A HISTORY
OF THE
CITY OF BROOKLYN
AND
KINGS COUNTY
BY
STEPHEN M. OSTRANDER, M.A.
LATE MEMBER OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY, THE LONG ISLAND HISTORICALSOCIETY, AND THE SOCIETY OF OLD BROOKLYNITES
EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY
ALEXANDER BLACK
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OHIO," ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I.
BROOKLYN
Published by Subscription
1894
Copyright, 1894,
By ANNIE A. OSTRANDER.
All rights reserved.
This Edition is limited to Five HundredCopies, of which this is No. 21.
PREFACE
At the time of his death, in 1885, Mr.Ostrander had completed considerable MS. fora history of the City of Brooklyn and KingsCounty; had prepared many chronologicalnotes with a view to fuller writing, and hadaccumulated a mass of material in the form oftranscripts, references, newspaper and otherreports. It was his own understanding that afirst volume of a proposed two-volume historymight be regarded as well in hand, and thatthe wherewithal for the remaining chapters wasadvanced toward completion.
At the outset of his undertaking the editormet the embarrassment of not finding anyoutline which might reveal the precise form inwhich the author intended to cast his work.Mr. Ostrander worked with a definite idea,but did not formulate this idea in writing, andonly the completed expressions of this idearemained for the guidance of the editor. Itbecame apparent that the author intended torearrange and extend the matter for the earlier[iv]chapters. This matter was preserved in theform of a series of articles published in theBrooklyn "Eagle," during 1879-80, coveringthe period from the discovery by Hudsonto the beginning of the Revolution. Thedegree of attention which these articles attractedinduced Mr. Ostrander to extend theseries far beyond the range he originally intendedto give to them. As a result thesearticles were not precisely consecutive, norwas the matter so ordered as to adapt itselfto book chapters without material changes.Without knowing the author's design in detail,it was exceedingly difficult to effect thesechanges save upon lines which the naturalsymmetry of such a work seemed to suggest,and the editor has had no hesitation in sorearranging the material, and in changingsuch features of the narrative as had beentemporarily essential to serial publication.
For the middle period, extending from theopening of the Revolution to the time of theconsolidation of Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, andBushwick, the author left a full narrative, andconsiderable collateral material. Beyond thispoint the chapters were in an unfinishedsketch. In putting together the elements ofthis part of the work, the editor has been actuated[v]by a wish to follow, so far as it might beapparent, the author's aim and plan. Possiblythere is no occasion to offer apology for thosepassages in the body of the work, and particularlyin the last chapter on mode