USA > New York > New York City > Leslie's history of the greater New York, Volume II > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57
442
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
fame of the school spread far and wide: pupils came from New York City and even from some of the up-river counties; and more than one of the principals were men of note in their profession and in literary circles. Such was L. E. A. Eigenbrodt. LL.D .. the orator at the Wash- ington memorial service, who died in 1828, after serving thirty-one years as Principal of the Academy. In 1832 Mr. Henry Onderdonk was chosen for that position. He came of the Manhasset family of that name, early prominent in the affairs of the county. He taught at Union Hall for thirty-three years, until 1865; and his fame rests be- sides on historical researches of the most exhaustive kind, ilhiminat- ing the annals of various portions of Long Island. To him we are in- debted for Revolutionary reminis- cences and incidents of Kings. Queens, and Suffolk counties. A list of twenty different publica- tions of that sort appears to his credit, diverging also into the his- tory of New York City. The Ja- maica Academy, however, was bound to feel the effects of the ex- tension and elevation of education in the free public schools, and so Union Hall languished as did the Flushing Institute. The end came in 1873, when the building was sold to a German resident. It is now wholly unrecognizable in the shape of three dwelling houses of modern appearance. 3
MRS. RUFUS KING. (M. Alsop.)
Only the north side, with its shingles, re- minds one of former conditions.
It will never do to speak of Jamaica and not mention the connection with it of the King family. As one proceeded from the railway station direct to the main street, some years ago, he was wont to confront a high fence (not so high after the street was graded and asphalted, and now gone), surrounding extensive grounds resembling an ancient English park. Tall trees, old and umbrageons, abound, and almost hide a mansion of generous proportions. It can not be said to have much elegance of outside appearance, but, doubt- less, it is all that can be desired, or that wealth and refinement can make it within. Here came to reside in 1806 the Hon. Rufus King. Having married the daughter of John Alsop, the eminent New York merchant figuring more than once in the non-importation movements. as we have seen, he settled in New York City in 1788, practicing his
443
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
profession of the law. He became intimate with llamilton, and it was Hamilton who insisted that he should be made United States Senator from New York in 1789. when others wished one of the Liv- ingston family to be elected; whereby unhappily Hamilton alienated that powerful interest, and brought much trouble upon his party and himself. In 1796 Mr. King was appointed Minister to England, re- taining the position for ten years. He then made his home perma- nently at the country-seat in Jamaica, where his descendants have also remained. His eldest son. JJohn Alsop King. was elected Gov- ernor of the State in 1856. The King place is now a public park.
As the present century advanced the march of progress demanded the removal of an ancient landmark. For over a hundred years the old stone Presbyterian Church had stood in the middle of the street opposite where the present one now is. It was decreed that it must go: the fashions had changed with the times, and it had ceased to be thought essential that a church should obstruct travel. Yet it may have been a good way to attract attention to it. and one reason why the number of church attendants has been so sadly depleted during this century may be the placing of churches in line with other build- ings, or even a little back of the line, so that people pass innocently by. On May 24. 1813. the demolition of this church took place. Bodies were found under the pulpit (where the ministers were wont to be buried), and under the pews, the proper place for the lay dead. And then another step was made toward the future and its hoped-for progress: the village of Jamaica, hitherto such only in name, now aspired to become that by incorporation. Its charter bears the date April 15, 1814. The first President was William JJ. Cogswell. and among its earliest trustees was John Alsop King. Its population was then not far from a thousand. No town hall was to be found in the place. as the British had utilized the Court House in building huts for barracks. Not till 1859 was a hall erected. Its cost was only $2.000. It stood on Herriman Avenue, about sixty yards north of Fulton Street. But very soon its inadequacy became manifest, and in 1864 the Legis- lature authorized the borrowing of $30.000 for the erection of a suit- able building. This is the one that stands on the corner of Fulton Street and Flushing Avenue, which was completed in 1870. when the other was sold and converted into dwelling houses. Its final cost was $90.000. and besides courtrooms and offices, the usual appurtenances of a town hall. it has the novel feature of an auditorium. with stage and scenery, so that entertainments can be given in it.
