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 130
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August 8. Destructive fire on Bushwick Creek, at Pratt's Oil Works, which spread to lumber yards on Newtown Creek; loss about $300,000.
August 26. Railroad opened between Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach.
September 21. A decision of the Court of Appeals ends the "Bond" or Kings County Elevated Road ; given on the ground that the requisite consent of property holders was not obtained.
October 4. The assessed valuation of the property in the city is given as $234,836,491; of the city and county, $247,021,166.
October 8. Arrangements made to organize a chorus for the Philharmonic Society.
October 27. Total destruction by fire of the Ansonia Clock Factory; loss $1,000,000.
November 2. The new building of the Long Island Historical Society opened for inspection.
November 29. A controlling interest of the Long Island Railroad sold to Austin Corbin and a syndicate of Boston capitalists.
December 10. Surf Avenue, at Coney Island, opened through from Brighton Beach to West Brighton.
December 14. Organization of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
December 21. First annual dinner of the New Eng- land Society of Brooklyn, at the Assembly Rooms of the Academy of Music.
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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.
December 26. Great storm, obstructing travel; the surf doing great damage at Coney Island.
1881-January 1. The new Charities' Commission of three members entered upon its office ; the three being Messrs. Shipman, Henry and Ryan.
Mayor Howell's annual message reports the total city debt to be $37,602,111; 1,650 new buildings were erected in 1880.
January 12. Formal presentation, to the trustees, of the Long Island Historical Society's new building on Pierrepont and Clinton streets.
February 4. The Police Department reports 26,785 arrests during 1880.
February 18. Work commenced on the superstruc- ture of the Brooklyn Bridge.
February 23. Mr. George I. Seney donates $200,000, and sixteen lots of land on Seventh avenue, for a Brooklyn Hospital.
March 28. The four rapid transit projects on foot are : 1st, the "Bruff" elevated road, partially con- structed, but in the hands of a receiver; 2d, that de- vised by the second commission, with a route through Adams, Fulton and Myrtle avenues; 3d, the elevated road from South Ferry, through Atlantic and Fourth avenues; 4th, an underground railway parallel to Fulton street.
April 16. Organization of the East River Bridge and Coney Island Steam Transit Company, to build an elevated road from the Bridge, through Washing- ton, Pearl, Willoughby and DeKalb, to Flatbush ave- nue and the Long Island Railroad depot, thence to Twentieth street and Culver's depot, with a branch from Willoughby street to the Bruff road on Park ave.
April 21. The Union Ferry Company secured from New York city a new lease, paying twelve and a half per cent. of the gross receipts.
April 24. Death of Hon. TUNIS G. BERGEN.
May 4. Coffer-dam sunk as a beginning of work on the projected chain suspension bridge from Seventy- first street, New York, to Ravenswood.
June 9. The records of the Board of Education stolen from a safe.
June 12. Destructive fire at the Atlantic Dock Basin, followed three days later by a disastrous fire at Pierrepont stores, with loss of life.
June 21. Twenty-third annual convention of the New York Sportsmen's Association, held at Coney Island for a week, beginning at this date.
June 30. Death of E. J. WHITLOCK, President of the Board of Education.
July 5. The Common Council met and passed reso- lutions of sympathy with President Garfield in his struggle to recover from the assassin's bullet.
Aug. 3. Death of ALDEN J. SPOONER, at Hemp- stead, L. I.
Aug. 6. George A. Stuart, Secretary of the Board of Education, arrested, charged with taking $10,000 of
the funds of the Board of Education. Examined and discharged Aug. 24. Re-arrested Aug. 31 on new charge of greater embezzlement.
Sept. 3. New steam road opened from city line to Middle Village, connecting lines of cars on Bushwick, Myrtle, Greene and Gates avenues, and Halsey street.
Sept. 8. Set apart by Mayor Howell as a day of special fasting and prayer for the President's recovery.
Sept 12. The flight of ex-Secretary Stuart, of the Board of Education, reported to the police; and arrest of his brother-in-law, Alderman Harry O. Jones, on complaint of having aided and abetted Stuart in em- bezzling $15,000.
Sept 20. Entire city in mourning over the death of President Garfield. No public business transacted. Many buildings draped in mourning.
Oct. 31. German Lutheran Hospital opened on New York avenue.
Nov. 8. SETH Low elected Mayor of Brooklyn by a vote of 45,434, over James Howell, who received 40,937 ballots.
HON. SETH LOW.
