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 12

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 12

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" OPENING OF HELL GATE BY A SHIP CHANNEL .--- A great deal has been said, but very little done, about removing the obstructions to navigation in Hell Gate-that being about the burden of the talk. Now, I propose to cut this Gordian knot by opening a ship channel from Hallett's Cove to Pot Cove, from 500 to 800 feet wide and 40 feet deep. This would cut off the elbow of Hallett's Point, that causes all the whirls and tumult and dan- gers in the roaring waters of Hell Gate. This ship channel would have to be made only about a half a mile long, from 86th street to 96th street, and will remove all obstructions to the full and free navigation of Long Island Sound, and all ships and vessels coming from the eastward would take the Long Island Sound route to New York. The whole State of Connecticut is deeply interested in this important work, as it would open for it free and clear navigation into New York. I am greatly sur- prised that it has not been done long ago-that the very door

49a

CAPABILITIES AND DEVELOPMENT.

and gate to the city have been left closed by the raging waters and rocks of Hell Gate for more than two hundred years. The island of Manhattan bears an Indian name which signifies 'roaring water,' and this term the Indians appplied to the waters of Hell Gate, and afterwards to the island itself. Let Gen- eral Newton stop his useless and costly work of digging under the rocks to try to blow out the bottom of Hell Gate; let him come out of his dark dens and work in the open day, by means of coffer-dams around the rocks he wishes to remove. All that work can be done by coffer-dams for less than half the cost now made in his useless work, and he would leave a clean bottom, not filled with broken and spiculated rocks, as he now leaves it. So let us have the ship channel to avoid the dangers of Hell Gate. EDGAR F. PECK, M.D.

" BROOKLYN, January 26th, 1884."

[From the Christian at Work, November 9th, 1882.] THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE.

BY EDGAR F. PECK, M.D.

To the Christian at Work :

I beg to express to you my earnest thanks, in behalf of hu- manity and Christianity, for your able and interesting article on tobacco in your last week's paper. I have been for a long time trying to rescue childhood and youth from the tobacco fiend, and am now in the midst of the conflict against the two great dragons, the most stupendous curses of mankind, rum and tobacco. I have fought these cnemies all my life, and now in my old age am moved to enter the field once again, though I have been out of active service for some time. Public attention seems to be waking up to the evils of tobacco. I have been and am now endeavoring to concentrate forces and efforts against it, and I think some progress has been made. My view is, that if min- isters of the Gospel and medical men would abandon the use of tobacco, and use their influence against it, the evil could be greatly abated, if not entirely abandoned.

Now as to strong drink. I differ with some of the temperance men of the present day on their plan of action. I want you to publish this plan, and I want some of your able writers to take up the subject on a "new departure;" to put the axe to the root of the great Upas tree; to stop making the infernal stuff by-pro- hibition. I mean, to prohibit the making of the deadly thing. I claim that our government is responsible for all the drunken- ness in the land, because it allows all the drink of the drunkards to be made. This is a plain truth, and cannot be denied. I want some able speaker or writer to present this subject to the people, and let the whole question be discussed on the merits of the case from this standpoint. The government is represented by Congress, headed by the President, and I charge that he and they are the responsible parties, for their fiat or authority lights all the lurid fires that blaze and flame in the ten thousand distil- leries and breweries that burn perpetually night and day, and pour out their streams of liquid death all over the land. The government is the great manufacturer in this infamous work; it seizes the lion's share of the plunder; it keeps an army of men on guard to hunt " crooked whiskey." Thosegrim, fiend- like creatures that went to Deacon Giles' distillery and offered to do the work of the devil on the Lord's day are quartered in bat- talions in every city, town, village. and hamlet, and sixty mil- lions of money is seized by them as revenue! Sixty millions from the blood and bones of the poor drunkard ! And in this horrible and atrocious work more than a hundred millions of bushels of golden grain a year-enough to feed and clothe the naked nations of the earth-millions of loaves of bread, the staff of life-are beaten, bruised, burned and transmuted into the deadly curse-and all by government. And if this be not a na- tional crime, I fail to see what can be. This money seized by government is blood money, and it is a disgrace to a Christian people to take it or to touch it. The cry of this blood money goes up to heaven and calls aloud for vengeance. Let the whole nation be aroused to the enormity of this crime; let all the churches pour out their indignation against the great sin. It is a great national crime. The capital of the nation is the great Gibraltar of intemperance. Washington is the great golden bowl from which the nation is made drunk. The White House is a whited sepulchre; it is full of extortion and dead men's bones. Let the temperance army march upon it with banners and battle down its walls. I am not a reformed man. I began my work in my youth. I adopted total abstinence in 1824, two years before Dr. Beecher preached his immortal sermons against intemperance in Litchfield, in 1826. I knew Dr. Beecher. I lived then a few miles from Litchfield. I entered the study of

