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 11

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 11

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I have done with my journey in the wilderness, though I am not out of it. I propose to introduce some of my witnesses. I wrote to B. F. THOMPSON, of Hempstead, the author of the History of Long Island, and quoted his strange libel upon the lands eastward of Hempstead Plains (at page 29, vol. 1st), and asked him to tell me upon what that passage was founded ? if any attempt had ever been made to cultivate the lands? if so, by whom, when, and where? and wherein the soil differed from the soils in other parts of the Island? if the soil had ever been chemically examined ? He answered that when he wrote that passage it was "the generally received opinion" on the Island that the soil could not be cultivated; that he knew no facts, and encouraged me to go on, and kindly offered to aid, and became my friend as long as he lived. I wrote to the Rev. Mr. PRIME, author of another History of Long Island, and sent him a copy

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GENERAL HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

of my letter to Mr. Thompson (see Prime's description of the lands, where he says, "About forty miles from the west end [this is where Brentwood now stands] the sand approaches to fluidity in fineness [for there is no soil].") Mr. Prime wrote me a letter of four pages of special pleading to show that he was right, and I was wrong. I have both of these letters yet.

Now, I am satisfied that all the miserable drivel about and against these lands, which have been published in the past forty years in every history, book or gazette, originated from PRIME and THOMPSON, and from nobody else (for there is not a word found in all the previous history of the Island of any barren lands) ; and that monstrous wrong was inflicted upon Long Island by these histories. I have never met with a man on the Island who knew the first thing about the land or soil, no matter how much he said against it. Cross-examine him, and he utterly failed.

Now let us hear what men of great intelligence, learning, and ability, men learned in agriculture and soils, who personally went on to the lands with spade and ink-horn to record the result. In 1847 a party of 170 of the most distinguished men in the city and State went expressly to examine the soil as to its fitness for culture. This was on the 22d of July, 1847. The party spent two days there. Among them were the Hon. Messrs. Ogden Edwards, John Lawrence, Professor Renwick, of Columbia Col- lege of New York, Hon. Henry Meigs, T. B. Wakeman, Gen. Chandler, of the American Institute, &c. Every one of these pronounced the soil to be good and perfect. Dr. Underhill, of Croton Vineyard, declared it was in every way suited to grape culture. They made an extended report in favor of these lands of more than twenty-four pages : see Transactions of the American Institute, vol. for the year 1847, page 678 ; also The New York State Agricultural Society Transactions, published 1859 ; also the address of Gov. John A. Dix, delivered at Saratoga before the State Fair at Saratoga Springs ; also (in the same vol., 1859), an exhaustive report on the Lands of Long Island, of 40 pages, by Winslow C. Watson, of Port Kent, of Essex County, N. Y. Mr. Watson is the State geologist for the northern counties of the State, and is one of the most able and learned agriculturists of the State. He came to Long Island twice, and made careful ex- amination of the lands. This kind of evidence can be multiplied to any extent, and no acre of the ground has failed to produce. See the Suffolk County Almshouse farm, at Yaphank, on the plains, where they cut last year two hundred tons of the finest hay from 45 acres. See, also, the splendid stock farm of the Hon. August Belmont, of 1,000 acres, two miles north of Baby- lon, L. I. I propose, in conclusion, to give the figures of uncul- tivated lands in Suffolk County, which is one hundred and ten miles long by about ten miles wide, containing 640,000 acres. These figures are from the United States census for 1845, and if these lands were there then they are there now, for no thousands of acres of these lands, as I have heard of, have been since culti- vated.

The town of Huntington, 50,968 acres uncultivated. Hunt- ington has lately been divided, and the town of Babylon set off. Islip, 63,984 acres uncultivated; Smithtown, 27,960 acres un- cultivated; Brookhaven, 117,360 acres uncultivated; Riverhead, 25,000 acres uncultivated; Southold, 29,000 acres uncultivated; Shelter Island, 6,000 acres uncultivated; Southampton, 68,395 acres uncultivated; Easthampton, 52,672 acres uncultivated, making 447,953 acres of uncultivated lands in Suffolk County. There are in Queens County 90,000 acres of uncultivated lands. These figures include only good arable land, no marshy land.