Mayor Low bears the name of his paternal grand- father, in his day one of the most honored, public- spirited and useful citizens of Brooklyn and the County of Kings, in both of which he held office most accept- ably. He was universally respected in his public and private life by men of all parties, and of every phase of opinion, as a man of sterling Christian principle, and of the purest and noblest character. The father of the Mayor is widely and honorably known, as one of the prominent merchants of New York, the founder and head of the house of A. A. Low & Brothers, the lead- ing American house in the China trade, and himself justly estecmed as a man of large and generous liberality. Of him, the late Moses Grinnell-another of the mer- chant princes of our great metropolis-said to the writer of this article, more than thirty years ago, that he was even then regarded by his elders in the same trade as taking the foremost position among them, through his remarkable foresight, excellent judgment, great executive ability and spotless integrity-a reputation which, unchallenged, he has maintained to this hour.
"Our young Mayor "-as it has been the fashion to call him, from the fact that he was only in his thirty- second year when first elected to the office in Novem- ber, 1881-comes, then, of honorable and honored de- scent. He was born at 165 (now 189) Washington street, in this city, on the 18th of January, 1850. IIis mother, one of the loveliest of her sex in person and life, a woman of sweetest disposition, winning manners, large benevolence and Christian faith, survived his birth but a few days. With her hands devoutly laid upon his head, she, in almost her last breath, com- mended him to the blessing of God, and died serenely on the 25th of the same month.
Put Lant
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CONSOLIDATED HISTORY OF BROOKLYN, 1881.
Mr. Low had all the advantages of a good education, beginning in the Juvenile High School, then in Wash- ington strect in charge of Misses Dobbin and Rogers; thence, in his twelfth year, at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute; entering Columbia College in the autumn of 1866, and graduating at its commence- ment in 1870. In every stage of his educational course he was signally faithful and industrious. Ambitious to excel, he gained and held the confidence, esteem and love of his instructors and fellow scholars, and secured the highest honors of the several institutions in which he was successively a student, graduating at the head of his college class.
After graduating, Mr. Low went abroad for a short trip, and, on his return, entered the mercantile house of his father as clerk, and, in 1875, became a partner. Just as faithful, observant and intelligently devoted to business-his training school for active life-as to his previous studics, he, nevertheless, was early and greatly interested in whatever bore upon and could promote the good repute and the truest prosperity of his native city. The mal-administration and abuse of the city and county charities attracted his attention; and he reso- lutely set himself against that whole system of out-door relief, which, in the hands of the then Commissioners of Charities, had become a sink of corruption. He was specially active in the inception and establishment of the Association-now, and more and more favorably known, as its efficient and beneficent action is better understood-the Bureau of Charities. In its plan and organization Mr. Low, and his friend, Mr. Alfred T. White, took the leading part. The former was chosen its first president, and the latter its first sec- retary and its second president, when Mr. Low was elected to the mayoralty. This bureau, it will be remembered, has for its object the co-operation of the various church and private charities in the city; sustaining a central office, with a salaried superintend- ent, to whom reports from all such benevolent bodies are intended to be made, and a registry kept of all per- sons or families relieved, at what time, by agents of which society, in what manner, and to what extent. All this with the view of confronting and breaking up that habit of repeating, by which whole families among the pauper classes live in idleness and ease, and consequent vice, on the bounty thus obtained. In the very midst of his energetic efforts in this behalf, and encouraged by the interest which the churches and the charitably dis- posed of all parties and denominations were beginning to show in the purpose and work of the bureau; actively en- gaged, at the same time, in the business of his firm; a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, serv- ing the Chamber on important committces, as well as other associations to which he belonged, Mr. Low was nominated for the mayoralty. He then avowed, dis- tinctly and unequivocally, that, if elected, he should carry into the office the determination to administer it
on those " business principles " with which he and his constituents must be supposed alike familiar, and, as a non-partisan work. Keeping in view the real needs of the municipality alone, apart from all State and Na- tional issues; aiming at civic economy and retrench- ment; the lessening of taxation; the prompt collection of the annual levy, in order to prevent, as far as possi- ble, the accumulation of arrears; and the support and advance of popular education; he should take to him- self in good faith the new and greater authority with which the recent amendments of the City Charter clothed the office, and hold the single and respective heads of the several departments of the work of the city individually responsible - not only for the general ad- ministration of their department affairs, but for the character, fitness, good conduct and efficiency of the subordinates whom they should appoint. How wisely, judiciously, faithfully and successfully Mr. Low met and fulfilled the requirements of his high office, its new and weighty responsibilities, and the pledges he had given, the record of his first term abundantly shows.