medicine about that time, and I took up the whole subject, and for nearly forty years did my utmost in the cause. I am much like the aged prisoner released from the Bastile. The men among whom I moved and worked two generations ago have passed away and gone; they are nearly all dead. I can scarcely recall the name of a single one living; and, without boasting, perhaps there is no man living who has had a better opportunity to thoroughly understand the whole history of the temperance cause. I wish to do what I can to roll back the burning floods of intemperance, but I feel that my earthly work is about done. I feel humbled, humiliated, that I have done so little in propor- tion to what I ought to have done for my Lord and Master's ser- vice. My lease of life is out-the lease of the house I live in, my body, is out-and I am only holding over, a tenant at will- holding over on sufferance, liable to be ejected with or without notice when the great Lord of the Manor calls for His posses- sion, and all I have to do is to keep myself and my house in order for the coming of the King. May the Lord bless you and your Christian work !

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

I have always been a temperance man, often writing and speaking for the cause. In politics I was one of the earliest and staunchest abolitionists. I voted for John Quincy Adams in 1828, and supported Fremont in 1856, warmly espousing the Republican party and principles through the war. I joined the Reformed Dutch Church in 1828, and for the past 30 years have been a member of the Old Reformed Dutch Church, near the City Hall. I have always been blessed with excellent health of body and mind through my life-long, arduous labors.

[We have been kindly furnished by Mr. ELIAS LEWIS, Jr., with some notes on Long Island, which corroborate the foregoing statement of Dr. Peck, and which we here present .- EDITOR. ]

The general form of Long Island is indicated by its name. Its extreme length is about 115 miles, and its average width scarcely more than 12 miles. Almost its entire mass is a glacial deposit or moraine, part of the vast deposit of similar material which abounds at intervals from the Island of Nantucket westward and northward to beyond the Mississippi River. This, geologically considered, is known as the terminal moraine of the ice sheet of the glacial age. In its structure, Long Island comprises the material peculiar to such deposits-sand, gravel, clay, with boulder in every condition of intermixture. The surface soil is to a large extent a sandy loam, fertile and easy of cultivation. It is especially adapted to the growth of grass, grains, and gar- den products. Much of the western part of the Island is being converted into a garden for the supply of the great cities near. Agricultural industry is being rapidly developed, and nowhere else is it more successful or profitable. The so-called sandy tracts of Suffolk County, concerning which a great deal of thoughtless and idle remark has been made, are found to yield a profitable return for intelligent labor. Long Island is fairly well wooded. Its forests are of oak, hickory, chestnut, locust, with many other species of deciduous trees. The evergreens in- digenous to the soil are almost entirely of the yellow or pitch pine, Pinus rigida. At an early period of its history, the forest growth of the island was doubtless heavier than now. There were oaks, chestnuts, tulip trees, and others of great age and of immense size ; a few of these survive. The fox oaks at Flushing, no longer existing, were historic trees and justly celebrated. A white oak at Greenvale, near Glen Gove, is 21 feet in girth, and is probably 500 years old; another nearly as old is at Manhassett, in the Friends' meeting-house yard; others similar are at Smith- town and vicinity. A tulip tree at Lakeville, on the elevated grounds of S. B. M. Cornell, impaired by age and storms, is 26 feet in girth near the ground, and was a landmark from the ocean more than a century ago. The famous black walnut at Roslyn, on grounds of the late W. C. Bryant, is probably the largest tree on Long Island; it measures 29 feet in girth at the ground, and 21 feet at the smallest part of the trunk, below the spread of its enormous branches. Chestnut trees in the neigh- borhood of Brookville and Norwich, in the town of Oyster Bay, are 16, 18, and 22 feet in girth. The growth of hard-wood trees on Long Island is rapid. The few large trees stand- ing indicate what they may have been, or what they might be if undisturbed. The evergreens grow with equal luxuriousness. A century and a half ago pitch pines were abundant from 20 inches to 36 inches in diameter.