I purchased in 1848, of F. M. A. Wicks, four hundred acres, at two dollars and seventy-five cents an acre, without the wood, which he retained, and this is the land on which the village of Brentwood now stands. As I did not intend to keep this land, or any part of it, I did not take the " deed for it," as I purchased it for the express purpose of getting it into the hands of those who would improve it; and I employed my friend, the late Samuel

Fleet, then the editor of the New York Artisan (not the paper by that name now), and he negotiated the sale of it to Nathan Stephens, Christopher Wray, Uel West, J. Agate, and others ; and it was conveyed, on my order, under my contract with Mr. Wicks, to these parties. Most of these purchasers intended to improve the land, but were prevented by the stories that it was worthless and unfit for culture.

Mr. Fleet, who was a worthy and intelligent man, had full con- fidence and full faith in the productive quality of the land, and he rendered important and valuable aid in bringing it before the public ; and after these first purchasers had abandoned the idea of improving the land, Mr. Fleet sold it to Stephen Pearl An- drews, of New York, who laid out and made the settlement of Brentwood upon it. My friends think, and say, if I had not pur- chased the land and put it into the market, at great trouble and considerable cost, it would have remained unsettled to the pres- ent time, and no Brentwood there ; for all the surrounding region that I did not put into the market is yet a wilderness-for they know of nobody else who would have purchased it.

I bought and put into the market all the land that Mr. Wicks sold east of his house-the old Thompson station.

I settled Mr. Richardson, the nurseryman at Brentwood, about twenty years ago ; he came from Massachusetts under my adver- tisements in the Boston Cultivator, came to my house in Brook- lyn, and I went with him to examine the lands; he did not buy any land of me.

There are now ten new and prosperous villages and settle- ments, made in the past thirty years, along the line of the Long Island Railroad, and on what was thirty years ago a wilderness, in a distance of thirty miles from Farmingdale to Yaphank, in- cluding Farmingdale and Yaphank-viz .: Farmingdale, Deer Park, Brentwood, Central Islip, Lakeland, Holbrook, Waverly, Medford, Yaphank, Bohemiaville and Edenvale-the settlement of William J. Spence.

Bohemiaville and Edenvale are not in sight of the railroad, but between the railroad and the old south side country road, not far north of Blue Point and Patchogue. Mr. Spence settled there thirty years ago, in what was then the darkest part of the Island. Men went to him from the old settlements and warned him off, lest he might become a town charge ; he cleared and cultivated the land, has lived there thirty years, supported him- self and family from the land by farming, and has now a beauti- ful farm. Go and see his farm. Mr. Spence is dead. These new settlements have churches, schools, comfortable . homes, some splendid buildings, fields of wheat, corn, clover, grass, and the finest fruit gardens and fruit or- chards that can be found on the Island, and all produced by ordinary culture, without extra cost or extra means ; and these ten villages and settlements, with their fields and gar- dens, over a space of thirty miles, settle the question of the pro- ductive quality of the land so long despised, and put to shame its traducers and maligners. It is rather a curious and interest- ing fact, that six of these new settlements, Brentwood, Central Islip, Lakeland, Holbrook, Bohemiaville and Edenvale, are on the land brought into the market and sold by me-bought and sold expressly for settlement and culture, and for no other pur- pose-bought and sold, or rather given away, in most cases, for less than the actual cost to me of titles and transfer.

I never purchased an acre of land on the Island for anything that I expected to make on the land by a re-sale of it, but I ex- pected and hoped to receive my reward by what I might be able to retain when the settlements were made. I cast in my lot with the settlements and settlers, having full faith in the intrinsic value of the land and the country. It is the finest and most productive garden land, with the best markets, the most healthy and pleasant climate, in the State of New York.

October 14, 1879.

E. F. PECK.

Mr. Slater's fine buildings at Central Islip are on land that I bought of William Nicoll in 1848. E. F. PECK.

41a

CAPABILITIES AND DEVELOPMENT.

THE CITY OF HEALTH. BY EDGAR F. PECK, M.D.