The approval, also, of his administration by a de- cisive majority of his fellow-citizens and his consequent re-election in November, 1883, shows conspicuously the same thing. And this, when no string possible for his defeat was left unpulled by the party and friends of the opposing candidate. Doubtless, Mr. Low had found on first entering on the Mayoralty, in the amendments of the City Charter already referred to, his great op- portunity; but, as surely, the fresh, untried, greater responsibilities of the office. For the discharge of these, he was now to be called publicly to account be- fore a popular tribunal - the court of his constituency. He did not for a moment shrink. With prompt re- sponse to the summons, with striking manliness and honesty of bearing - a marked and evident character- istic - with force and directness of speech, obvious to all, he presented himself at its bar. The trial became, in its progress, unwontedly heated and exciting. In it, largely as his own counsel, he took an active, personal, persistent part and in every section of the city, at con- stantly-recurring public meetings, two or three or more on the same evening, he showed remarkable tact and ever-increasing ability for popular address. Not, how- ever, by any lowering of his personal and becoming dignity, or sacrifice of self-respect; not by catering to the tastes of the vulgar; not by playing the role of the demagogue or the partisan; not by allowing himself for a moment to turn from the main issue of Municipal reform, which, throughout his first term of office lie had kept steadily in view, to any outside issues of State or National policy. But by plain, cogent, logical, ear- nest, yet unimpassioned argument, on the basis of clearly marshalled and unquestionable facts; by ap- peals, not to the fancies or prejudices or weaknesses of the masses; but to the sober common sense of the people at large, and their obvious capacity to comprehend the
518
HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.
direction in which lay their true and common interests as fellow· citizens-members of one great community- and the consequent welfare, prosperity and honor of that community itself; by no assumed, but only natural courtesy and dignity of manner and speech; holding fast, and determined, as he deelared, still to aet upon the same principles which had governed his administra- tion in the past as his only promise and pledge for the future. Thus it was that his various eampaign ad- dresses compelled the elose attention and enthusiastic applause of the crowded audiences he everywhere drew. The decision was made and the verdict given at the polls; and Mr. Low has entered on his second term of office, with the happiest auguries for the great eity which he so honestly and ably serves.
Nov. 18. Sale of East Side Park lands, 294 lots, at an average of $2,000.
Dec. 6. The Board of Aldermen granted the Bruff Elevated Railway Company the right to build a road on Fulton street and Myrtle avenue, which received the Mayor's veto Dec. 17.
Dec. 16. 14,527 deaths reported during the year to Nov. 1.
1882 .- Jan. 2. Mayor Low's message gives the net eity debt at $38,174,421; the number of new buildings ereeted in 1881 to Dee. 1st is 1,887, of the value of $9,185,000.
Jan. 9. Havemeyer & Elder's sugar refinery in First street, E. D., totally destroyed by fire; loss, $1,500,000; 1,000 men thrown out of employment.
Jan. 10. The report of the Brooklyn Post Office for 1881 shows that the number of pieces handled was as follows: 9,755,305 letters, 4,610,316 eards and 4,587,- 950 newspapers; the eash receipts of the office were $751,879.
Jan. 12. Fire Commissioner Worth reports 531 fires and alarms in 1881, with a loss of $859,284.
Jan. 14. The fifteen Aldermen who voted to over- ride the Mayor's veto, notwithstanding the injunetion, were fined $250 each, and from ten to thirty days in jail.
Jan. 23. Death of Major General SILAS CASEY, U. S. A., aged 75 years.
Feb. 6. Great fall of snow, impeding all travel; 600 people snowbound and forced to remain all night in the street ears. Special contraet made to elear Fulton street and Myrtle avenue for $2,050.
Feb. 16. Boiler explosion at Brooklyn Flour Mills, near Fulton Ferry, with loss of life and severe injuries to persons and property.
Feb. 21. Fire in the Insane Asylum at Flatbush; several inmates burned.
March 20. Trial of Alderman Harry O. Jones eom- menced on indietment of fraudulent use of money be- longing to the Board of Education. His acquittal fol- lowed May 1.
May 16. The Garfield Home for Consumptives opened at 219 Raymond street.
