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 62

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 62

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On this same picturesque road are, also, the residences of Holmes Van Brunt, Judge Charles Van Brunt, of the New York Common Pleas Court, Isaac E. Bergen, Richard Bennett, Wm. Gelston, Thomas T. Church, the late Hawley D. Clapp, Van Brunt Bergen, Garret T. Bergen, J. Martin Bennett, John Bennett, Wm. and Adolphus Bennett, Winant Bennett, Daniel Van Brunt and the late Ruleff Van Brunt, Major Berrier, John Mckay, J. Cornell White, and others.

On the ridge of the bay, from the boundary line of Brooklyn to the beginning of the Shore Road, are the residences of Henry A. Kent, Sedgwick, Wm. C. Lang- ley, the late Michael Bergen ; and, on Owl's Head, the country residence of the late Hon. Henry C. Murphy,

267

BIOGRAPHY OF HON. TEUNIS G. BERGEN.

well known in the history of Kings County, but whose name and fame more properly belong to the annals of the City of Brooklyn. This is now the home of Mr. E. C. Bliss.

On and near Bay Ridge avenue, stand the ornate residences of the late Joseph A. Perry and Edward Kent.

On Second avenue are situated the Bay Ridge Athe- neum Building and the beautiful and tasteful homes of B. C. Townsend, Wm. H. Thomas, that of the late Wm. Kitching, commanding a view of the Bay ; and, near by, the tower of the residence of Mr. Bullock.

Not far from the Episcopal Church are the residences of Henry Hannah, Herman S. Bergen, Mr. Wilde, the floral gardens of James Weir and the residence of Mr. George T. Hope, of the Continental Life Insurance Company of New York and the Bennett and Denyse homesteads.

Along the line of the shore, beyond the Fort and towards Coney Island, are found the residences of Col. Wm. Cropsey ; the summer house of the late dra- matic actor, Barney Williams ; and the hospitable sum- mer residences, beyond Bath, of Mr. Robert Speir, Jr., of Brooklyn, and his distinguished sons, the well known physicians of Brooklyn, Drs. S. Fleet Speir and Robert Speir, as also the residences of Mr. Robert Benson and Mr. Archibald Young.

In New Utrecht village and on the highways leading thereto, in Church Lane and Conover's Lane, are the residences of those who still bear the names of the early settlers of the town, the Hegemans, Van Pelts, Emmanses, Conovers, Monforts, Suydams, Wyckoffs, Larzalaers, Kouwenhovens, Van Brunts, Durycas, Bennetts, Denyses, Williamsons, Snedekers, Morrises, Bogerts, Moores, Cropseys, Lots, Carpenters, Wrights, Lakes, and others-names which still maintain the reputation of those who founded the community and have continued the sturdiest of human virtues from generation to generation.

Railroads. - The old Plank Road, from Bath, through the village, to Greenwood and Brooklyn, was surrendered to the first railroad in New Utrecht, under the management of C. Godfrey Gunther, ex-mayor of New York City ; and the railroad was continued, through Unionville, to Coney Island. Very recently, two new railroads have been established from Bay Ridge, on the estate of the late Michael Bergen, to Coney Island, viz., the New York and Manhattan Beach R. R. Co., and the N. Y. and Sea Beach R. R. Co. The Brooklyn City R. R. Co., within the last few years, exchanged its horses for locomotive engines on Third avenue to Fort Hamilton. By these roads many thousands of people are daily conveyed, through the cul- tivated fields and gardens of New Utrecht, to the cool shores of the Bay in the summer season; and the limits of the town are being brouglit into closer contact with the great commercial centre of the New World.

Through the force of politics many new roads have been ruthlessly opened as avenues, with mathematical accuracy, across the beautiful old lanes and highways of the town ; and lots for residences have been staked out of late on many an ancient farm. Two or three new factorics have been established, and shops and stores erected.

Manufactories. - The Car Works of Michael Feigel, in the village, and the Eames Hat Manufac- tory, at Bay Ridge, are among the most prominent of recent industries. Very lately a large corporation has purchased a part of the water-front, at Bay Ridge, of the estate of the late Michael Bergen, with the inten- tion of building and fitting out vessels on an extensive scale.

