the axis theory might hold. Each place has its people who have some pride or affection for their own vicinity, and with a curious diligence they used to circulate the information that there, however named, they lived. So industrious was this hiding of the corporate general name that often it was with a shock of surprise that strangers abroad in other parts of the State or Union would learn that so and so, of Ravenswood, or As- toria, or elsewhere, were also of Long Island City. And while the forced combination of widely separated communities-out of touch with each other as much socially as topographically-had something to do with this suppression of identity with Long Island City, the pe- culiar events of its municipal history, which made the place an ever- fruitful butt for the wit of the minstrels and music halls, doubtless also contributed to the modesty of its citizens in claiming its jurisdic- tion. Nevertheless, Long Island City has become " part of the Greater New York," much to the relief of this painstaking modesty, and its annals claim attention in our book.
The history of some of its easily separable parts go back to very early days. We have already had occasion to mention some of the facts showing this, which we need repeat with but few additional details. Hendrick Harmensen, who settled in the vicinity of Bow- ery Bay and North Beach as far back as 1638-when Flatlands had been only recently bought, and Breuckelen was yet to come by eight years-was killed in the Indian wars in 1643. His widow married a certain Jeuriaen Fradell, described as a Moravian, but whose name has so strong a French flavor that it would seem he must have been a
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VIEW OF LONG ISLAND CITY FROM TOWER OF RAILWAY STATION.
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1211 11
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Huguenot or Walloon. He was a deacon in the Reformed Church on Manhattan, worshiping since 1642 in the Church-in-the-Fort. In 1645 he obtained a " ground-brief " (or deed) for the farm of Har- mensen in his own name. And as a good deacon, who at that time carried out the idea of the origin of the office and took care of the poor of the church, his property subsequently was given in owner- ship to the church corporation to be used as a Poor-farm. This did not mean that the poor or paupers of New Amsterdam were placed here to work for their living. Society was too primitive to have such a problem before it. On the contrary, the farm was worked in the regular way, and its proceeds in produce or financial returns were devoted to maintain the really deserving poor, sick, feeble, or be- reaved of the church people. Hence this section of the township was called for a long time the Poor Bowery, a curious mixture of Dutch and English, and a serious misconception grew out of it- that the land was poor; whereas in fact it was among the best in Newtown. The name, " Poor Bowery." is no longer in use, but " Bowery Bay " retains an echo of the old tradition. Part of the Poor-farm passed into the possession of the Luyster and Kouwenhoven families, repre- sentatives bearing the latter name still occupying the land in home- steads dating back several years.
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