The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 10

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I > Part 10

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).

Omitting details of culture and cost of fertilizers used, I will give the production of the farm of 2,500 acres for the year of 1880, from Mr. Hinsdale's report. All of these large crops were raised at a profit :

Of corn, there were 450 acres, with an unusually heavy yield of at least seventy bushels of shelled corn to the acre.

Of oats, 588 acres, thirty-five bushels per acre (this was a better yield than on the old farms in the country).

Of rye, 495 acres.

Of meadow, or grass, 485 acres; 100 acres of this was in Hungarian grass, which yielded two tons and a half per acre. The native grass of Hempstead Plains is the blue grass of Ken- tucky.

Of buckwheat, 250 acres, 20 bushels per acre.

Of wheat, 30 acres, 20 bushels per acre.

Besides these, large crops of every kind of vegetables ever raised.

The following table has been made of the total yield of several crops for the year 1880 :

Oats

20,580 bushels.

Indian Corn 31,500

Buckwheat. 5,000

Wheat

600

43a

CAPABILITIES AND DEVELOPMENT.

Mr. Hinsdale says the lands of Hempstead Plains are the finest and most productive of any lands between here and San Fran- cisco; and he knows, as he has been all over the country, in Ohio, Illinois, the Hockhocking and the Sciota flats, and resided in California.

At Hicksville there was only a lonely station-house, the end of the railroad route-twenty-five miles from Brooklyn. Here Itook the stage, from Hicksville to the north over the Plains to Jericho, an old and most beautiful and highly cultivated settlement; then turned eastward on the old country north-side road to Smith- town, a distance of twenty miles, passing through a fine farming region, which had been settled and cultivated for more than 200 years.

Arrived at Smithtown Branch, I found the village pleasant and desirable, but I objected to the twenty miles' stage ride, and was told that work was to be immediately resumed on the Long Island Railroad, and cars would soon run to Smithtown.

On my return I went to the office in New York of the Long Island Railroad Company, and saw the President, Mr. Fiske, and he said that work on the railroad would be immediately re- sumed, and the road would be completed through the Island as soon as possible; that Boston men were to aid; that disasters on Long Island Sound had recently been so great that it was desir- able to get a more safe route, which he thought would be over Long Island. I then determined to go to Long Island, and I rented the Pillsbury Parsonage house, in Smithtown Branch, for $100 a year, and which I afterwards purchased, with fifty acres of land adjoining, which made my little farm there.

I removed my family there. Soon after I arrived I met an ac- quaintance that I knew in New York, and he said he had a posse of about 100 men at work on the railroad opposite Smithtown, and wished I would go down and see them, as there were several among them that needed medical aid, having received accidental injuries. Up to this time, I had not heard of the great Barren Plains, extending eastward from Hempstead Plains to the head of Peconic Bay, so entirely composed of sand and gravel as to be unsusceptible of cultivation by any process known.

This is the black and false record made by "THOMPSON and PRIME, the historians of Long Island," and which has held that great part of the Island in wilderness.

The next day I started for the railroad, and I went down through Hauphagues, and the last house before entering the woods, I met a man at his wood pile ; I asked if he could direct me to where the railroad men were at work ? He said I must keep down the road into the woods and then turn to the right, on the road to Islip. I soon struck into the dog path, completely over- hung with trees and bushes, and so narrow that my wheels would not run in the tracks (one of them had to go on the bank). After a drive of about two miles I found the railroad camp, at where Suffolk Station was afterwards made. The woods through which I had gone were very dense.

There I found my friend and his men, shanties and cabins scattered around, and the men were grading the railroad bed ; they had cut through the woods about three rods wide, and opening a long and beautiful vista, as far as the eye could see. Tall and lofty trees, that stood on each side of the railroad bed, as thick as they could stand, and there I found myself in the midst of a vast, magnificent, primeval forest. I was astonished ; and then I learned that this great forest and wilderness was forty miles long and eight miles wide-four miles each side of the railroad-extending from the east end of Queens County about thirty-one miles, from Brooklyn to Riverhead seventy miles ; the trees were large and lofty, and so thick and dense that a horse could not go through the woods. Along the line of the railroad, the trees and the timber were mostly yellow pine-Pinus rigida -of large and most thrifty growth, from eighteen inches to two feet in diameter, many much larger, perfectly sound and solid ; they would square up from twenty to thirty feet in length, and

the timber about equal to the best Georgia pines. A little to the north of the railroad line, there were oaks in variety, chestnuts, hickory and locust, all of large growth. These woodlands extended four miles each side the railroad. I am always impressed with wild woodlands, " when among the trees and wilds where sunshine, birds sing and flowers bloom."

