USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 43
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Quite at the other extremity of the later Long Island City another early but now extinct name, curiously enough, was also derived from some one connected with the ancient Dutch Church-in-the-Fort. In view of the prevalent later associations, it is really refreshing to note how much ecclesiastical history had to do with the beginnings of this wondrous town. To many who are even casually acquainted with New York history under the Dutch régime, the name of Anneke Jans (spelled in desperation by a solicitious heir lately " Anna Kajans," a blunder which would put him hard to it to prove his derivation from her) is familiar enough. Our previous volume also duly stated that Domine Bogardus, Pastor of the Church-in-the-Fort, succeeded in winning her affections, and incidentally her farm, which is now Trin- ity's. He had some property of his own, also, thanks to the gener- osity of the West India Company, who sent him out in 1633, and among the grants was that of a plantation or farm (in 1643) at what is now Hunter's Point. This circumstance gave the name of Dom- ine's Hook to this region. The farm was one of about 130 acres. snugly ensconced between Newtown Creek and the East River. Dom- ine Bogardus, as we noted in the proper place, was wrecked and drowned on his way to Holland in 1647. Five years later we find Anneke Jans, for the second time a widow. obtaining a ground-brief or deed for this farm at Domine's Hook, over whose soil to-day thun- der the Long Island Railroad trains, as they rush out and into their initial or terminal station. In 1697 this property was bought by Captain Peter Praa, famous in Bushwick history. Before the Revo-
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lution it had fallen into the possession of the Bennett family, Cap- tain Praa's daughter, Anna, having married a William Bennett early in the eighteenth century. During and after the Revolution, Jacob Bennett was the proprietor, and he owned a farm also on the opposite bank of Newtown Creek, in Greenpoint. While at the opening of the present century he had put his son Jacob upon the Greenpoint farm, he himself was spending his declining years with his daughter upon Domine's Hook. This daughter having married Captain George Hunter, the origin of the present name of Hunter's Point becomes at once apparent, dissipating any laudable suspicions that this was once an inviting region for the devotees of St. Hubert.
While Doughty and his people were settling at Maspeth, and John Burroughes and his companions preparing to make Newtown village their home, these grants to Hollanders, or Holland refugees, were gradually receiving occupants, or other grants were given, until the shores of Newtown Creek, East River, and Hell Gate, were pretty well dotted with " out-plantations." A little further into the in- terior were those who kept in the vicinity of Canapaukah Creek, and whose nationality, by birth or affiliation, gave the name of Dutch Kills to that stream and the region about its headwaters. Here settled the Bragaws, and Payntars, and Morrells, all French in their sound if not in their spelling, and having representatives living in the neighborhood even to-day. When the British army poured into New- town a day or two after the Battle of Long Island, a portion of the troops-those under the command of Lord Cornwallis-encamped in Dutch Kills, and that distinguished general made his headquarters within this section. We have already seen what a prominent part was played by the hamlet Middletown in those days, here within a short distance of each other being the headquarters of General Sir Henry Clinton and General Robertson. Subsequent years do not af- ford many incidents that make up any interesting narrative, so that we step across with a big stride into the 19th century, and will find it profitable to concentrate our attention for a while upon that por- tion of the later Long Island City which was called Astoria, and which can not be deprived of its name in popular parlance even yet.