The changeful and progressive spirit of the time is showing its influence more and more on the ancient Nyack Tract which Van Werckhoven purchased of the Indians. The homes of the early Dutch colonists have nearly all fallen in decay ; the woods which the settlers cleared, in fear of the weapons of the Nyack and Canarsie savages, have, for the most part, disappeared; the plantations of grain and tobacco, and the pasture- fields for cattle, have given way to the highly-culti- vated gardens which supply the freshest vegetables of the New York market ; the quaint roofs and gables of the substantial colonial homesteads are being crowded out by the lighter and more ornamented dwellings of to-day ; one by one the old land-marks are fading away, and step by step the great city is encroaching upon the old plantation of Van Werckhoven. Before many years shall have elapsed the lines of every farm will be buried beneath the wave of suburban progress.

Whether these changes will prove more pleasant and beneficial than the old ways, it is not for this sketch of New Utrecht to predict; but it is certain that it will be long before any new American spirit will produce upon this soil any nobler human virtues than those which the founders of the settlement brought with them and transmitted to their families for generations, and which still preserve in the New World the name and fame of the historic UTRECHT, on the Rhine, in Holland.

Hon. Teunis G. Bergen, farmer, statesman and an- tiquary, was born in the town of New Utrecht, on the 6th of October, 1806. He was the eldest child of Gar- ret Bergen and Jane Wyckoff, his wife. He clearly traced his ancestry to Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Bergen, in Norway, who came over to the New Netherlands with Wouter Van Twiller, the second di- rector of the colony. Bergeu's wife (whom he married in 1639) was Sarah, the daughter of the Walloon emigrant, Jane Joris Rapelje, who came to this coun- try in the ship Unity, in 1623, and first settled at Al-

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

bany; afterwards removing to New Amsterdam, and thence (1635) to the Waleboght on Long Island. Sarah was herself a historic character, being the first white fe- male child born within the limits of the present State of New York-at Albany. Thus, from a stock not originally of the Netherland blood, but which became afterwards thoroughly incorporated with the first Dutch settlers of this county, sprang this most distin- guished Dutch scholar. His early youth was mainly spent between work upon his father's farm at Gow- anus, and at the common school of the district. As youth merged into manhood, he applicd himself to the study and practice of surveying, in which he soon be- came proficient. To the main duties of an active life he added those of a farmer; and, not forgetting those he owed to the community in which he resided, he faithfully discharged such as were imposed upon him by the choice of his fellow-citizens, as soldier, civilian and statesman. He held the position of Ensign, Cap- tain, Adjutant, Lieut .- Colonel in the militia; and, finally, that of Colonel of the 241st Regiment, N. Y. S. N. G. He was Supervisor of the town of New Utrecht for twenty-three years in succession (April, 1836, to April, 1859); and from 1842 to 1846 was Chairman of the Board. He was a member of the Constitutional State Conventions in 1846, 1867 and 1868, and was re- peatedly a member of the Democratic State Conven- tions. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention, held at Charleston, S. C., in 1860, and vig- orously opposed the resolutions of that body which caused the breach between the Northern and Southern Democratic party. The last and most notable public office which he held by the choice of his fellow-citizens was that of Representative in Congress from the Sec- ond Congressional District, in 1864, when he was elected by a majority of 4,800 over his opponent, the " Union " candidate. In that session of the House of Representatives his party was in the minority; but, true to his Dutch principles, he stood firm to his party to the completion of his term of service. The pages of this History of the County of Kings bear frequent witness to Mr. Bergen's many public services in behalf of the interests of the county and of its several towns, as well as of the city of Brooklyn. That he was so frequently called upon, in these public affairs, was a most striking tribute to his ability, industry and integ- rity.

On his retirement from public and professional du- ties, he devoted his leisure hours to those antiquarian and genealogical investigations which possessed, for him, so great a fascination. These investigations ran most naturally in the lines of Dutch (and Kings County Dutch) ancestry and history. In the earlier years of his life, spent among the hills and by the water- side at Gowanus, and at New Utrecht, he knew no lan- guage. but the Dutch-not as spoken now-a-days, but with the idiom and pronunciation of two hundred years