There were no scrub oaks there then, in these woods ; thick forests overshadowed them, and they die out or disappear, but ready to come back again as soon as they can get possession of the ground. The scrub oak, of which the Long Islanders have such a dread and hatred, is the best friend of the Island; for, when the wood and trees are all destroyed, this little fellow comes in and.takes possession of the lands, and protects them from becoming a barren, by being dried up by the sun and the elements. It is a shrub; can never be a tree in any soil, no more than a lilac bush. It is indigenous, i. e., a native, to the Is- land, and grows all over the Island, from and in Brooklyn to Montauk Point.

Judge Lefferts', of Bedford, famous Cripplebush farm, in Brooklyn (and willed by him to his beloved daughter, Elizabeth Dorothea, the wife of Mr. Brevoort), is " Scrub Oak Farm," for Cripplebush means "scrub oak ; " Cripplebush road is "Scrub Oak road."

It is set down in books of science and natural history as the nineteenth variety of the oak, as the " Quercus Illicifolio." It is called Bear oak, from the great abundance of acorns that it pro- duces, upon which the bears feed.

I was very greatly surprised at the soil I found there. It was three feet deep in the railroad cuttings, of the very finest yellow loam, in every way suited to culture-not a particle of sand or gravel or a stone in it. From that time I took a great interest in the railroad, and in the uncultivated lands on its borders. I was so weak and foolish as to think a railroad would be of great benefit, and a very convenient and handy thing to have on Long Island, and I did my uttermost to promote it. There was a very strong opposition to it on the Island; the people opposed it with the utmost violence ; they tore up the track and burned its bridges; and yet the road went on by force of right and might, until its completion, as it penetrated into the woods and wilder- ness of Suffolk County. Then came the conflict of fire and de- struction ; the people refused to do anything to protect those woodlands from fire, and the railroad company could not, and destruction and desolation of those woodlands were swift by fire and the axe.

The woods were set on fire, and burned with great fury every spring and fall. One of those fires, in 1848, burned for two weeks night and day; " a pillar of fire by night, a cloud of smoke by day." It burned over seventy-five square miles ; it broke out in the woods, about a mile south of the railroad, a little to the east of Connetquot River, or Liff Snedicor's Brook, and it run fifteen miles east and five miles wide, extending, in some places, to the water's edge of the Great South Bay. Buildings were often burned by these fires, as they have been during the past year. Great difficulty was experienced in keeping the villages from being burned up. After the opening of the railroad, those woodlands were made common plunder ground by cordwood men and charcoal burners, and the wood and timbers destroyed in the most wanton and wasteful manner. The revenue or chief freight business of the railroad for years was in carrying off what could be got off the land. Charcoal burners bought the wood, or large tracts, at a mere nominal price, and turned an army of men into their coal bush, and whole trees of the large pines were brought to Brooklyn and driven in as spiles all along the shore and docks of Brooklyn.

James B. Cooper, Esq., a prominent citizen of Babylon, L. I., says the damages by fire in the woodlands of Suffolk County, in the past forty years, are three millions of dollars.

On my return from my first visit to the wilderness on the plains, I asked what was the reason that those lands were not

44a

GENERAL HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

cultivated, and every man that I saw or met in Smithtown re- plied that the land was worthless ; that nothing would grow on it.

I said it Was covered with trees, and any land that will pro- duce a large growth of trees has an element in the soil that will, with a little variation, produce a hill of corn or a blade of wheat. I asked if it had ever been tried ? No ; they said it was not worth trying. Now, all this did not satisfy me, nor remove the impres- sion that was so firmly fixed upon my mind from what I had seen. I did not believe it possible that I could be mistaken; for my knowledge of lands and soil was so full and complete by prac- tical experience in my boyhood and youth (for I had had the most thorough, practical farming "eddication " ever a youth had), I did not believe I was or could be mistaken. I determined to make inquisition as a matter of truth and general knowledge; to examine the geology, soil and natural productions, for these are what indicate a country suitable for civilization and use. In the summers of 1841, '42, and '43, I examined more than fifty square miles of the plains with spade in hand, all the way from Farmingdale to Ronkonkama Lake, and also the lands from East New York to and around Jamaica, that I might compare the old settled land with the new. I had then no intention or thought of purchasing or buying an acre of the woods, and my first purchase at Suffolk Station was made at the earnest request of Mr. Fiske, the president of the railroad.

