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 35

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 35

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There was much distress among the poor, and a Brooklyn Humane Society was formed for their relicf. It was dissolved within a year, because, as was believed, " habits of imprudence, indolence, and dissipation, and consequently pauperism," werc engendered by its well- intended efforts.

Town meetings were held during the year to take measures against the storage of powder at Fort Greene, and with reference to ferry-rights, concerning which disagreements arose between the people and the ferry- company.

The name of " Old Ferry street " was changed to Ful- ton street by the trustees. At the first municipal elec- tion, William Furman, Henry Stanton, Tunis Joralemon, and Noah Waterbury were chosen trustecs. In June the village was visited by President Monroe.

1818 .- A survey of the village was made by Jeremiah Lott and William M. Stewart, assisted by Gabriel Fur- man, the historian, and John Cole. The boundaries were, on the south, District street (since Atlantic street), Red Hook lane, Fulton street, and thence a straight line to the head of Wallabout Bay. This sur- vey, which was adopted by the trustees, was completed at a cost of five hundred dollars. Sign-boards were put up at the corners of the streets at an expense of $50.

1819. February. The village was visited by General

140

HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

Andrew Jackson. In March of this year the County Clerk's office was removed hither from Flatbush. The danger from powder-magazines at Fort Greene again agitated the public mind, and a committee to abate the nuisance was appointed. Thomas Birdsall succceded Joel Bunce as postmaster in October of this year. An Agricultural Society was formed in the county.

1820 .- The population of the village was 5,210, according to the census. Daily mails were established in May between this village and New York, as well as Jamaica.

It is recorded that several whales appeared this year near Sandy Hook, and that one, nearly seventy feet in length, was taken and towed into a slip at the foot of Pineapple street, where it was exhibited to those who wished to feast their eyes and regale their noses, till the stench became unbearable.

1821. March. The first number of the Long Island Patriot appeared. It was edited and published by George L. Birch.

Levels of the village were taken by Jeremiah Lott, and a compensation of $250 was awarded by the trustees.

The number of buildings in the village this year was 867. Of these 96 were groceries and taverns. Accord- ing to Furman there were, within the same limits, at the close of the Revolution, fifty-six buildings.

1822 .- Sands street was this year paved, and in March, in compliance with a petition from the inhabit- ants, the trustees directed that the houses on Fulton, Main, Front, Hicks and High streets, should be num- bered, at the expense of their owners. It was, also, an- nounced that a graveled side-walk and curb-stones would be made in Fulton street, to the extremity of the village, near Military Garden. Fifty dwelling-houses were erected in the village this year.

March 13th, the First Presbyterian Church was incorporated.

In May of this year Alden Spooner published the first Brooklyn Directory. A Medical Society was established in Kings county.

On the 25th of July the corner-stone of the first Roman Catholic Church (St. James) was laid in Jay street, the society being incorporated on the 20th of November following.

In September precautionary measures were adopted by the trustees to prevent the introduction into the vil- lage of the yellow fever, then just making its appear- ance in New York; and the business of that city being necessarily transferred to Greenwich village, the steam ferry-boat Nassau plied regularly between that village and Brooklyn.

1823. March 3d, a severe storm occurred, which blew away the rope-walks of Joshua Sands and N. L. Mar- tin, and did much other damage.

June 5th. Spooner's Brooklyn Directory, second issue, estimates a gain of 190 families during the year

past. The population of the town at this time was about 9,000 ; that of the village 7,000. During this spring Henry street was opened.

In July, also, one of the public stores attached to the Custom-house of the port of New York was moved to the village of Brooklyn, and kept in a three-story fire-proof building, on Furman street, erected by Jona- than Thompson, collector of New York. This was the first, and for many years the only, bonded warehouse in Brooklyn, and was situated on the dock on Furman street near Cranberry street. (Map c, I). Another addition to the prosperity of the place was the erec- tion of a laboratory for the manufacture of whiting and colors, by Hiram & Arthur Hunt, situated near Isaac Cornell's distillery, and named The Nassau Whit- ing and Color Manufactory, and Furman's Mss. record that, on the 1st of August, there were no less than 53 vessels at the wharves of Brooklyn, besides eight vessels in the United States Navy-yard. On the 28th of this month the Apprentices Library was organized, which may be considered the event of the year.