On November 11. 1817. a meeting of farmers from all over the county was called at Jamaica for the purpose of forming an Agricul- tural Society, of which Lewis S. Hewlett was chosen Chairman. This resulted not much sooner than two years after, in the organization, on June 21. 1819, of the Queens County Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and Domestic Manufactures. Of this society Rufus King
444
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
was elected President. The Managers met on July 26, and adopted a list of premiums to be awarded at the first exhibition on the first Tuesday in November. The following autumn, November 2, 1820, a Cattle Show was held under the auspices of the Society, near the site of the old Court House, at which it was said that more people assembled than had ever before been seen together in the county. Rufus King received a medal or premium for the finest milch cow. Jamaica could not thus make itself the center of interest in the county without the aid of the newspaper, and we have, perhaps, touched the secret of its advancement within these few years when we find that in 1819 Henry C. Sleight began to publish the Long Island Farmer. In 1835, while the other was still flourishing, room was found for another, and James J. Brenton started the Long Island Democrat. Still later, in 1868. the Jamaica Standard came into being.
The day for the rapid expansion of this township, as well as the others, dawned when the steam railroad came into play. Then began the drawing together of the surroundings of the metropolis by easy and rapid communication. so as to make but one community of them all. logically pointing to the accomplishing by formal enact- ment what the force of circumstances had already established practically. Stages served to transport infrequent travelers in small numbers between Jamaica and New York, at a speed not much differ- ent from that of the Revolutionary times. On April 18, 1836, as we saw, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad was completed and opened to the public, and on that same day the ground was broken in the con- struction of the extension to the parts of the island beyond. In Au- gust, 1837, trains began to run to Hicksville, and in July. 1844, the first train passed over the entire road to Greenport. At the same time the wagon roads were not neglected, but improved to augment facility of transportation to the great marts and centers of population on the East River. The Myrtle Avenue and Jamaica Plank Road was opened for travel on June 1, 1854, shortening the distance to Brooklyn by about one and a third miles. Upon the old Jamaica road or turnpike planks were also deposited. Later distressing horsecars ran from Jamaica to East New York, and there met at their termini several lines of horsecars, or dummy trains from the Brooklyn ferries. As was stated in a previous chapter, this Jamaica street railroad was later provided with cars run by electricity supplied by an overhead wire, and was the first experiment of that mode of propulsion on the island. Not long after the Rapid Transit trains of the Long Island Railroad, which had hitherto run only as far as the eastern extremity of East New York, were made to run at regular intervals to Jamaica, And within the present decade trolley-cars from more than one direc- tion complete the system of rapid and constant communication be- tween this end of the greater city and the more central portions. A glance at the map shows the effect of these means of travel upon
445
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
population and development. There is an almost uninterrupted indi- cation of streets and houses from Brooklyn on to Queens, exactly along the line of the railroad, wherewith the trolley-car liues run closely parallel in order to make their competition more effective. There is a series of settlements along this line: Woodhaven, Clarence- ville, Morris Park, and so forth, to Jamaica and beyond to Queens. But the rest of the township is opeu country waiting for the greater expansion, which shall force lines of travel in other directions, and thus make Greater New York compact here as elsewhere.
Of these places Queens, though older than most of the others, is not much more than a rural neighborhood, but affords pleasant residen- tial advantages to men doing business in New York. The ubiquitous trolley has lately come to connect Queens with Jamaica and the rest of the world, thus supplementing the railroad accommodations. Woodhaven, at quite the other extremity of the township, owes its foundation to the same man who planted an East New York where he did. hoping it would outrival its western adjunct. Its date of origin is therefore the same. 1836, and its fate was affected seriously by the panie of the next year. Woodhaven began to assume some impor- tance and size when it was made the seat of the great agate-ware factory past which the traveler flashes in the train, but which is worth stopping to examine. Two Frenchmen started this business in a small way in 1863. Now the factory covers three acres of ground. with no less than ten great brick buildings. For their more than half a thousand operatives the firm has put up rows of buildings, which can be rented or secured by purchase at moderate rates. The various members or officers of the concern occupy very elegaut resi- dences surrounded by beautiful grounds. A postoffice was established here in 1855, and one or two churches made a feeble show of life, be- fore the advent of this great manufacturing enterprise. But this, of course, was the making of the place, which soon numbered its inhabit- auts by the thousand, and converted surrounding farms into valuable building lots. It must be said, indeed, that this is the only consider- able manufacturing interest in all Jamaica, which, unlike Newtown and Flushing, is singularly devoid of that sort of industry. Spring- field is one of the few settlements of Jamaica off the line of thickest population. It is old enough to enjoy a bit of Revolutionary history. During that war British soldiers were billeted on almost every dwell- ing in the neighborhood; and uo doubt the experience was so delight- ful that there was entire spontaneity in the loyal address which the people at one time found it convenient to make to the powers that then happened to be. It has a postoffice, and the railroad, in its prog- ress toward the south side of the island, sought out its location and connected it with the busier parts of what is now the one great city. Jamaica has no ocean front, which was granted as by a geographical caprice by means of Rockaway Beach to Hempstead. But to com-
446
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
THE STATUE OF "VICTORY. Designed for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Jamaica.