Astoria, however, must be spoken of for a long time previous as Hallett's Cove. As such we meet with it in ante- and post-Revolu- tionary days, and the name was derived from William Hallett, an Englishman, who emigrated hitherward from Dorsetshire, on Deceni- ber 1, 1652. Hallett secured a ground-brief from Stuyvesant, which describes his plantation as covering about 80 morgen (or 160 acres), at Hell Gate. Later, in 1664, William Hallett purchased a larger tract from two Indian chiefs, so that all that section now included in Astoria, reaching from Sunswick Creek, around Hallett's Point, well on to Berrien's Island, became the property of, this one person. In the interim Mrs. Anneke Jans Bogardus had come to the front again
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in her thrifty way. Not content with the farm at Domine's Hook, or Hunter's Point, she obtained (1655) a patent for over 80 acres of land in the vicinity of the Pot Cove, taking in what is now known as the " Hill " section in Astoria, and affording fine prospects over river and islands and the country beyond, even including the Palisades on the Hudson. In the, course of time others came from the south or west or north to occupy the territory thus originally acquired. Anneke Jans is lost among her heirs, but the name of Hallett remains preva- lent in the neighborhood all through the two centuries and a half that bring us to the present time. The cultivation of the soil was the main business of men hereabout, and here, too, as everywhere else in the townships we have been describing, the inevitable and conveni- ent tide mill was sure to be put up. In 1753 Captain Jacob Black- well, in partnership with a Hallett of that day (Joseph Hallett), built a mill provided with " two run of stones and bolting conveniences." bolting at that time being usually done by hand. They selected for the site a point near the mouth of Sunswick Creek, on its right, or northerly bank, which would bring it just about at the foot of the present Broadway. Here a dam was built, and the water up the creek held back at the turn of the high tide. But this inconvenienced farmers further up the creek toward Ravenswood and Dutch Kills, who were in the habit of ferrying their produce in canoes or periaguas down the stream, and so across the East River to the New York mar- ket. Hence the millers were forced to construct a canal from a point quite a distance up the creek to the river, having a sluice gate at either end. Three years later the mill was sold to Hendrick Suydam, another name linking Newtown with the Dutch towns of Kings County. Suydam owned and operated the mill all through the Revo- lution, and for a long time after. A pleasant fact to rescue from for- getfulness is the care which the people of Hallett's Cove bestowed as early as 1762 upon the matter of education. There was then an Eng- lish and classical school here, taught by William Rudge, who hailed from the city of Gloucester in England. The branches of learning included not only reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also Italian bookkeeping by double entry, Latin, and Greek. He advertised in the New York Mercury that " the school is healthy and pleasantly situated, and at very convenient distance from New York, from whence there is an opportunity of sending letters and parcels, and of having remittances almost every day by the pettiangers." He means periaguas, of course. All these advantages were meant to lure board- ing scholars. To this advertisement there were attached thirteen names of substantial residents of Hallett's Cove, who thereby not only indorsed the teacher's asseverations, but at the same time offered to take scholars to board at £18 per annum, or $45, as the pound then counted. Of these thirteen persons no less than seven were Halletts; there was also a Rapelye, a Blackwell, a Greenoak, a Berrien, a Pen-
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fold, and a MeDonnaugh. We have already noted some incidents connected with Hallett's Cove during the Revolution, and will there- fore hasten on to the developments that belong to the present een- tury.
As it opened there were hardly half a dozen buildings to be seen at this place. There was the mill, of course, on Sunswick Creek, and the miller's house nearby. But the farms were extensive, and the dwell- ings of those who owned or cultivated them were necessarily far apart. With the advancing years the events that were happening at the lower end of the East River, on both shores, were sending their stimulus and throb of life up toward Hell Gate. The War of 1812 induced men to come up here to note the fine defensive positions afforded, and the attractiveness of the surroundings was not lost upon citizens or soldiers who had occasion to visit this region. When pop- ulation rapidly increased in New York after 1815, a few waves cast up deposits on this distant shore. As increasing business made larger fortunes, merchants found out that they could enjoy rest and recup- erate health by establishing country seats along the east shore of the East River, within an easy drive of their counting-houses. Thus Gen- eral Ebenezer Stevens, whose name had been given to Fort Stevens. erected a substantial summer home on what he called Mount Bona- parte. This hill has now been removed to make way for a street, but the house was moved a short distance to the north of its former location, and by being divided, furnished two dwelling houses of ample size. The General's place faced the Hallett's Cove, a name still in use and now applied to the little bay just opposite the northern ex- tremity of Blackwell's Island. Here, in 1849, as we noted in Volume I., died the famous Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury at one time, and a financier second only to Hamilton in ability. His only daughter had married the son of General Stevens; and in the same year that Mrs. Gallatin died, from which blow the vigorous octoge- narian never recovered, Gallatin was brought here sick and weary, and died in his daughter's arms. (See also Vol. I., p. 332.)