Dr. B. W. Richardson, of London, not long ago set forth the . admirable advantages which would accrue to a city founded on strictly sanitary principles-a city which should comprehend in full all the benefits which pertain to the best chosen situation with regard to climate, soil, drainage, water supply, house con- struction, food supplies, disposal of refuse, public buildings, churches, schools, hospitals, places of amusement, factories, fire-stations-all the appurtenances and avoidances necessary to the promotion and maintenance of the highest standard of hu- man health. But the great merchant prince of New York, A. T. Stewart, even before the appearance of Dr. Richardson's paper, had the sagacity to found a city-a "Garden City"-on a tract of land which had remained utterly neglected from the first settlement of this country by Europeans, on account of a singu- lar belief or fatuity that it was barren or unfit for culture. Yet, strange to say, this tract of land, on which Garden City is situated, possesses all the natural advantages suited to Dr. Rich- ardson's ideal "City of Health ; " and, with the required sanitary skill in the construction of this new city, Long Island will ere long exult in possessing the veritable City of Health so graphi- cally though fancifully depicted by Dr. Richardson.

The great Hempstead Plains, which Mr. Stewart " took, held, and possessed," is a remarkable tract of country. An old histo- rian, who described it more than two hundred years ago, says : "Toward the middle of the Island lyeth a plain, sixteen miles long and four miles broad, upon which plain groweth very fine grass that makes exceeding good hay, and is very good pasture for sheep and other cattel."

There were about sixty thousand acres in this wonderful piece of land ; it was, in fact, a prairie-a great and beautiful upland meadow, producing " very fine grass that makes exceeding good hay." I will try in a few words to describe the situation, surface, soil and geological structure of this celebrated spot. The west- erly part of the " Plains " is about fifteen miles from Brooklyn, and can be seen from the spires and " high house-tops " of Bed- ford. Starting from the South Ferry, where the rails of the old L. I. R. R. were seven feet above tide-water ; and at Bedford, two and a half miles, seventy-three feet ; at the watering-place formerly called Howard's Woods, on the high ground this side of East New York, eighty-three feet ; thence descending to Jamaica Depot, where the rails are forty feet above tide-water ; thence easterly, the grade is uphill all the way to Hicksville, twenty five miles from Brooklyn, or South Ferry, where it is one hundred and fifty feet above tide-water. This is the summit level of the L. I. R. R., and is near the north- easterly border of Hempstead Plains, which extends north of Hicksville to the southerly edge of the hills of Jericho. At Hempstead Branch, or Mineola, about a mile north of Garden City Hotel, the rails are 103 feet above tide-water. These dis- tances or heights are given to show the situation or position of this great tract. It is an elevated table-land with a southern aspect, with a descent of abont twenty feet to the mile. It is bounded on the north by the high grounds or ridge of hills running through the Island from west to east ; with this regular and gentle descent to the southern shore of the Island, the under drainage is most complete and perfect. Then the surface of the " Plains," from west to east, is gently undulating, in long swells; elevations and depressions, looking southwardly, have exactly the appearance of the dried beds of streams; and following them down towards the south borders of the Plains, streams of purest water are found in many of them.

These rollings or undulations of the land present, in fact, three drainage surfaces on each of them, one southerly of about twenty feet to the mile, and one on each side, gently sloping to the west and to the east from the center of these elevated sections, thereby presenting a most wonderful natural drainage. The surface soil is a dark loam from fifteen inches to two feet in depth. It looks just what a lady would select to fill her flower-pots with, and is

highly productive, and which grew and grows the "very fine grass that made exceeding good hay," according to the old chronicler; and what is remarkable, this grass never runs out-it is always fresh and green. And it may here be remarked that the natural grasses of Hempstead Plains are the most nutritious grasses that can be found in the Northern States.

The turf upon this upper and dark soil is so thick and strong as to require a team of three horses with a strong plough to turn a furrow through it. Under this layer of dark loam is a layer of yellow loam, of about equal thickness, in many places a clay loam or clay ; and under these, generally at a depth of about two feet and a half or three feet, is the firm, compact gravel and sand that everywhere form the main body of Long Island, for it is literally a "child of the ocean."

These undersands and gravels are firm and compact (there are no quicksands), and intermingled with fine silicious sands, com- minuted, almost levigated, forming the most complete and per- fect filter that can possibly be made; and the water found under this whole region, and flowing out of it, is of the purest and sweetest kind, and never fails. It has been claimed recently that a great subterranean river flows under Hempstead Plains, or such is the inference from the inexhaustible flow that is found from twenty to thirty feet under the surface.