pensate the former all the islands or semi-islands (for some of them are invisible when the tide is at the flood) in Jamaica Bay are placed under it's sway. Thus the planting of oyster beds and other fishery regulations came under the control of the town officers, and must
447
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
now be administered by the dignitaries at the City Hall ou Park Row.
But a small strip of the township of Hempstead claims attention in a history of the Greater New York. The name covered more terri- tory in olden times than at present. In 1784. by an act of the Legis- lature dated April 6. North Hempstead was erected into a separate town. Some years afterward, indeed, on January 24, 1789, a petition came before the Legislature for the reunion of the two parts, pre- sented by Jacob Mars and one hundred and nine other persons. But against the reunion appeared petitions from William Thorne and one hundred and eleven others; from Hendrick Onderdonk and ninety- seven others, and from Richard Valentine and sixty-six others. So the two were left in their divided state. It was in the northern por- tion that the first attempt at a settlement was made in 1640: as it was done in defiance of the Dutch Government, upon the claim of English title to the island as against the Dutch, the invaders were promptly driven off. When the Englishmen came in a peaceful spirit, like those of Newtown and Jamaica, they were accorded a like welcome. This happened in 1643, and was the beginning of Hempstead village, in the present township of that name. Thompson derives it from Hempstead, a place near London. In the form Heemstede it is an anti- quated Dutch word, resembling both in form and meaning the Eng- lish word " Homestead." So it may be that the Dutch Governor was satisfied with the term as sufficiently Dutch, even if it were English. It was upon the vast plains of Hempstead, but outside of the jurisdic- tion of the Greater New York, that Governors Nichols and Lovelace initiated the awful practice of horse racing, to which the reverend historian Prime traces all the ills and defects of character which he discovers as peculiar to the people of Queens County.
To get hold of any place to write history about, since we can not touch Hempstead village, we must gravitate with the bulk of popula- tion and settlement toward the extreme southwestern corner, where we find Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Arverne (illus. p. 47), and other such, springing up in the wake of railroads and the eager pursuit of summer resorts or sea air. These, of course, have no history to speak of. But Rockaway, the Far, not the Near, and Rockaway Beach can furnish us with something of that sort. Rockaway comes to the front in the Indian wars, as the scene of a conference between the Chief Pen- hawitz and Captain De Vries. The wily chief had sent a flag of truce, asking for the conference, and it required great courage on the part of De Vries and his one companion, JJacob Olfertsen, to go and trust themselves in the midst of the savages. But De Vries was fearless. and besides he had confidence in the honor of the Red Men, having always himself treated them like a man of his word. His confidence was not misplaced. The emissaries of the Director met Penhawitz and his braves, three hundred in number, at " Rechqua-aike," which
448
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
later tongues have turned conveniently into Rockaway. The next day, trusting De Vries as he had trusted them, eighteen chiefs went back with him, per canoe, to Fort Amsterdam. Here a treaty of peace was concluded which quieted the Long Island Indians; but the bar- gain they made to pacify the River Indians was more than they could carry out. This interesting episode took place in the summer of 1644, permanent peace not being secured until a year later, in August, 1645.