But before this time conditions had materially changed for Hal- lett's Cove. Indeed, its very name was gone. Thompson writes of it in 1839 as " the most important place in the town." He tells that within a few years of his time of writing there were many evidences of a spirit of improvement, and that it had " become the theater of ac- tivity and enterprise in various branches of business." There were two " handsome churches," of which more anon. There were " sev. eral splendid private mansions," which made an imposing appear- ance from the river. Even by that time several industries had lo- cated in the vicinity. There was a carpet factory, a chair factory, a wood-card factory, bellows factory, and chemical works. Thompson mentions General Stevens's residence, and then makes one of those puzzling statements we occasionally find in his pages: " The Hallett's
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Cove Railway Company was incorporated April 15, 1828, with a capi- tal of $50,000, for repairing ressels, etc." Here the celebrated Grant Thorburn, seedsman, a familiar figure of the older New York, had established his nurseries, the business being continued by his sons, al- thongh their gardens are no longer located here. We have already paid our compliments to this estimable gentleman in our previous volume (p. 255), and told there how he was led to deal in plants, com- ing, as he did, to this country to pursue his trade as a nailmaker. His gardens at Astoria were near the river, on the site of the present buildings of the Sohmer Piano Company. The house was moved back and is still standing in a dilapidated condition, occupied now by
STEVENS MANSION, OR MT. BONAPARTE.
a host of small tenants. In his " Reminiscences " he tells of his own gardens here, adding that to them were welcomed everybody who wore a clean shirt and was not drunk. He describes how he gode out to AAstoria, crossing a Williamsburgh ferry, and reaching his place in forty minutes. Then he speaks of passing along Main Street (which has had to step aside in importance for a part of its course for Ful- ton Street), to the new level straight road to Flushing, which is now Flushing Avenue. Thorburn identified himself closely with the life of the community where he had established his seed-farm. He was made Postmaster of Hallett's Cove, then the official name of the lo- cality, although in his book he constantly speaks of it as Astoria. His commission to hold the office was dated June 16, 1834, almost forty
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years to a day after his arrival at New York in the Providence, on June 19, 1794. Hle and his wife were among the charter members of the Reformed Church of Astoria, organized in 1839; and in the rear of the handsome structure erected in 1888 are to be found three simple granite shafts indicating the family vaults of Grant Thorburn, Stephen A. Halsey (of whom more anon), and another old family. Doubtless by reason of his establishing the seed business on so pros- perous a basis at Astoria that industry has more or less spread over the town, and many are still engaged in that interesting pursuit.
Evidently this place was ready for something in the way of mu- nicipal government better than the mere township forms allowed. Like Breuekelen in 1817. and Williamsburgh in 1827, this part of Newtown must have a village incorporation. So that step was taken in 1839. It seemed desirable, however, that for the purpose of desig- nating a regularly incorporated village, a name should be selected somewhat more appropriate than the old one of Hallett's Cove. Riker criticises this desire for a change, and says it was " no credit to the restive, innovating spirit of the age," to think of abandoning the former title. But really the name was too strictly applicable to a piece of water to do well for a village, and so pos- sibly we ought not to blame the people for looking about for a new designation, and there hangs a tale by the selection of Astoria. A building for a female seminary was in course of construction, the same which is now the rectory and chapel of St. George's Epis- copal Church. Mr. Stephen A. Halsey, who had been some years in the place, and was already earning the title " Father of Astoria." by reason of the many enterprises in which he was active. was in the fur business and had thus come upon terms of friendship with John Jacob Astor. He proposed to the millionaire that he give a goodly sum toward the establishment of the female seminary, in which case the citizens would name the village to be incorporated. Astoria, in his honor. Mr. Astor did not take to the idea very enthu- siastically, saying that there was an Astoria already on the Pacific Coast. But he finally promised to give a certain sum, not nearly as large as was proposed. however, and on the strength of that promise. fulfilled later, the village was incorporated under the name of As- toria, certainly an improvement in enphony. if not in historical fit- ness. The act of incorporation was passed April 12. 1839. The first charter election was held on JJune 11, at the house of Mr. Benjamin F. Shaw, between the hours of 5 and 6 p.m. Five trustees were chosen: Homer Whittemore, Robert M. Blackwell, William B. Bolles, Alfred R. Mount, and Stephen A. Halsey. The Board of Trustees met and organized in the same room immediately after the ballots had been counted, and Homer Whittemore was chosen President.