Nowhere on the coast does the locust flourish as it does on Long Island ; nor can it be found elsewhere of equal quality.

50a

GENERAL HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

Notwithstanding insect attacks, young forests quickly spring up. (See page 20.)

When the Island was first settled by white people, a great va- riety of wild animals were common, which are now extinct. Among these were the black bear, wolf, wild-cat, beaver, porcu- pine, opossum and gray fox, also several species of smaller quadrupeds. The deer was plenty, and is not uncommon now in Suffolk County. It is probable that the moose and elk were once found on the Island, as one of these species was found on Fisher's Island, a part of the town of Southold, a century and a - half ago.

Of birds, Long Island is the habitat, or resting-place, of about three hundred and twenty species. Of the species once com- mon here, many no longer visit us, or have left this portion of the coast altogether. A descriptive catalogue of the birds of Long Island was published by Giraud, and a very complete catalogue was issued by Geo. N. Lawrence, of New York, about ten years since. The fishes of the coast are catalogued by Professor Theo- dore A. Gill, formerly of Brooklyn, and included in a more general catalogue of the fishes of the Atlantic border of the United States. The species number about one hun- dred and ninety. In the Museum Department of the Long Island Historical Society, an effort is being made to pre- sent a collection which shall represent the fauna and flora of the Island, of both living and extinct species.

The physical aspects of the Island are of rare beauty. Hills, plains, valleys and vast stretches of meadow occur throughout its length, toward the west, and a ridge of hills, which rise at Brooklyn to the height of 190 feet, extends eastward, attaining at Roslyn a height of 384 feet. This is the highest elevation on the Island, and commands a view which for extent, rarity, and picturesque beauty is not surpassed on the Atlantic border of the United States. Jane's Hill, one of the West Hill group, is 383 feet high. Other hills in Suffolk County are Ruland's, near Coram, 340 feet ; Osborn's, southwest of Riverhead, 293 feet ; Shinnecock Hill, 140 feet. Montauk Point is 85 feet above tide. Throughout the western portion of this line of broken hills the unmodified glacial drift prevails at the sur- face, making a soil of rich, clayey loam. The " plains," which lie south ward of the hills extending from Fort Hamilton to Shinne- cock, consist of what is known as "modified drift," a deposit in which the great glacial moraine beds have been distributed and assorted by moving water. A coarse gravel is frequent on the north side of the Island, and some of the richest soils of the Island lie upon a deep gravelly deposit.

Boulders of immense size occur on the north side of the Is- land throughout its entire length, also along the central hills. The largest one is in Manhassett, in the town of North Hemp- stead. Its extreme length is 54 feet, width 45 feet, and the thickness about 16 feet, a portion lying below the surface; others at Wading River, in Suffolk County, are 100 feet in circumfer- ence, and 15 feet high, 78 feet circumference and 25 feet high ; and one lying 180 feet above tide measures 15 feet in height above the surface of the ground, and 109 feet around.

These enormous boulders are of gneiss, as are nearly all the very large ones found on the Island. Deposits of excellent clay occur on many parts of the Island, and are profitably worked. The most extensive workings are by the Messrs. Cross- man and by the Messrs. Jones, on the east side of Cold Spring harbor. These mines, worked or bored to a depth of 100 feet or more, are practically inexhaustible. These outcrops of clay are evidently part of a vast deposit, which can be traced from the head of Little Neck Bay to beyond Port Jefferson, a distance of fifty miles. Extensive excavations are at Glen Cove, the de- posit being clay, kaolin and fire sand, extending apparently beneath the elevated promontory on which the village of Sea Cliff is built. What the geological age of the great clay beds may be, is not determined. They are evidently pre-glacial, as they are deeply covered by glacial drift. They may, therefore, extend as a layer far beneath the Island. The deposits of clay named are not to be confounded with others found in various parts of the Island, which are merely local deposits. Many occur upon the surface, as at Farmingdale, others underneath deep beds of stratified gravels and sands, as at Barnum Island, near Long Beach, in Queens County. At this place, 75 feet be- low the surface, a bed of fine compact blue clay 48 feet thick was passed through in an artesian boring in 1876.

The north side of the Island is penetrated by a series of fiord valleys, eight in number, forming excellent harbors. In these the water is of sufficient depth for coasting vessels, but is 40 feet deep in some instances. These fiord valleys have their source at the central hills.