Rockaway Beach is well known to a certain class of our fellow- citizens as a place affording fine sea-bathing and a variety of enter- tainments suitable to tastes not painfully refined. It may be inter- esting to those of us whose memories go back not much beyond mod- ern conditions to learn how early the advantages of this resort were appreciated by the dwellers in the great city and its vicinity. Thus we discover, as the result of Mr. Onderdonk's careful searchings through old newspapers, that on June 6, 1796, Mr. Jeremiah Vander- bilt was anxious to acquaint the public of the city, that at Far Rock- away he had in readiness for them " large airy rooms " for parties, or individuals, or families. He had also " erected " (this was the word then employed for this business) a new stage, which would leave his house on Mondays and Fridays at 1 p. m. for the Brooklyn Ferry. It would " stop a little at Jamaica," and would return, starting from Jacob Hicks's in Brooklyn, on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 2 p. m. The fare was fixed at 8 shillings; one hundred pounds of baggage would be counted and charged for as equal to a passenger, and three- pence would be charged apiece for letters. Early in June, 1800, Mr. Vanderbilt again hastened to inform the public that his house was now open. In addition to all the previous arrangements, whereby guests might get as far as his house from New York or Brooklyn, he had by this time another inducement, more strictly of use to them after they had ensconced themselves in his " large airy rooms." " A carriage will be ready every morning and evening to convey boarders gratis to the seashore, where a place with two apartments is provided for bathers." The extensiveness of a bathing pavilion provided " with two apartments " is enough to take our breath away. But he goes on to argue the case, which shows that the proposition he is defend- ing was not quite self-evident as yet in his day: " The advantages of this sea-bath in point of health and eures yearly experienced are well known." From year to year as the century advanced the benefits of sea-bathing were ever better and more generally understood. Far Rockaway became a fashionable watering-place, annually visited by thousands, and amid the prevalent modern aspects of the place to-day one can discover many traces of this earlier popularity. Several houses have every appearance of dating from before the middle of the century, when men built for comfort rather than for elegance. Yet in 1833 there was laid the cornerstone of a hotel fully as pretentious as modern days have seen, called the " Marine Pavilion." Its main
449
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
building had a frontage of two hundred and thirty feet, and its wings were seventy-five and forty-five feet long respectively. The piazza was two hundred and thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. There were one hundred and sixty sleeping-rooms; its dining-room was eighty feet long, and the drawing-room fifty. It stood " upon the mar- gin of the Atlantic." These magnificent proportions remind us of a still greater hotel which has come and gone since. In 1881 there was opened to the public, although not quite completed. the Rockaway Beach Hotel, standing quite westward of that part of the Beach which is devoted to the delectation of servant-girls and their beanx. It could well lay claim to being the largest hotel in the world. Its length was 1.188 feet; its width 250 feet. There were one hundred
SOLITUDE BY THE SEA AT ROCKAWAY.
thousand square feet of piazza ; and the rooms for guests numbered in the hundreds. This huge structure could be easily seen from the hills in Evergreens and other elevated portions of Brooklyn. But it was too big for existence: the kind of people it could be maintained by did not come to Rockaway, and even its advantages and attrac- tions could not draw them. The Marine Pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1864; the Rockaway Beach Hotel was sold for lumber and was taken apart piecemeal, so that not a vestige of it can be seen to-day.
And now this distant resort forms part of the Greater New York municipality. By a former act of consolidation, as we have seen. Coney Island was brought under Brooklyn's jurisdiction; and its wilder portions were thereby placed under more vigilant police sur-
450
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
veillance, a circumstance very necessary and very salutary. The en- suing summer (1898) will be the first that Rockaway Beach will enjoy (or suffer, as men wish to regard it) such more regular and organized police supervision, hitherto left to County Sheriff or Town Constable. It remains to be seen whether the " wide-open " policy, the hope of which for the city proper had an influence upon majorities, and which to some extent is fulfilling its promise at Coney Island. will leave Rockaway its older liberties; keeping the sea-breezes and tumbling breakers (and some other airs and liquids) as free as heretofore. In that case it will be hard to realize that the potent girdle of municipal incorporation and government has been cast about this distant out- post by the lonely sea. Yet must it be remembered that here, too, is New York City. Away from the turmoil, sordid and vulgar, one may wander westward along the beach to quieter parts. Here is Rock- away Park, with cottages for private residence. But still further west we come upon nothing but the bare beach of sand, and low sand- hills covered with bits of green, just high enough to prevent one see- ing Jamaica Bay and the country and city that occupy the sloping plains and the hills beyond. For more than three miles one may thus wander into increasing solitude, with only the sky, the sea, and the sand around him. How strange to reflect that even here one is within the charmed circle of an immense, throbbing, stirring city, resting its utmost boundary upon the heaving ocean. Byron would never have dreamed that he could stand within the precinets of a metropolis second only to his own London, and there say, as one may say after him here.