The enterprise which had warranted the incorporation did not slacken after that event. Besides its local advantages for business
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and residence, Riker remarks, in 1852, that "its prosperity must be greatly attributed to the enterprise of certain leading inhabitants, whose untiring efforts to build it up are worthy of special praise." Among these active promoters of Astoria's progress must be again mentioned Mr. Stephen A. Halsey. A ferry was established some years before the incorporation, which ran at first a sailboat, owned by him. In 1835 a horse or " team " boat was introduced. Thomp- son mentions a steam ferryboat running between Astoria and Eighty-sixth Street in 1839. Philo was the first steamer used. Later the Astoria, built by Mr. Halsey, was added, which was unfortunately sunk in very deep water in collision with a Sound steamer, and was never raised. In 1853 a gas company was organized by Mr. Hal- sey, and the works put up on Mills Street, at the riverside. The " Fourth Ward " school, a relic of the olden times, and still nobly serving its purposes in its antiquated form, was built upon ground given by the same individual. When it is remembered that the Pres- byterian Church property was practically given by Mr. Halsey, and its edifice erected largely by his liberality, and that the Reformed Church also profited by his generosity, it is not strange that the sobriquet of " Father of Astoria " fits him well. These churches sprang into being about the same time that the incorporation occurred. The earliest church was St. George's Episcopal, erected in 1828. The building was destroyed by fire in December, 1893, and no other has since been built in its place, but the society converted the Female Seminary building, part of which had been utilized always as a rec- tory, into a chapel, and here they worship temporarily. In 1868 another Episcopal Church was built in a different section of the vil- lage, called the Church of the Redeemer, which is still served by its first Rector, the Rev. Edmund D. Cooper, D.D. The Reformed and Presbyterian Churches grew out of union services held in a small schoolhouse, which still stands in an obscure corner near the St. George's rectory, and is occupied by tenants. At first an edifice was erected by the joint efforts of the people of both denominations, in which they worshiped together as in the schoolhouse; but in 1839 the Dutch Reformed people here and the Collegiate Reformed Church of New York, agreeing to pay off a debt on the church-struct- ure, the society became Dutch Reformed, and was organized as such July 11, 1839. In 1846 the Presbyterian element had grown numer- ous enough to warrant a separate organization, and in June, 1848, the present building was dedicated.
Another section of Long Island City that had a history before it came to be, is Ravenswood. " A Girl in New York Eighty Years Ago " speaks of it as to its appearance toward the middle of the cen- tury, and calls it " the most beautiful spot on earth." Of course there are a good many such spots on the earth, yet the enthusiasm dis- played by the phrase must be based upon something very attractive
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in its aspect; and surely our good friend the historian Thompson is not far behind in his praise when he says, " the situation will hardly suffer by comparison with the beautiful scenery of the Thames at Windsor." The corporation of the City of New York seenred grounds here for an orphan asylum, with a farm attached. Grant Thorburn, in his " Reminiscences," describing a ride from Williamsburgh to As- toria, speaks of the delightful spectacle presented by seeing over six hundred children made comfortable and happy, but no vestige of this charity is now apparent. There is still much to remind one, however, of the splendid mansions that once adorned the shore of the East River here at Ravenswood. "Business " has invaded these charm- ing precincts, but many an one of these beautiful and imposing villas stand, despoiled of their former glory, indeed, yet in their desolation pathetically evincing in the midst of their sordid and unromantic surroundings what they must have been when these surroundings fitted them better. Ravenswood boasts one relic of an earlier past, an old stone house at the foot of Webster Avenne, oppo- site Blackwell's Island. It is fondly called the Washington House, and tradition has it that it was one of his innumerable headquar- ters, but the history of operations on Long Island does not lend itself to this pretty story. It was the home of one of the Blackwells at one time. These could not be confined to the narrow island in the channel which Colonel Manning's daughter had brought to an early Black- well; indeed, they seem to have been getting rid of the island itself even at an early date. In January, 1794, an advertisement appeared in a New York paper, in which Josiah Blackwell offered for sale one-half of the island, embracing fifty-nine acres, and having upon it a house, two orchards, and a number of quarries of the best gray stone, " which are an inexhaustible source of profit." Altru- ism must have had its exponents even then, if Mr. Blackwell was will- ing to dispose of a property so inexhanstibly profitable. Ravenswood remained a mere neighborhood always, but enterprise reached down to it from Astoria after that place became an incorporated village. There lived one Bill Lewis, a man of horses, a carter by occupation. whose stables were located where Unele Whitcomb's are to-day, near the Ninety-second Street ferry. About 1841 or 1842 Mr. Lewis started a stage route. Leaving Ravenswood at a specified hour in the morn- ing, he would pick up his passengers on the way back to Astoria, cross the ferry to Eighty-sixth Street, thence drive to Third Avenne, down that thoroughfare and along the Bowery to No. 3 Chatham Street (now Park Row). Third Avenue was a good macadamized road as far down as Twenty-eighth Street, where the cobblestone pavement commenced, no advantage to the passengers, coach. or horses. Yet such good time was made before reaching this pave- ment, that one who daily rode to school with. Mr. Lewis's stage as- snres us it took only forty minutes from Astoria down to the City
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Hall in New York. One can not make much better time nowadays, with trolleys and "L" roads galore. The fare for this trip was only a shilling, or twelve and a half cents, per passenger.