The climate is the finest in the State of New York, most health- ful and pleasant. There are no stagnant waters nor malarious land within miles of this highly favored and most interesting region.

There is no place like it for the foundation of a City of Health -- the great work has been done by nature. There are not men and horses enough in this, the great Empire State, to form such a foundation for a City of Health ; and if Mrs. Stewart will im- prove these great natural advantages and found the first City of Health in America, she will become a benefactress to her race, and gain immortal honor. EDGAR F. PECK.

I desire also to say something about the share which I have had in the great discoveries in science and the arts of the age in which I have lived, especially that most wondrous of all, the uses of electricity. I only propose to say what I have seen and known as a matter of science, and connected with my professional study. I took a great interest in the study of electricity and mag- netism, from the time of Professor Oerstadt's (of Copenhagen) discovery of motion and electro-magnetism, which from that time took a prominent place with scholars and men of science to the present time. Omitting dates and particulars, I would say that Professor Joseph Henry, of Albany, was the American pion- eer in the science and use of electricity and magnetism, and it became the pursuit of his lifetime. In 1831 he delivered a lec- ture in Clinton Hall, before the New York Mercantile Library As- sociation, on "Electricity and Magnetism," in which he showed the great power of the magnet, when produced by a coil of wire, charged with electricity, around the iron, and this produced motion in the magnet.

At the conclusion of this lecture, in speaking of the velocity of the electrical fluid, he said, if it was possible to put a wire around the globe, twenty-four thousand miles, the electrical current would make the circuit of 24,000 miles whilst a swallow, in its ordinary flight, would make three dips of his wing. I was present at the lecture.

The immediate result then sought from electro-magnetism was motion, that it might be applied to machinery; and this was discovered and obtained by Mr. Davenport, an unlearned black- smith, of Brandon, Vt. He had seen for the first time, at the Crown Point Iron Works, the separation of iron from the pulver- ized iron ore by means of an electro-magnet. Going home, he made an electro-magnetic machine, which turned a wheel with great velocity. This was the first electro-magnetic machine ever made. He obtained a patent for it, and associated with himself Ransom Cook, an ingenious mechanic of Saratoga Springs, and

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GENERAL HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

they organized a company, under the firm name of Cook & Davenport ; they came to New York, and their invention was brought extensively before the public, and attracted great atten- tion. The late Edward Williams, author of Williams' Register, became associated with them. He was a man of great intelli- gence and enterprise, one of the founders of the American Insti- tute, New York, and it was through him and for him that I un- dertook to furnish material aid in this work. Mr. Williams soon saw the difficulties in the way of a private company in bringing out this great invention. He thought the company should have a charter to define its legal rights and powers, and went to Rhode Island (its Legislature being then in session), where he had friends, and by the aid of two eminent citizens, E. J. Mallett and Charles Jackson, he obtained a charter from the State of Rhode Island for an Electro-Magnetic Company, whose object was to develop the power and uses of electro-magnetism. Thus to Rhode Island belongs the honor of granting the first charter ever granted for that purpose, out of which came the telegraph which now surrounds the world. A company was organized under this charter, and opened an office and rooms at No. 58 Gold street, New York, where it set up machinery moved by electro-magnet- ism. A wheel was constructed five feet in diameter, which made three hundred revolutions a minute and power sufficient for a turning lathe. Large galvanic batteries were constructed, the largest and most powerful, I believe, ever constructed in this country. Large globules of electricity were produced by these batteries-liquid fire-so much so, that the neighbors said " they make lightning over there." Great publicity was given to this work, and the rooms were visited by the most eminent scientific men in the country: Professor Renwick, of Columbia College, New York; Professor Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, which had not then been put in use or practice; Professor Silliman, of Yale College, and Professor Hare, of Philadelphia. These dis- tinguished men made several visits there, at all of which I was present, for I found it necessary for me to take the supervision of the work there, in order to protect my interest in it, having fur- nished money to build the batteries and make most of the appar- atus used there. Mr. Williams I had also furnished with money for most of his personal expenses to Rhode Island and to Albany, where he also went. The learned professors, whose names I have given, seemed to doubt if sufficient electricity could be pro- duced by batteries to reach distant points-that it might waste on the wires. I contended that it could be obtained in sufficient quantity and force.