" There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar."
K
init
ASSEMBLY HALL OF THE STATES GENERAL ( STATEN GENER.A.MITOF
XII
/X.X . XI
D
1.17 OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER XX.
RICHMOND. OR STATEN ISLAND-OLDEN TIMES.
T was an observation frequently in the mouth of George William Curtis, that " no doubt God could have made a more beautiful spot than Staten Island, but He didn't." We see it looming np across the waters of the glorious Bay from the Battery. a fitting background to so brilliant and gay a pic- ture. The contour of its hills, far enough away to make but one con- tinuous line against the sky, seems to the fancy to represent some huge Titan lying down to slumber, the feet at the Narrows, rising to a somewhat higher elevation where the knees would be, while the high- est point indicates the turn of the gigantic shoulder, and suddenly descends to the recumbent head westward. Its shore harmoniously enrves with that of Long Island to make the easily guarded entrance at the Narrows, contracting the watery passage but for an instant, thereafter to recede rapidly to the southwest. and open wide the country's arms to the reception of the argosies of commerce and the multitudes of emigrants seeking a better home and a better chance in the New World. And on the ocean side, too. Staten Island with her beauty serves a useful purpose in cheering and soothing the hearts of voyagers, weary with the monotony of sea and sky, and aching to look again upon the verdant mother earth. It were enough to look upon any piece of land. however ungainly. To be permitted to gaze upon a spot so fair. diversifying undulating fields with shady woodlands. and lifting up the bold fronts of forest-clad hills dotted with the habitations of men. is a boon indeed. Fortunate is it that the first impressions of America, which so many millions of men have neces- sarily obtained here as they sailed into our port. were of a nature to inspire and exhilarate. They will hardly realize now that as they look upon the coy landscapes and infrequent homes, they are having also their first view of the great American metropolis.
Staten Island is one of the many names, official and otherwise. clinging to various portions of the Greater New York. that recall the original discoverers and settlers. It is a name we find in widely separated quarters of the globe, telling eloquently and convincingly of the enterprise of that wonderful people, whom we have elsewhere called the Yankees of the seventeenth century and of Europe. Snc- ceeding centuries have wiped Dutch names from many islands, rivers.
452
HISTORY OF THE GREATER NEW YORK.
places once bearing them. and hence we find but one Staten Island now besides our own. It is at the other extremity of this Western Hemisphere, very near Cape Horn, and is about five times the size of its namesake at the North. And why this designation? It isa re- minder of a Republican institution. At the opening of the seven- teenth century, as we know, the Dutch Republic was already a fact. though a half-century of fighting for independence still remained. The supreme authority in that commonwealth was not a man, but a body of men; not a President, or as they called him, a Stadtholder, a Keeper of Cities; but a Congress of representatives from the seven United States of Provinces of the Netherlands. Each of these States had its own Legislature, called the Provincial States; but these Pro- vincial Assemblies sent delegates to a central body to legislate for the nation, and this was called the States-General, or, in Dutch, the Staeten-Generael. Thus, with a little modification for English ears, Staten Island (D. Eyland) perpetuates the memory of their High Mightinesses the States-General of the Dutch Republic. A delectable region like this, however, had not been without human occupation before the Dutch arrived. The Raritan Indians here built their " long houses " and put up their movable villages, and they expressed their delight in it by calling it " good land." in very picturesque phrases conveying that general meaning, but variously worded, either as Monaeknong. or Ehquaous, or more elaborately, Aquehonga-Manack- nong.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.