Before we come to that supreme moment in the world's history when Long Island City was incorporated, and which we are aching to reach, we must. detain our readers once more with an account of another ancient section of it. This is the portion rejoicing in the ex- ceedingly celestial appellation of Blissville, a name, as thus ap- prehended, most mournfully out of harmony with its appearance and actual residential conditions. Its derivation, however, was not from its condition but from the prosaic fact that its territory was owned at one time by Mr. Neziah Bliss, the " father," or developer of Green-
NHƠNTH
MAIN STREET, ASTORIA.
point. In his many peregrinations in various sections of the Union, Mr. Bliss had constantly been engaged in enterprises involving the building of steamboats, or mills, or machinery of various kinds. In this way he had become acquainted with Dr. Eliphalet Nott, President of Union College, who was likewise an enthusiast on steam naviga- tion, and they engaged in many experiments together during parts of the years 1827 and 1828. Out of this union of interest grew a part- nership in real estate transactions, those which brought Mr. Bliss over to Greenpoint being shared in by Dr. Nott. Later Bliss pur- chased a large tract of land on the further side of Newtown Creek. in the section called Dutch Kills, which was soon named Blissville, after
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him. Dr. Nott had a share also in this transaction, and extended his purchases till they took in the original Anneke Jans or Domine's Hook farm. This property was eventually turned over to Union Col- lege, and was sold only the other day by that institution for a good round figure, approximating the million.
At these various centers of population and industry the growth of the great cities in the vicinity had cansed a corresponding and sym- pathetic expanse. Manufacturers sought sites for their plants in lo- calities where land was so much cheaper. The stupidity of the dwellers on Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn, had driven the Long Island Railroad to establish its principal terminus at Hunter's Point, stimulating the ferry facilities at this section. Hence, a pretty large population had gradually accumulated between the ancient Poor Bowery and Domine's Hook. While in 1850 there were but 7,207 in the whole township, in this western section of it there were about 15,000 in 1869. This was too unwieldy a body to control by mere town government, and Astoria was the only incorporated village. The bolder project of the incorporation of a city was therefore agi- tated. More than once had the Legislature been approached and charters submitted to it, and again, in 1870, a charter was prepared and laid before the Legislature. The people were aroused to push the project with energy, and it is interesting to note that a prime mover in the agitation was Father Crimmin, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, who spoke at mass meetings, and advocated the cause at Al- bany. With great difficulty it was carried through both houses, and then came the final tussle before Governor Hoffman. The landed pro- prietors of the section strongly opposed the measure, but they were vastly outnumbered by the small citizens with no acres to be taxed, and Father Crimmin won the day. The Governor signed the bill, and it became a law on May 6, 1870, almost twenty-seven years to a day before the signing of the greater incorporation. The instrument, how- ever, did not seem to have accomplished much for the community. There were no sufficient appropriations allowed for the maintenance and pay of the public offices and officers. The public schools were left in a bad shape, and so was the police. On July 5, 1870, the first charter election was held, and Abram D. Ditmars was elected Mayor. But the charter under which the government began was so inadequate that Mayor Ditmars's first work was the appointment of a committee to draft a new charter, so that less than a year after the first charter a second revised one was signed by the Gov- ernor. In this schools and police were better provided for, and the city was empowered to take measures to provide a water supply, a ne- cessity that was nothing less than crying, when, before this was in- troduced, almost a whole ward was dependent upon one town pump, which furnished mainly surface-drainage water charged with the germs of disease. The city was divided into five wards, numbered, in-
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