I felt and believed that these vast woodlands could and ought to be settled and cultivated, as a great public good, and as a special benefit to the Long Island Railroad, to give it business. Mr. Fiske, who was in full accord with me, unfortunately lost his health and left the railroad, and soon after died. The railroad was made through the Island by him and his great en- ergy.

Subsequently, at the request of the president and directors of the railroad, I undertook the herculean task to bring into use, and before the public, these lands for settlement-and by an agreement in writing, a bargain with the officers, president and directors of the road, defining what they should do and what I should do. By this contract the company agreed to do all the carrying trade and freight for the settlement, free of cost or charge ; all freight, lumber and building material, manure and fertilizers, and all products were to be carried free, for one year, to each and every settler, and the head of the family to have a free pass to and from the city for two years. This was to encourage and promote settlement, and these privileges were to be given to every actual settler, during the settlement of the ten thousand acres. The settlement was to be an agricultural, or farming, and garden settlement; no village lots were offered.

I purchased ten thousand acres of land of the Nicoll Patent (adjoining Ronkonkama Lake, and extending south more than four miles, at from five to thirty dollars per acre), of William H. Ludlow, and his wife Frances Louisa Nicoll, six thousand nine hundred and fifty acres, in one tract, adjoining the railroad, at five dollars an acre ; two hundred acres north of the railroad and extending to the lake, thirty dollars per acre ; one hundred acres next to this, twenty dollars an acre; and a thousand acres next this, extending to the lake, at ten dollars an acre ; and of William Nicoll, two thousand acres at five dollars an acre.

All these great tracts of land were purchased on a cash basis, cash and mortgage (the Death (Grip or) Gage), bearing six per cent. interest. There was no trade or sham about it. It was the largest price ever given for those lands. This tract was selected as being the most advantageous and beautiful tract for settlement, of good and excellent soil.

The situation and soil of the land were good in every particu. lar for the settlement. I proposed to call it Lakeland, and Governer King, of Jamaica, approved of it, for he said it was "The Land of the Lake." The lake was not in sight of the rail- road; the station there was first called Lakeroad Station. Gov. John A. King was my friend, and rendered important assistance;

he obtained the establishment of a post-office there, and my ap- pointment as postmaster ; and he took great interest in my work for the settlement of the lands. I proceeded to erect buildings and to cultivate the land ; I opened roads, laid out and opened Ocean avenue-one hundred feet wide from the lake for three miles south-cleared the lands by the plough (without previous grubbing); obtained the best plough, made by Ruggles, Nourse & Mason, of Worcester, Mass., made with a locked cutter, and purchased three yoke of oxen, and ploughed the ground, laid out a beautiful garden by a gardener from Brooklyn, and raised the finest crops of wheat and corn and garden products ever seen on the Island. My crop of Austral- ian wheat was the admiration of every one that saw it.

The Boston Cultivator of June 20th, 1850, gave this account of the place:

LAKELAND AS IT WAS IN 1850.

We call the attention of our readers and the public at large to the following record and evidence of the successful cultivation, more than thirty years ago, of the new and neglected lands of Long Island.

The work of settlement and culture of the lands was broken up by the unfortunate failure of the Long Island Railroad in 1851, by nothing else, and from no other cause, for the railroad then passed into the hands of men who were bitterly opposed and hostile to the lands.

We publish an account of a visit to Lakeland, from the Suffolk Union, Riverhead, Suffolk County, Long Island, made by a party of gentlemen from Brooklyn, New York and other places, showing that the settlement was then considered as prosperous and success- ful. The settlement and culture of the lands in that vicinity were then regarded as a complete success, and had the place fallen into honest hands after Dr. Peck left it, there would have been no trouble or difficulty whatever in making it one of the pleas- antest inland places on the island, for everything at Lakeland was then in a prosperous condition; the buildings and fences were new, complete, and in good order; the garden and grounds under good culture, and everything had been done by Dr. Peck to make the settlement and cultivation of the then hitherto "Barrens of Long Island" successful. His titles were all good, precisely what they were represented to be, as may be seen by the records of the County Clerk's office at that time.