The village had been visited, in 1803 and 1809, by epidemics of yellow fever. The first, which oc- curred in a year of uncommon salubrity, broke out at the Wallabout settlement, near the navy-yard, where two vessels from infected ports had discharged their bilge water. In this epidemic seventeen persons were attacked, of whom six died.

In the summer of 1809, another remarkably healthy season, the second epidemic occurred, traceable to a ship from Havana, which landed at Sands' lower dock, between Fulton and Catherine street ferries. In this case much discussion arose as to its cause, not all of which was entirely courteous in its character. Twenty- eight deaths occurred.

During this summer (1823) Brooklyn was again visited by the yellow fever. It was supposed by some to have been imported into the village by the ship Diana, or the brig Trio, which had lost her mate at sea by the same disease. The Diana, however, seems to have been fairly cleared, by concurrent testimony, from the imputation. Many inhabitants were disposed to trace the infection to certain stores belonging to Samuel Jackson and George Hicks, in which were stored large quantities of fish, from which arose an al- most insupportable stench. The first case occurred on August 22d, in a house on Furman street (Map c, G), and was fatal. In the same dwelling seven persons subsequently sickened, two of whom died; and two who had removed from the house were attacked and died at a place in Nassau street near the Alms house in the back part of the village. Another who was ascer- tained frequently to have passed through the infected district, and, as it was believed, had frequently visited the house on Furman street (Map C, G), died at the Mansion house on Columbia street. On the same street, also (Map c, D), John Wells, Esq., an eminent member

141

THE VILLAGE OF BROOKLYN, 1817-1834.

of the New York bar, expired on the 7th of September. Another fatal case occurred on Furman street (Map C, E), above the cooper's shop of F. Tuttle (Map c, M) ; another on the same street, near Caze and Richaud's distillery, which recovered ; and a case at Toby Phil- pot's, a public tavern on Furman street, recovered. A young woman, also from Furman street, died in Pearl near Nassau street ; and two cases of sickness occurred, one without the infected district, and one who sickened on board the Diana, of which her husband was captain, and was reported to the New York Board of Health, and the health-officer attributed her illness rather to the atmosphere of that part of Brooklyn where the

EAST RIVER

FURMAN STREET

COLUMBIA

STREET

MAP C-OF YELLOW FEVER DISTRICT, 1822. Copied from one in Gabriel Furman's Mss. Notes. REFERENCES.

1 .- Wharf and store of Samuel Jackson and George Hicks.

B .- Where the ship Diana lay.

G .- House where the fever appeared.

D .- Residence of John Wells, Esq.

E .- House where Thomas Oxx sickened and died.

X .- Mansion house, owned by Alex. Robinson, Esq., and in which John Ward, Esq., dled.

gg .- Fences erected by the Trustees.

H .- Toby Philpot's,

T .- Stone store of Henry Waring.

K .- Thomas Armstrong's tavern.

I .- Jonathan Thompson's brick store.

M .- Furman Tuttle's, and Mrs. Vanderveer's.

N .- Residence of S. S. Newman.

O .- Henry Waring's house.

P .- David Kimberly's house.

QQ .- Step-ladder to ascend the hill, from Furman street. R .- Road up the hill.

ship lay, to which she imprudently exposed herself in the night, than to any infection in the ship. The last death occurred on September 22d, just one month from the day of the first death, and on the same day the fences (Map c, g, g), which had been erected at each end of the infected district, were removed by the trustees. The ravages of the disease may be briefly summed up, as follows : 19 cases, of which 10 were fatal.

Oct. 15th, the First Baptist Church in Brooklyn was incorporated.