There is evidence that the coast, of which Long Island is a part, has not always maintained its present position, with re- spect to the level of the ocean. During the glacial age, it has been shown that the coast was 200 feet or more higher than

now ; the coast line was from 80 to 100 miles southward of the present one, and the Hudson discharged its waters into the ocean 100 miles southeastward of Sandy Hook. The last vertical movement appears to have been one of subsidence. Meadow formations, several feet thick, with shells of the present period, are found 50 feet below the surface of the waters at the Narrows, near Fort Lafayette, and submerged swamps with stumps of large trees occur at many points around the shore. The only formations independent of the drift are the clay bed already noticed and a narrow expanse of gneiss at Astoria and vicinity, of the same general character as that of the main land op- posite.

CHAPTER X.

FORMATION AND GROWTH OF THE LONG ISLAND HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY.

T" THE first steps toward the formation of the Long Island Historical Society were naturally taken by a native Long Islander, ALDEN F. SPOONER, who had affinities by birth, marriage and residence, with each of the three counties. He prepared and caused to be widely distributed the following cir- cular:

BROOKLYN, February 14th, 1863.

DEAR SIR :- The time has arrived when the city of Brooklyn should found and foster institutions-religious, historical, liter- ary, scientific, educational and humanitarian-beyond the scope of former undertakings. As one of these, a historical society, associated with our peculiar geographical position, naturally suggests itself. We propose to establish

THE LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

The threefold Indian, Dutch and English history of the Island is full of interest, and there are doubtless concealed treasures in each department, which will be developed by research and in- quiry. By calling out the recollections of the living who will soon pass away, drawing public records and private writings from their concealment, having a fit place for the collection and deposit of trophies, memorials and historical materials, and also for conventions and lectures upon historic topics, it cannot be doubted that much valuable knowledge will be saved and communicated, which would otherwise be irretrievably lost.

It is proposed to establish, first, a library and repository of books, documents and manuscripts, memorials, trophies and pictures. For this purpose all persons are requested to favor us with any appropriate material in their possession, either by gift or on deposit.

It is also proposed to encourage lectures upon historic and kindred topics.

Without further developing our plans and objects in this cir- cular, we invite your attendance at the rooms of the Hamilton Literary Association, Hamilton Building, corner of Court and Joralemon streets, Brooklyn (the door nearest the corner), on the evening of Tuesday, March 3d, 1863, at 8 o'clock, to take measures to organize the society.

HENRY C. MURPHY, ALDEN J. SPOONER, JOHN GREENWOOD, JOHN WINSLOW, JOSHUA M. VAN COTT,

Kings County.

R. C. MCCORMICK, JR., & Queens County. HENRY ONDERDONK, JR., HENRY P. HEDGES, Suffolk County.

THE LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

This met with a prompt response from Brooklyn's educated and progressive citizens. The society was resolved npon; appropriate committees appointed to prepare an aet of incorporation under the general law, and a constitution and by-laws, and to provide the requisite rooms. The organization being effected, rooms were secured in the Hamilton Building, on the corner of Court and Joralemon streets.

The first election of officers took place in these rooms in May, 1863, the following full board being elected:

President, James C. Brevoort ; First Vice President, Jolm Greenwood; Second, Charles E. West; Foreign Corresponding Secretary, Henry C. Murphy; Home Corresponding Secretary, John Winslow; Recording Secretary, A. Cooke Hull, M. D .; Treasurer, Charles Congdon; Librarian, Henry R. Stiles.

DIRECTORS .--- Charles Congdon ; Roswell Graves ; Thomas W. Field; A. C. Hull, M. D .; J. M. Van Cott; Ethelbert S. Mills; R. S. Storrs, Jr., D.D .; Henry R. Stiles, M. D .; A. N. Littlejohn, D. D .; Charles E. West; LL. D .; A. A. Low; George W. Parsons; Alden J. Spooner; John Winslow; S. B. Chittenden; Hon. John Greenwood; George A. Stephenson; Hon. Henry C. Mur- phy; William Poole; Henry Sheldon; J. Carson Bre- voort; W. I. Buddington, D. D .; Elias Lewis, Jr .; Theo- dore L. Mason, M. D .; Henry E. Pierrepont.