May 18. Death of John Zundel (for many years organist in Plymouth Church) in Germany. -
May 26. Death of JOHN D. Cocks, the founder of several charitable institutions in the city. Rails laid on the Seventh Avenue line of railroad.
June 23. The Hamilton Club, an outgrowth of the "Hamilton Literary Society," has taken the house, No. 97 Joralemon street.
July 3. The total number of deaths since July 1, 1881, is 14,538; of births, 10,893; the annual death rate was 24.83 per thousand.
July 12. Death of DANIEL MAUJER, aged 75 years.
Ang. 1. Death of Dr. ALBERT E. SUMNER, of 130 Clinton street, a prominent homeopathic physician.
Sept. 19. Death of CHARLES G. BETTS, ex-President of the Brooklyn City Railroad Co., at the age of 74.
Sept. 21. Corner-stone of the new Seney Hospital iaid at Sixth street and Seventh avenue.
Oet. 5. Total valuation of real and personal prop- erty in Kings county, estimated by elerk of the Board of Supervisors at $296,312,573, of which $283,738,317 is in Brooklyn, and $12,674,256 in the country towns.
Oct. 11. The number of seholars reported in the public schools is 64,633.
Oet. 16. The German Evangelical Aid Society laid the corner-stone of a Home for the Aged on Bushwick avenue and Fairfax street.
Oet. 23. Home for the Aged dedicated, at Sixteenth street and Fourth avenue, in charge of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
Nov. 14. The new building of the Industrial School for Destitute Children, on Sterling Place, opened for publie inspection.
Nov. 26. The Brooklyn Oil Refinery, at the head of Manhattan avenue, Greenpoint, burned, with the explosion of two tanks, the destruction of the wharf and a ship, and the loss of life.
Dee. 1. Death of Hon. HENRY C. MURPHY, Presi- dent of the Board of Bridge Trustees, and connected with many publie institutions. (See page 360.)
Dee. 9. Ex-Mayor James Howell appointed Bridge Trustee in place of the late Henry C. Murphy.
Dee. 11. 76,064, 152 passengers carried by the two street railroad companies during the last year.
Dee. 12. The Supreme Court, General Term, de- cides adversely to the application of the East River Bridge and Coney Island Steam Transit Company, which is a serious blow to rapid transit in the city.
Dee. 13. Police Commissioner Jourdan recommends an increase in the foree, now comprising 650 men, and reports 27,858 arrests made during the year to Novem- ber 30.
Dee. 14. Destructive fire at Bay Ridge, burning rolling stoek and depot of the Manhattan Beach Rail- road.
ALITIL.6
FRANCIS B. FISHER.
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CONSOLIDATED HISTORY OF BROOKLYN, 1883.
Dec. 18. New E. D. Dispensary on South Third street opened.
Dec. 27. The number of buildings erected to Dec. Ist was 1,841, valued at over $8,000,000. The Tree Planting and Fountain Society organized.
Dec. 28. 15,092 deaths reported for the year, to Nov. 4, being at the rate of 24.97 in a thousand.
Dec. 29. The Board of Education has expended $1,184,172, and the cost of educating each pupil is $20.
1883 .-- Jan. 8. Mayor Low's annual message re- ports the net debt of the city, Dec. 31, 1882, to be $37,493,723; 2,376 new buildings were erected in the city in 1882; twelve million gallons of water were added to the daily water supply.
Jan. 16. The fourteen street-car lines of Brooklyn carried 87,714,834 passengers in 1882, an increase of 7,000,000 over 1881.
Jan. 23. Death of ALONZO CRITTENDEN, LL.D., President of the Faculty of Packer Collegiate Insti- tute.
The letter carriers delivered 32,670,001 pieces of mail matter last year, against 28,551,438 in the year preceding.
Jan. 29. The Fire Commissioner's report shows that 531 fires occurred in the city during 1882, involv- ing a loss of $1,300,000. The Police Commissioner's report shows a total of 646 officers, or 1 to every 930 of the population. Death of DANIEL CHAUNCEY, President of the Mechanics' Bank; also of Police Jus- tice FRANCIS B. FISHER.