1824. This year Brooklyn's career of progress may

be said to have fully commenced. Awaking suddenly, as it were, to an appreciation of the resources and ad- vantages which they possessed, and flattered by the evidences of prosperity everywhere apparent, its inhabi- tants agitated great improvements. Streets and roads, hitherto considered as good enough, were now voted to be insufficient, and nuisances ; and, as vast mounds of earth vanished before the steady approach of pick and spade, new avenues and streets, nearly all of which were re-graded and paved, sprang into existence with the suddenness of magic. Here and there, also, at pri- vate expense, a lamp was hung out, serving only to make darkness more grimly visible ; and the imperfect water-courses, which ran through the middle of the streets, were replaced by carefully con- structed side gutters. A commodious market was built, a village watch was organized, a 1 municipal court established, and the cfficient force of the fire-department nearly doubled. More attention was paid to everything relat- ing to the village government; and the village ES authorities, whose functions had previously been quite limited, were reassured by the growing public interest, and strengthened by various subsequent acts of legislation, so that their action became gradually more decided and efficient. On every side, buildings arose of higher architectural pretensions and beauty than those which had preceded them ; and, led on by the enterprise of Dr. Charles Ball, followed by Z. Lewis, A. Van Sinderen, and others, the village began to assume a more elegant and creditable appearance. Every- where the evidences abounded that the hither- to shiftless stand-still village was too near the heart of the leviathan metropolis, not to feel its throb, and be quickened by the rush of the life-current that circulated through its im- mense arteries. From this period the march of the village was impetuously forward, never stopping, never wavering till its rapid career culminated in its incorporation, ten years later, as a city. In quick succession, one street after another was opened, graded, paved and lighted ; and radiating countrywards in every direction from the Fulton ferry, were daily-increasing evidences that there was a reality and a soundness in all this prosperity, that fully attested its permanence.

Brooklyn had now come to be the third town in the State, and the sixteenth in the United States ; hav- ing in its incorporated part a population of more than 7,000. An urgent necessity was felt for a bank. Ac- cordingly, the Long Island Bank was chartered and established during this year, with a capital of $300,000. Furman says : " An error will not be committed in saying that the growth and prosperity of Brooklyn have been largely promoted by this bank."

142

HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

January 6th. Brooklyn was designated, in a report of the Secretary of the U. S. Navy, as one of the plaees at which the ten first-class navy-yards were recom- mended to be established. The Brooklyn Fire Insur- ance Company was also incorporated, and the first Baptist church established here.

By acts of the legislature the trustees were eonsti- tuted a Board of Health, and the Brooklyn Fire De- partment was incorporated. It was stated that in 1824 the village contained 865 buildings, and the town 160, making a total of 1025, of which 146 were of stone or brick. The number of buildings erected during the year was 164. The village then contained seven ehurehes, eight rope-walks, seven distilleries, two ehain- eable manufactories, two tanneries, two extensive white- lead manufactories, one glass factory, one floor-cloth ditto, one card ditto, one pocket-book ditto, one eomb ditto, one seal-skin ditto, seven tide and two wind-mills, an extensive establishment for the preparation of drugs, and articles required for dyeing and manufacturing, condueted by Dr. Noyes, late professor of Hamilton College, seventy grocery and dry-goods stores, two printing establishments, lumber and wood-yards, master masons and earpenters.

The rope-walks manufactured 1,130 tons of cordage annually, at an expenditure of $260,000, and employed 200 persons. The distilleries consumed, on an average, 780 bushels of grain per day, at an expense of $368,200 per annum. The seal-skin factory employed 60 men ; pocket-book factory 40 persons ; comb factory 20; the eard factory, 300 persons ; and other branches in all 400 to 500 persons. Immense quantities of naval-stores, hemp, eotton, India goods, hides, provisions and lumber, were stored at Brooklyn.

Not least among the improvements, which indicated that the hitherto shiftless village had woke up, was the eare which the authorities began to exhibit for the removal of nuisances, the eleansing of the streets, and other measures pertaining to the health, appear- anee and welfare of the place. On th. 3 19th of May, the trustees passed a law to regulate the eleansing of Fulton, Main, Front, Water, Elizabeth and Doughty streets, which required that said streets should be swept, and the dirt and rubbish collected in heaps every Tuesday and Friday morning, between the first day of April and the first day of December, before ten o'eloek, under the penalty of $2 for every offense.

In May of this year a distillery of spirits of turpen- tine was ereeted at the corner of York and Adams streets, by David F. Cooper, Esq.

Measures were instituted for the establishment of a poor-house and hospital. A site near Fort Greene, in- cluding 192 acres, was purchased of Leffert Lefferts, Esq., for $3,750. The existence of six powder-maga- zines in the vieinity of this site was considered objee- tionable, and measures were taken to petition the

legislature for the passage of an act forbidding the storage of gunpowder at Fort Greene.