On one occasion, when these professors were present, an ear- nest argument arose on the power of galvanic batteries, I con- tending for my theory of its power, and they doubting. Mr. Chilton, of New York, a manufacturer of electrical machines and chemicals, was present, and he told one of my friends that he considered it was very great impudence in Dr. Peck to dispute with such men as Silliman and Hare on any matter of science.

There were some objections to the Rhode Island charter, as it involved a personal liability ; and it was thought best to obtain a charter from the State of New York. At the next session of the Legislature, Mr. Williams made application for a charter, which, by the aid of Professor Henry and others, was obtained. Meanwhile, at the laboratory in Gold street, Professor Morse was in almost daily attendance, and anxious to raise means to put into practical operation his great invention. I, with Mr. Wil- liams, negotiated with him for the purchase of one-half of his patent for the United States. He was to have $50,000 in money, to be paid in installments, and $500,000 in the stock of the Electro- Magnetic Company. To this the machine men, who held patents for electro-magnetic machinery, would not consent. At this time it was thought by Professor Morse that his wires must be laid under ground, and the wires be insulated by being wound with cotton thread like suspender wires ; and Ezra Cornell, a plough-maker in one of the towns of Central New York, and a native of Westchester County, proposed to Professor Morse to

make a plough to do this work. This plough was to have two shares, one in front to open the furrow, in which the wires were to be laid from a large spool of wire in the center between the shares, and the rear share to turn the furrow back on the wires. This project brought Professor Morse and Ezra Cornell together. The affairs of the Electro-Magnetic Company did not prosper ; the machine inventors differed among themselves, and about 1839 my interest in it ended with loss.

Truman Cook made these large galvanic batteries at No. 58 Gold street, which did so much to aid Professor Morse. Truman Cook was the brother of Ransom Cook. They were men of ability and great mechanical skill, and they did more than any other men to develop and promote the success and the use of electro-magnetism, out of which so great and wonderful results have come. Justice has not been done to their names and memory, as the pioneers of the great work and wonder of the world-the telegraph-which has come from their labor. Ran- som and Truman Cook were natives of Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

During my residence from 1841 to 1847, I was extensively en- gaged in the practice of medicine, and earnestly in the cause of temperance, and cultivated my little farm at Edgewood. I left Smithtown in 1847, and went to the village of Jamaica, for the purpose of giving my daughter the advantages of Miss Adrain's school, in Union Hall. Then I took up a permanent residence in 1849 in State street, Brooklyn, which has been my home to the present time. I selected this place as being con- venient to the railroad, as accessible to my property and business on the Island, and to New York City, where I had large pro- perty interests and was connected with various institutions. I am one of the oldest members of the American Institute. I attended the first Fair, in 1831, in the old Masonic Hall, on Broadway, near Pearl street ; the Hon. Edward Everett delivered the address in the evening in the Lutheran Church, in Walker street, between Broadway and Elm street. I have attended every Fair of the American Institute for fifty-two years, the first and the last Fairs. I was one of the founders of the Farmers' Club, of the American Institute, and a member of the Kings County Medical Society, a member of the Long Island Historical Society, and a life member of the New York Agricultural Society, and keep up my interest in my life work. I am now engaged in many other important improvements, which I trust will be of great use and benefit. This- from the Signal, Babylon, L. I., February 16th, 1884-I wish to put on record here:

A SHIP CHANNEL AROUND HELL GATE.

Millions of dollars have been spent in blasting out the rocks of Hell Gate, and yet the work is only begun. It is somewhat singular that it never occurred to any of our prominent engin- eers to avoid this dangerous reef altogether by opening a new cut. It has been left for Dr. Edgar F. Peck, of Brooklyn, to make the suggestion, which he does in the following letter, and it is to be hoped his ideas will be tested at an early day. It would seem as though the' better policy would have been to open a canal as proposed, and then obstruct the gate rather than seek to open it, which would force the water through the canal, and thus keep it open and navigable for the largest ships. Such a work would make the Sound the safest as well as the shortest outlet for the commerce of New York. The following is the Doctor's letter :

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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 11

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