We subjoin from the New-Yorker an account of the visit to Lakeland, which is not left to " speak for itself," being backed by a host of such witnesses as are absolutely not to be found again, as one might say. In justice to them, and particularly to Dr. Peck, whose exertions would at length appear to have been crowned with success the most perfect, we publish the following account of an excursion to Ronkonkoma Lake and to Lakeland, on the Long Island Railroad :

"Moses Maynard, Esq., of the Long Island Railroad Co., with a party of gentlemen from New York and Brooklyn, took a trip on Thursday over the Long Island Railroad to the new village of Lakeland, and to Ronkonkoma Lake. The object was to examine the road, to view the famous Lake Ronkonkoma and the surrounding country, and also to see what progress had been made in the settlement and cultivation of the wild or new lands of the Island, through the midst of which the Long Island Railroad runs. The day was extremely fine, and nothing could exceed the rich and luxuriant fields of grain and grass to be seen on each side of the road through the counties of Kings and Queens. Arrived at Lakeland depot, the party examined the buildings and gardens at this place, where are now to be seen growing in great perfection wheat and rye, garden vegetables, and fruits and flowers of great variety. This is a new settlement in the very midst of the great wilderness of the Island, a region hitherto regarded by the Island people and others on their authority as wholly unfit for cultivation ; but the crops now growing at that place are equal to any others on the Island, and exhibit the most incontestable evidence of the powers of these lands to pro- duce. Indeed, nothing can be more completely successful than have been the efforts of Dr. Peck to cultivate these Island lands, as may now be so fully seen at Lakeland, where a few years since all was wild and desolate.

The party were highly surprised and gratified at the great change made there by the hand of improvement ; all admitted that the evidence of the fertility in the soil was complete, and that there can be no doubt of the entire practicability of easily and profitably cultivating all those lands on the borders of the Long Island Railroad, and in this subject the directors and stockhold- ers of the Long Island Railroad Company have a deep interest, for the settlement and population of these lands on the im-

45a

CAPABILITIES AND DEVELOPMENT.

mediate line of this road will add greatly to the business of the road.

From Lakeland the party proceeded, some on foot, through the woods and fields, and some in carriages, to the famous Ron- konkoma, of the Indian name and memory, one of the most beautiful sheets of water that can be found anywhere. It was the unanimous opinion of the whole party that they had never seen any lake or sheet of water of its size more perfectly beauti- ful. It is a sort of miniature sea or ocean, being about three miles in circuit, with a clear and pearly beach or shore, two or three rods wide, formed of pure white silicious sand, inlaid with beautiful white and variegated pebbles, the waters over which glittered and sparkled like the fish-pools of Heshbon. The shores and bottom are perfectly solid and hard. There is neither rock or quicksand or miry places, no sudden deep places into which a child at play in its tiny waves could by any possibility fall, but a gradual deepening of the water from the shore to the center, which is about 80 feet deep. The land around the shore of the Ronkonkoma is beautifully diversified, and much of it elevated and bold, and the cultivated farms and orchards give to the whole scene a most delightful and pleasing effect. The pure fragrant air that blows around the lake, and the cool and delicious shades offered by the large and beautiful trees that fringe its borders and line the surrounding fields, render it a most delightful resort for summer. Returning to the hotel at Lakeland, a bountiful dinner was prepared in time to take the cars on the return train to Brooklyn, where they arrived at 5 o'clock P. M.

Among the party were Moses Maynard, Esq., of the Long Island R. R. Co .; Elihu Townsend, Esq., Dr. Brewer, R. L. Allen, Hon. Henry Meigs, of the American Institute; Geo. S. Riggs, Esq., of Baltimore; D. J. Brown, Messrs. Saxton and Blanchard, S. Holmes, Esq., and others, directors and stock- holders of the L. I. R. R .; Alden J Spooner, Esq., Rollin Sand- ford, Esq., G. A. Brett, Esq., Dr. E. F. Peck, and James B. Staf- ford, Esq.

All expressed their highest gratification at the evidence of im- provement which they saw at Lakeland and its vicinity, and were unanimous in the opinion that the successful cultivation of these new lands, on the borders of the railroad, will result in great benefit to the road as well as to the Island, and, from all they saw, were of opinion that the prospects of the Long Island Railroad for a good and profitable business were never better than at present, and that a more desirable and pleasant retreat for summer residence cannot be found within fifty miles of New York, in any direction, than in the vicinity of Ronkon- koma."