ago-and corrupted, in a measure, by the gradual in- troduction of the English. By cducation, he soon be- came versed in the English language; but he never ceased to cultivate the language of his boyhood, which he lived to see almost eradicated, in this county, as a spoken language. It sometimes seemed to his friends as though he thought in Dutch, but spoke in English; and there was always a certain peculiar accent to his pronunciation, especially when a little excited, as if both tongues wrestled at his lips for precedence. By birth, and education and study he was admirably quali- fied to decipher the Dutch records, both public and private, which he frequently had occasion to consult. His pure character and great experience as a land-sur- veyor in the settling of town-boundaries and private estate-lines among the old Dutch families of the county, also, gave him access to many ancient docu- ments and sources of information which would have been closed to any other person. So that, he early be- came an expert in all that related to the Dutch and their descendants, not only in the county, but upon Long Island and even in New Jersey. In the history of the Dutch families of Long Island he was not only (with the exception of RIKER) the first gleaner, but he was by far the most thorough, exhaustive and authori- tative. His untiring and self-sacrificing researches into the almost obsolete records of the ancient Dutch churches of Long Island and New York have un- earthed numerous and important materials for the use of modern historians; while his discoveries, in out-of- the-way places, of many of the detached birth, baptis- mal and marriage records, and the restoration of the same, have conferred inestimable benefits upon the gen- ealogist and antiquary. His published writings were numerous and important. Scattered through the vol- umes of the NEW YORK GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRA- PHICAL RECORD will be found valuable papers on Rec- ords of Births of the Society of Friends, Gravesend, L. I., commencing 1665; the Van Dyke Family; Mar- riage Records of Gravesend, commencing 1664; a List of Deaths in Capt. Grant's company in 1762; the Mont- foort Family; Pioneers of the Revolutionary War; the Martense Family; Contributions to the History of the First Settlers of Kings county; Memorials of Francays D' Bruynne; the Van Duyn Family. Some of these formed portions of " A Register of the Early Settlers and Freeholders of Kings county, N. Y., from its First Settlement by Europeans to 1700, with Biogra- phical Notices and Family Genealogies," which was published in 1881, a few wecks after his death. Before this, however, in 1866, he had issued " The Bergen Family," an octavo of 298 pages; in 1867, the history of his wife's ancestry, " Genealogy of the Van Brunt Family," in 80 octavo pages. But the crowning glory of his well-spent life, so far as family-history is con- cerned, was a second edition of his " Bergen Family," so improved and augmented as to embrace, by regular

Feuning Berger

269

BIOGRAPHY OF HON. TEUNIS G. BERGEN.

descent and intermarriage, a large portion of the Dutch population of Southern New York and Eastern New Jersey; forming a handsome illustrated volume of 658 octavo pages. In 1878 appeared his " Genealogy of the Lefferts Family," 1675-1878, an octavo of 172 pages. In 1877, also, at the 200th anniversary celebra- tion of the Reformed Dutch Church of New Utrecht, he delivered an " Address on the Annals of New Utrecht," of great historic value; and which was printed for private circulation by the consistory of the church. He left, also, in manuscript, "A History of New Utrecht," which antiquarians are hoping to see issued, in due time, by competent hands. He left, moreover, translations of several important manuscripts relating to Kings county matters.

Mr. Bergen was one of the founders of the Long Island Historical Society, and one of its officers up to the day of his death. He was, also, a member of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, his contributions to which have been already noted.

He was a man of simple habits and few wants. In the language of his intimate friend and neighbor, the late Hon. HENRY C. MURPHY, "he adhered always to plain, honest lines of activity ; caring in no degree whatever for upstart distinctions; proud of the fact that he was a farmer, bearing upon his body the evi- dence that by the sweat of his brow and the labor of his hands, he earned the right to a comfortable footing in the world; his chief pride was that his neighbors had unqualified confidence in his integrity. He was a power in his rural district, because his neighbors could say of him with certainty, as Burns declared of Gavin Hamilton:

' What once he says he winna break it, What's no his ain he winna take it.'

Because of this trust in him he came to be frequently called upon by them to do public service. In culture and interest in matters of history, he exhibited a dispo- sition worthy of the warmest admiration. As before stated, he spoke the Dutch tongue with fluency, and delighted to dilate upon its beauties. As the Presi- dent of the St. Nicholas Society of Nassau, he figured as a sort of literary and social St. Nicholas, indicating the Past and the Future, and imparting to the material struggles of every day a flavor of the pleasant but van- ishing traditions of the Fatherland." Personally he was an industrious, staid and sober citizen-a thorough " Dutchman of the old school " in all things. He was a man of great method and scrupulous attention to busi- ness; and, with his patrimonial possessions, had acquired a considerable fortune, which he used prudently and most unostentatiously in the advancement of the great objects to which he devoted so much of his attention. He was a regular attendant upon the church of his an- cestors, but liberal in his consideration of other men's religious belief. He died, at New Utrecht, of pneumo- nia, on April 24, 1881; cut down suddenly, like a sheaf of corn ripe in its season. Family, friends, neighbors and fellow-citizens long will miss his genial smile, his helpful hand, and the daily example of his sturdy char- acter and active life. [The foregoing has been com- piled from a memorial sketch, by Dr. S. S. PURPLE, in the N. Y. Genealogical and Biographical Record, for October, 1881 ; and from a manuscript biography writ- ten by Mr. Bergen's old neighbor and life-long friend, the late HENRY C. MURPHY, Esq .- EDITOR.]