During the month of June several improvements were made in the village. Orange street was opened into Fulton street, by taking down the small, ancient wooden dwelling-house No. 153 Fulton street. Water street, between Main and Washington, and which was previously an almost impassable slough, was raised and regulated. Prospeet street was also regulated. " Here the hills literally bow their heads, and the valleys are exalted." The rocks in the vieinity of this street, forin- erly an ineumbranee on the ground, were blasted and converted into building-stone ; and the ground on the hills, before considered of little account, beeame so valuable that boards were ereeted thereon, inseribed, " All persons are forbid taking any of this earth."

July 1st. Joseph Sprague and Alden Spooner gave publie notiee, by advertisement in the Long Island Star, that they, in behalf of themselves and their associates, would make application to the legislature of the State, at their next session, for an act of incorporation, under the style of The Brooklyn Gus Light Company, with a capital of $150,000, for the purpose of lighting streets, dwellings and manufactories with gas. Mr. Sprague gives, in his Mss. Autobiography, an interesting aeeount of the ineeption of this enterprise. " About this time," says he, " Alden Spooner and myself, for amusement, made application for a Gas Light Company, fully aware that Brooklyn eould not then sustain it. We inserted a notiee for it, without the least thought of asking the legislature to grant it, desirous only to create a little sensation. After our notiee appeared, another set of gentlemen demanded a withdrawal of it, asserting that they only were the rightful heirs to such a privilege, and declaring that they would drive us from the field. Sueh impertinence roused our Yankee blood to yield to no such demand, believing that as eitizens we had rights. The demand being persisted in, it was deter- mined that I should go to Albany for a charter, which I did ; and without delay proeured its passage through the Assembly, when the other gentlemen appeared, with eounsel, and assured me that I might go home. Know- ing that one eharter could not be sustained, and two much less, I allowed them to pass their bill through the Assembly. We were now both in the Senate, where I had enough friends, elearly aseertained, by whose ad- viee I was warranted in saying to the other gentlemen that they might go home with their counsel. They fin- ally retired, while I remained, adding by agreement a part of them as directors, and thus passed a bill that is now giving light to Brooklyn. The stoek was all taken up and immediately sold at ten per eent. advanee, sueh being the misguided zeal, at that time, for any kind of stocks. It was amusing to see the estimation of diree- tors, claiming great sagaeity in counting up the fortunes to be made by gas! It was doubly amusing to see the infatuated dignity of the directors in their meetings,

143

THE VILLAGE OF BROOKLYN, 1817-1834.

over a worthless charter ; yet to them a rich placer of gold. The directors monopolized nearly all the stock, and resolved that no one should sell a share without the consent of the board. Various committees were put in motion, lots bought for gas-works, plans and estimates examined, until the great men of the day became con- vineed that to proceed would end in something more than gas. At this juncture, I moved that the money paid in be refunded, and all operations be discontinued, until the increase of Brooklyn should afford a reasonable prospect of supporting a gas company, which sugges- tion was adopted, and the money honestly returned, with interest."

In July of this year the first iron-foundry in Brook- lyn was established by Alexander Birbeck, on Water street, between Fulton and Dock streets.

On the 10th of August, the village was honored by a visit from General Lafayette.

1825. In January a portion of the ground near Fort Greene, lately purchased by the town of Brooklyn, was appropriated for a cemetery, and divided into conven- ient parcels, which were allotted to the different relig- ious denominations of the town, viz .: Dutch Reformed, Friends, Presbyterians, Roman Catholic, Methodist Episcopalian, Universalist, Episcopalian, Baptist, and a Common Plot.

February. A flag-stone walk was laid from the gate of the Old or Fulton ferry, to the Steamboat Hotel, a large wooden building, which stood on the easterly corner of Fulton and Water streets, in Brooklyn. It was the first walk ever laid to the ferry.

At this time the five trustees of the village held their meeting in a room over a grocery-store (about No. 23), within a few doors of Fulton ferry. "It was the cus- tom," says the late Mayor Sprague, one of the trustees, " as soon as the board assembled, to order decanters of 1 um, brandy, gin, and crackers and cheese. At the close of the year there was an animated discussion, whether we five trustees should cat a supper of oysters at the public expense. It was finally decided to be not only impolitic, but illegal, and so we ate at our own ex- pense, of one shilling each." Corporation proceedings were now first published in the Stor; but a motion to allow the editors to copy the minutes of the board for publication, was negatived.

The corner-stone of the new Apprentices Library was laid July 4th, of this year, by Gen. Lafayette.