COUNSELLORS-Kings County ; Hon. John A. Lott; Francis Vinton, D. D .; T. G. Bergen; F. A. Farley, D. D .; Benjamin D. Silliman; Hon. James Humphrey. Queens County: William Cullen Bryant; Hon. John A. King; Richard C. McCormick; John Harold; L. B. Prince; Solomon D. Townsend. Suffolk County: IIon. Selah B. Strong; Hon. J. L. Smith; William S. Pelletreau; James H. Tuthill; Rev. E. Whitaker; Henry P. Hedges.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE .- R. S. Storrs, Jr., D. D. (chairman); J. M. Van Cott; Alden J. Spooner; E. S. Mills; George W. Parsons; Henry Sheldon; Simeon B. Chittenden; Henry R. Stiles (secretary).

The first annual meeting (second year) was held May 5tlı, 1864, at which all the above officers were re-elected; and the first annual report was presented, which exhibits a beginning of great vigor and hopefulness. In this report Dr. HENRY R. STILES, the librarian, says:

" The nucleus of a library, with which we commenced our operations on the 4th of June last, comprised about 800 bound volumes and 1,000 unbound volumes and pamphlets. This collection, consisting chiefly of works relating to Long Island and American local history, family genealogies and news- papers, was contributed mainly by Messrs. J. C. Brevoort, A. J. Spooner, E. B. Spooner, Henry Onderdonk, Jr., and Henry R. Stiles. We then occupied two apartments, one used as a lecture room ; the other and smaller of the two was shelved as a library room, having, as we then modestly thought, ample accommodations for the next two years. We soon found, however, that we had quite under-estimated the liberality of our friends ; for so large was their sympathy, so active their co-operation, and so steady the influx of their gifts-never intermitting for a single day, it might almost be said for a single moment-that it soon became evident we

should need more book room. At this point in our history (in September, 1863), the receipt of nearly 1,100 valuable vol- umes from the trustees of the former City Library fairly over- whelmed our slender accommodations, and obliged us to ex- tend our borders by securing three large and commodious apartments adjoining the library."

These claims for additional spaec made by the nat- nral history and museum department, as well as the library, soon compelled the occupation of the entire third story of the large building fronting on Court and Joralemon streets, comprising eight ample and conven- ient rooms, there being one reading room especially for ladies, with cosey alcoves for books and appropriate spaces for a large collection of valuable pictures. In these rooms the collections remained until removed to the Society's own building. For the annual courses of lectures, the large lecture room of the Packer Insti- tute, and, at times, the Athenaeum on Atlantic avenue, were used. For additional space for the lectures, the Society for several years latterly has occupied the Second Pres. Church, and the beautiful anditorim of the First Baptist Church on Clinton street.

The Society having been greatly favored in the accu- mulation of materials of history, a spirit sprang up, among the members, of individual and mutual labor on works of local history. The principal of these were:

A History of Brooklyn (in three volumes), by Henry R. Stiles, M. D.

The Wallabout Series of Memoirs of the Prison Ships, with annotations (in two volumes), by Henry R. Stiles, M. D.

Journal by two Labadists, Dankers and Sluyter, of a voy- age to New Netherlands, from Holland, in 1670-80, by Henry C. Murphy, Esq. (Vol. I. of the Society's Collections).

History of the Battle of Long Island, by Thomas W. Field, Esq. (Vol. II. of the Society's Collections).

The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn, in- cluding particulars of the battle of Long Island, by H. P. Johnson. (Vol. III. of the Society's Collections).

Sketch of the first settlement of Long Island, by Silas Wood; reprinted with biography and annotations, by A. J. Spooner, Esq.

History of Brooklyn, by Gabriel Furman; reprinted with biography by A. J. Spooner, Esq., and notes by H. R. Stiles, M. D.

Revolutionary Incidents in Kings, Queens and Suffolk, by Henry Onderdonk, Jr., of Jamaica.

Dr. Stiles, having resigned his office of librarian, was succeeded by George Hannah, who has served since July 1st, 1865.

The collections in books and objects of art and curiosity increased so largely as to eall imperatively for a new building, and an active committee was ap- pointed, which prosecuted the work with zeal and suc- cess. In November, 1877, it was reported that $100,000 had been subscribed. Plans were solicited, and those of George B. Post, a New York architect, were pre- ferred. Under his eare the edifice was completed; and it was formally taken possession of with appropri- ate ceremonies and speeches, Wednesday, January 22d, 1881, in the lecture room of the new building. Samuel MeLean was chairman of the building committee.

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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 12

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