N. B .- The above described visit was made the year before the Long Island Railroad Company failed, in 1851.

I had had full experience in cultivating the lands on what I purchased at Suffolk Station, under the advice of Mr. George B. Fiske, president of the railroad company. I there, in 1845, held plough, and turned the first furrow ever ploughed on the plains; I raised wheat and corn there on the despised lands, with complete success.

The settlement was complete and prosperous ; sales of land were making, and men of means and reputation were purchas- ing and preparing to settle there. I advertised the lands ex- tensively in this country and in Europe, as "farming and garden lands," in Boston, in New York, Albany, and in Rochester, in the London Times, and in the Mark Lane Express, and in Holland ; and people came in great numbers to view it. At this juncture, in 1851, the Long Island Railroad Company failed, suddenly and unexpectedly; the failure came not only with most disastrous and ruinous effect upon the railroad, but upon everything connected with it. It stopped all my work entirely; men who had purchased of me, and agreed to pur- chase, abandoned their purchase and left the place, for it was rumored and believed that the railroad was to be abandoned and the rails taken up. The fate of the Catskill and Canajo- harie Railroad was held up as the fate of the Long Island Railroad (the Catskill and Canajoharie Railroad was torn up, and the rails, that cost $100,000, were sold as old iron for $4,000). Emissaries were sent out all along the railroad, who reported that the rails were to be taken up and the road abandoned. A suit was brought against the railroad, and judgment entered, and it was put into the hands of a receiver, Moses Maynard, who was the treasurer of the Long Island Railroad Company, and the

road was advertised to be sold at public auction-"all the right, title, and interest of the Long Island Railroad, franchises, real estate, rolling stock of every kind." Under this state of ruin the stock of the company fell as low as seven dollars a share. The plaintiff in this case was the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad Company, that owned twelve miles of railroad between Brook- lyn and Jamaica. The Long Island Railroad owned eighty-three miles ; both companies had distinct organizations ; the Brooklyn and Jamaica road was made first, and the Long Island Railroad Company foolishly leased for forty years, at a yearly rent of $31,500 a year, in monthly payments. Whilst this state of con- fusion and ruin was going on, the stock of the railroad was being bought up from seven to ten dollars a share. I was in daily attendance in Maynard's office, and saw and heard all that passed. In comes a stockholder : " Well, Alderman, is the road to be sold, and what will it bring?" "Oh, yes, it is to be sold, and it will probably bring enough to pay some of the im- mediate debts ; it may bring twenty-five per cent. of the cost of the railroad-two millions." "Then it is a pretty poor lookout for the stockholders ?" "Yes." " I have a little stock, and can get a little something for it." " How much have you ?" "I have ten shares." "How much can you get for it?" "Ten dollars a share." "Then you had better sell it." So the stockholder, whose money had built the railroad, goes out and sells his stock. This is literally a true statement of what I saw repeatedly; for I was anxiously waiting to know what my fate would be, since they had repudiated the written agreement made by the company with me, and on which depended the value of my property of more than sixty thousand dollars ($60,000).

After these parties had obtained a majority of the stock suffi- cient to control the road, they withdrew all proceedings against it, and reinstated it; made William E. Morris, of Phila- delphia, president, and turned Maynard out. Then a great flour- ish of trumpets was made over the resurrection of the Long Island Railroad, and great things were promised, and the stock, that had been trampled on and hawked at ten dollars a share, increased marvellously. I then made every effort to have my contracts with the road completed, but this they positively refused. I felt wearied and discouraged, and sold the entire property. In this I made a mistake; I could and ought to have held it, but I thought I had done enough. I sold the property to Charles Wood and his associates, of New York. Mr. Wood was recommended as a fair and honest man by Moses Y. Beach, Alfred Beach, and Moses S. Beach, owners and editors of the New York Sun, and they sustained and aided him very greatly. I sold mostly on credit, and I continued to do all I could to promote the set- tlement of the lands, and have done so to the present day. Mr. Wood went on to sell and improve, but ultimately got into diffi- culty and failed. He was victimized by others, and Lakeland never recovered from the failure, and is now blotted out; while it is called Ronkonkoma Depot, by an act of gross injustice to me, and to the settlement, the pioneer settlement, in the wil- derness.

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The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I, Part 10

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1114

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909, ed. cn; Brockett, L. P. (Linus Pierpont), 1820-1893; Proctor, L. B. (Lucien Brock), 1830-1900. 1n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : W. W. Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1114