On the 5th of December, a public meeting was held for the purpose of considering a bill proposed by a committee for the organization of a city government. It was rejected by the meeting, which was adjourned for twenty-one years.

According to the census, the population of the village in 1825 was 8,800. The Brooklyn White Lead Com- pany, the oldest in the State, was established by the brothers Graham.

1826. In March the new market in James street was

commenced. It was completed, and in successful oper- ation, about the last of November. Erastus Worthing- ton was appointed Postmaster in place of Thomas King.

On the 3d of May the board of trustees assembled for the first time in the new and recently finished Ap- prentices Library building in Cranberry street. The erection of this edifice seems to have given a considerable impetus to the literary interests of the village, as we find that, in August, a library was being collected for col- ored people ; and in November following, a free reading and conversation-room was established in the basement of the library building.

On the first of May an election took place, under the provisions of the amended village act, which gave two trustees to each of the five districts, instead of one, as before.

The height known as Mount Prospect was this year greatly improved by Dr. Evans. Several cottages were erected, surrounded by handsome fences, sidc-walks, etc .; fruit-trees were planted, and the land, by a systematic and liberal expenditure, was brought into a high state of cultivation.

A fruitless movement was also made by Mr. Hez. B. Pierrepont and others, for the establishment of a park, or promenade, along the Heights, which then retained much of their original appearance.

1827. April 1st, the daily publication of the Brook- lyn Evening Star was commenced ; but at the end of six months it was discontinued for want of sufficient patronage. The Brooklyn Savings Bank was also chartered, principally by the efforts of the friends and directors of the Apprentices Library, with a view to benefit adult mechanics.

The first night boot on the Fulton ferry commenced running September 28th of this year.

1828. In March the proposition was made to light Fulton street ; the cost of each lamp being estimated at $4.23 per annum.

April. An ox-eart, owned by the village, and used for collecting and removing dirt and garbage from the streets, was found so economical, as to cause a proposi- tion for the purchase of another. Two months later these ox-carts (the suggestion of the worthy president of the village, Mr. Sprague) were stated to have fairly paid their cost and the labor of gathering the inanure.

May. A theatre was erected, about this time, on Ful- ton street, between Nassau and Concord, but was subse- quently abandoned, and converted into dwelling-houses. 1829. May. The Kings County Sabbath-school Society was formed and comprised twenty-three schools within the county. Its officers were Nchemiah Denton, of Brooklyn, president ; John Terhune, vice-president ; N. W. Sandford, 2d vice-president ; Abraham Vander- veer, treasurer ; Evan M. Johnson, secretary. Man- agers for Flatbush, Messrs. Rev. Meeker, Rouse, Strong, Butie, Crookshank and Carroll ; for F'lutlands,

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

John Lefferts, Dr. Vanderveer, David Nefus, Johannis Remsen ; for Gravesend, B. C. Lake, John S. Garrison ; for New Lots, John Williamson, John Vanderveer ; for Brooklyn, Eliakim Raymond, Adrian Hegeman, Richard M. White ; for Bushwick, Peter Wyckoff, James Halsey. This society was auxiliary to the Southern Sabbath-school Union of the State.

At this time the village contained some 300 youth, 200 of whom attended the public schools.

June 4th, the steam frigate Fulton, which had since the war been used as a receiving ship, was destroyed at its moorings at the Navy-yard by the explosion of the magazine. By this accident thirty-three were killed and about thirty were wounded.

In the same month a Temperance Society was organ- ized in Brooklyn, with A. Van Sinderin, president, and F. T. Peet, secretary.

In October the corner-stone of the Collegiate Insti- tute for Young Ladies was laid. The building, which cost $30,000, stood on Hicks street. The institution, after a few years of evanescent prosperity, was closed because of a lack of patronage, and was afterward converted into a hotel and boarding-house, under the name of the " Mansion House."

1830. The events of the year were unimportant. The County Supervisors purchased a poor-house farm at Flatbush ; a Dispensary was established ; and a Brooklyn Colonization Society, and a Brooklyn City Tract Society. The Hamilton Library Association was founded.

1831. An application was made for a charter of a railroad from Brooklyn to Jamaica. Samuel E. Clem- ents was appointed Postmaster, vice Erastus Worthing- ton, deceased ; and, on the resignation of Mr. C., in December, he was succeeded by Mr. Joseph Moser.

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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 35

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