HISTORY

OF THE

TOWN OF BUSHWICK. BY Atomy Refils. M.M.

With the co-operation of J. M. STEARNS, Esq., Brooklyn, E. D.

I TS EARLY SETTLERS AND PAT- ents .- On page 80, we stated that the territory em- braced within the ancient town of Bushwick was purchased from its Indian proprietors, by the West India Company, in August, 1638 ; and, on pages 81 and 87, we indicated the beginnings of its earliest settlement (1641-1650) by certain Swedes and Norwegians, or Normans as they were called, together with a few Dutchmen. These persons, such as Bergen and Moll at the Wallabout, Carstaensen and Borsin on the East river, Volkertse at Greenpoint, and Jan the Swede on the site of the subsequent village of Bushwick, seem to have occupied and cultivated their bouweries, independ- ently of one another, and subject directly to the au- thority of the director and council at Manhattan, from whom they received their patents. It is probable, indeed, that they had originally strayed into these wilds with a sort of purpose of pre-empting the lands, trusting to secure a title when the opportunity should occur. Nat- urally they erected their lodges, or huts, near the small creeks flowing into the East river (or, rather, subject to its tides) ; since these afforded convenient landing-places for small boats, which were then the only means of com- munication with Manhattan Island. We have no evi- dence of any attempt to lay out a regular settlement, or to organize a town, until 1660, a period of over twenty years from the date of the first patent.

In the consideration of Hans Hansen Bergen's patent at the Waaleboght, page 8, it will be remembered that we reached and somewhat overlapped the bound- ary line between the towns of Brooklyn and Bushwick, -a boundary line, which, according to the earliest patent of the town of Brooklyn, was identical with Ber- gen's northerly bounds. It might be designated on the map of the present city of Brooklyn, by a line drawn from the East river, following the course of Division avenue, to about at its junction with Tenth street, and from that point extending in a somewhat south-easterly direction towards Newtown.

Adjoining this land of Bergen's on the north, was a

triangular tract of land, which was granted by the West India Company, September 7, 1641, to LAMBERT HUYBERTSEN MOLL, a ship carpenter, who had pur- chased it from one Cornelis Jacobsen Stille, on the 29th of the preceding month. It had, even then, a house upon it, and this Stille was probably one of those " squatters " to whom we have already referred. This patent embraced, by estimation, fifty acres, though it was subsequently found to be nearer sixty. It extended along the East river, from the old Brooklyn line to a little north of the present Broadway, and from the East river front to near Tenth street. The confirmatory patent, granted by Gov. Nicolls, in 1667, clearly identi- fies it as including what has been more recently known as the Peter Miller Farm, the Berry Farm, and Boerum's Woods. Moll seems to have removed to Esopus, about 1663, and the land became the property of Jacobus Kip, of Kipsburg, in the City of New York, where he was a prominent citizen and official ; and, though it was confirmed to him by Gov. Nicolls, in 1667, it does not appear that he ever resided on this farm, or even in Bushwick, nor that he paid taxes here. During his ownership, a block-house was erected, as a resort for the scattered settlers in case of hostility from the Indians, upon the high point of land which jutted into the river about the foot of South Fourth street, and which was known in the olden time as the "Keike " or "Lookout." The name came to be ap- plicd to the high land overlooking the whole shore through the present Fourth street, and southward to the Boerum land, and so down to the Wallabout Bay. In 1693, Kip's executors sold the farm to James (some- times called Jacobus) Bobin, a resident of Long Island, who was in possession until his death about 1741. It is afterwards found, 1761, in the possession of one Abraham Kershow (Carshow, Cershaw, or Corson) who devised it to his sons Jacob and Martin, who were in possession as late as 1786, when they divided the farm, Jacob taking the northerly, and Martin the southerly half. Jacob Kershow's portion passed, by deed, to one

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EARLY BUSHWICK PATENTS.

Peter Miller, in 1790, who devised it to his sons, David P. Miller and John P. Miller, and died in 1816. David P. Miller sold his, the northerly, portion, to Daniel S. Griswold, and it partly passed to one John Henry, who had it surveyed into city lots. John P. Miller sold his, the southerly part, in 1823, to Abraham Mcserole, by whom it was subsequently surveyed into building lots. Martin Kershow's portion, by sale under a Chancery decree, in 1820, passed to Jacob Berry, who surveyed and mapped it into building lots, his map bcaring the date of 1828.