FRANCIS BARTON FISHER, late Justice of the Second Dis- trict Court, Brooklyn .- Mr. Fisher was born in Bolton, Mass., August 7, 1832. When he was about two years of age, his parents removed to Norwich, Chenango county, New York. There he received a good academical education, and later, being apprenticed to the printers' trade, he improved his leisure hours by diligent study. At the age of twenty he formed a partnership with Col. Thomas L. James (since Postmaster of New York and Postmaster-General) in the publication of the Madison County Journal, at Hamilton, N. Y. Two years later, he was editing the Chenango Tele- graph, then the leading paper in the county. A year or two after, he removed to Greene, in the same county, and estab- lished the Chenango American, which he edited for some years. In 1861 and 1862, he represented the Second Chenango District in the Assembly, and won a high reputation there, as a ready debater, a skillful manager, and an able, upright legislator. He returned, at the end of the session of 1862, to his paper; but his Albany experience had made him desirous of a wider field of action; and, after a brief residence at Albany, he came to New York city, in 1865, and established a printing office there. In 1866, he removed, with his family, to Brooklyn, and speedily identified himself with its in- terests, political, financial, and social. In every great measure for the benefit and improvement of the city, he was actively, and generally successfully, engaged; but amid all these struggles, partisan, political, or municipal, he always kept his hands pure. Yet he possessed extraordinary iu- fluence, both in his party and out of it, in the city and in the Legislature. There was something so magnetic and winning in his address and manner, that men yielded to him who had
stoutly resisted all the arguments and persuasions of others. But this power he would only use in a cause which he be- lieved to be right. He kept himself free from all the con- flicts of warring factions, and sought only to elevate his party (the Republican) to a position of high moral principle. In 1870, he was nominated for the Assembly, but was de- feated, though leading his ticket, the district being, at that time, very strongly Democratic.
He was elected Alderman of his Ward (the Twenty-third) in 1872, and re-elected in 1874 and 1876. During his last term, he was President of the Board of Aldermen, and for several months was Acting Mayor. He was an excellent presiding officer, his rulings being so impartial and clear as to win the approval of all parties. He was very popular in his Ward, and accomplished more for the benefit of its in- habitants than any other Alderman had ever done. The poor knew him as their fast friend; and, in time of need, were sure, not only of his influence and sympathy, but of his material aid; and every citizen of the Ward was certain that Alderman Fisher would obtain for them any favor which it was right for them to receive. During these six years he was carrying on his own private business, and was constantly overwhelmed with official labors. Yet he found time to organize a grand system of relief for the families of the victims of the Brooklyn Theatre fire ; to plan and aid efficiently several beneficent institutions for the sick and suffering poor; to plan and superintend the erection of the Municipal Building, aud to write its history.
But, though possessing a powerful influence in his party and in the city, political life had lost its charm for him, and at the close of his third term as Alderman, he declined a re- election, and withdrew from active politics.
His health, at this time, was not sound, but with his ab- stemious habits and his systematic employment of his time, he managed to accomplish a large amount of hard work. Though well informed on legal matters generally, he had never pursued a regular course of legal study with a view of admission to the bar; but, at this time, he entered zeal- ously upon the study of law, which he did not abandon, when he was appointed a Justice of the Police Court, to fill the unexpired term of Justice Riley, who had been elected Sheriff. He held the office for one year, and was nominated by the Republicans for the next term in that Court, but was defeated by Justice Courtney. He had, for years, opposed the elective system, as applied to the lower courts, ou the ground of its tendency to judicial corruptiou ; the Judges being, in many cases, elected by the votes of the very men who would afterwards come before them for trial.
He now drafted a bill for the Legislature of 1880, abolish- ing an elective city judiciary, and dividing the city into six districts for judicial purposes, enlarging the jurisdiction of these district courts somewhat, and providing that the new justices should be appointed by the Mayor, Comptroller, and Auditor, when the terms of the sitting justices should ex- pire. The bill was passed, and one of the justiceships, that of the Second District Court, was awarded to him. He entered upon his office in May, 1881. His duties were ad- mirably performed, and, while he was firm in punishing crime, his heart went out to those, who, from youth or ig- norance, had been led into evil deeds, and he zealously advo- cated and aided the efforts for the establishment of a reformatory for these classes. That he might promote these objects more effectually, and be better qualified for the exer- cise of his judicial functions, he coutinued his legal studies, eveu with failing health, and was finally admitted to the bar in December, 1882.
Soou after his appointment as Justice, he became con-
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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.
scious of waning physical powers ; but it was not until the summer of 1882, that he was convinced that albuminuria- that formidable and fatal disease of our time-had made such inroads upon his constitution as to preclude all hope of recovery. He struggled on bravely, however, taking his place regularly, at Court, till December, although under the pressure of severe pain, and with fast failing vision.
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