That portion of the Moll Patent, subsequently known as Boerum's Woods, passed to Jacob Bloom, the owner of what became the Abraham Boerum farm in the pres- ent Nineteenth Ward. This land was owned by Philip Harmon, and came, at length, to one Jobn Moore, and one Gradon, and was, probably, the latest of the Wil- liamsburgh farm lands to be surveyed into city lots. The seven acres purchased by John Skillman, in 1807, was the subject of lively land-jobbing operations in 1836. Horace Greeley purchased lots there ; and con- ceived them to be a mine of wealth ; but, on a financial revulsion, was glad to deed them to the holder of his mortgages. So of Paul J. Fish and others, joint and several speculators there.

The next plantation to Moll's, on the north, was that ascribed by STILES (perhaps erroneously-since it is yet doubtful whether "Mareckawick," which he gives as the determining point of identification, can be definitely located) to Moll's son, RYER LAMBERTSEN (MOLL), by patent of March 23, 1646. He removed to the Dela- ware River (probably about 1657); and, in 1667, it was conveyed to David Jochems, by whom, in 1673, it was sold to one Van Pelt.

This farm of 107 acres, extending along the East river from near the present Broadway to North First street, with its easterly line near the present Seventh street-is first absolutely found in the possession of one Jean Mcserol (Meserole, or Meserol), a native of Picardy, in France, who came to this country in April, 1663, together with his “wife and sucking child," in the ship Spotted Cow. No deed or patent has ever been discovered, which will determine the date or the manner of Meserole's entrance upon the occupancy of this estate. It was probably by virtue of what we understand as "squatter sovereignty." He built his house upon the "Keikout " bluff, before al- luded to ; and this structure was probably the same which formed the westerly wing of the "Old Miller Homestead," which, after surviving for over 200 years, was demolished about twenty years ago. This house is said to have been a favorite boarding-place of the famous Captain Kidd, who found it a convenient re- treat, and yet accessible to New York, whenever he came ashore between his piratical trips. Tradition also has it that, many years before, while engaged in his nefarious voyages, he had made New York his domestic

port ; and, that, amid the woods of Bushwick, he had marked the grave of one whom he had loved-the daughter of a prominent settler-and whom he had hoped to make his wife. But she died, during one of his absences ; and, though he afterwards married, yet he often sought, as opportunity offered, the grave of his lost love. Whether this, or the facilities of secrecy combined with nearness to the great port across the river, drew him so frequently to the Meserole home- stead, on the Keikout, can only now be a matter of surmise.

To return, however, to the Keikout Farm, no deed or patent has ever been discovered which determines the manner or time of Meserole's entrance upon its oc- cupancy. He died in 1695 ; and devised his entire es- tate to his widow Jonica. He left a son, Jan Meserole, Junior, who was already married and domiciled at the old homestead, having two sons, John and Cornelius, and several daughters. He entered into the domestic interests of the old homestead, after his father's death, in a spirit of filial affection and kindness ; and his mother declined to prove her husband's will, as against her son, thinking that as he was her heir at law, as well as heir of her late husband, he would take the estate in any event. She afterwards married a second husband by the name of Dennison, but this did not disturb the kindly relations between herself and her first-born son. Nor was the second husband aware of the existence of old Jan Meserol's will, by which he would properly have been established by courtesy in the occupancy of the estate. The old will had been cast aside, by both mother and son, with seeming confidence that it pos- sessed no bearing upon the family interests ; and Jan Meserol, Jr., came at last to consider himself in full possession, with a full title to the estate. After seven- teen years, he made his will, in 1710 (proved 1712), de- vising the Kuykout farm to his two sons, John and Cor- nelius ; and giving other lands to his wife, and making other provisions for his daughters. His mother survived him but five days ; and his heirs having proved his will, John and Cornelius undertook the management of the Kcikout farm, as tenants in common, working together in mutual harmony and good will, and so continued re- specting what they admitted to be each other's rights for nearly four years. But, one day, John Mescrol, the 3rd, in looking over some papers formerly belonging to his grandmother Jonica, happened to find his grand- father's unproved will. On submitting the document to competent legal advice, he found that, under the English law of primogeniture then existing in the colony, he could, by producing proofs of his grandfather's will, and making them refer back to the grandfather's death, claim the estate as sole heir-at-law of his grandmother Jonica. It was necessary to prove the will of the grandfather, who had now been dead 21 years, and the signatures of the witnesses, but one of whom survived. To make the proof more effectual, and to perpetuate

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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 62

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