August 26: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ON THIS DAY IN 1876, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, “A hundred years have wrought a marvelous change in Brooklyn. Its four thousand inhabitants of 1776 have multiplied to half a million; the march of improvement has swept onward past ‘Brooklyn Church’ and ‘Bedford Four Corners,’ and Bushwick and Gowanus, and a great city, with solid phalanges of stately warehouses and a magnificent array of private residences, crowns the site where then clustered the fifty dwellings around ‘the Ferry’ with its quaint old tavern, the substantial Dutch farmhouses which dotted the shores of the Wallabout and the East River, and the miles of thrifty fruit orchards, choice market gardens, pasture and woodlands, and hill and dale, which stretched inward from the water front … The three or four hamlets or neighborhoods comprising the old town, and all of which are embraced in the present city, were settled principally by Hollanders or their descendants, engaged in the peaceful and quiet pursuit of agriculture. The wave of Revolutionary sentiment rolled over the community, but it created scarce a ripple on the phlegmatic placidity of the Dutch inhabitants. If they were disturbed at all it was by the fear of pecuniary loss and personal inconvenience. No thrill of patriotism animated their breasts, and though their farms and hillsides were destined to become the theater of the first essay of the new nation in behalf of its recently asserted independence, they relaxed naught of their outward seeming of indifference to the approach of the coming storm; or if they moved at all it was more frequently in support of what seemed the stronger and therefore the more likely to be the winning side, than in defense of their rights. Indeed, had the future of Kings County depended solely upon the efforts of her own citizens, Kings County would have had no future.”
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ON THIS DAY IN 1917, the Eagle reported, “The Battle of Long Island is to be celebrated today at the bandstand in Prospect Park by the citizens of Brooklyn. The Kings County Historical Society will have charge of the meeting, having made all the arrangements. President Charles A. Ditmas of the society will preside. Dr. James Sullivan, the state historian, will deliver an historical address, and Gerhard M. Dahl will deliver a patriotic address calling upon the citizens to do their utmost to win this great war just as our ancestors did in the Revolution. The Rev. Charles William Roeder of the historic Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church will invoke the divine blessing. Dr. Giovanni E. Conterno will direct his celebrated military band in patriotic and classical selections, among which will be a descriptive fantasia written by him for the occasion, and entitled, ‘The Battle of Long Island.’ Over 1,200 especially invited guests are expected to be present.”
Brooklyn Boro
View MoreNew York City’s most populous borough, Brooklyn, is home to nearly 2.6 million residents. If Brooklyn were an independent city it would be the fourth largest city in the United States. While Brooklyn has become the epitome of ‘cool and hip’ in recent years, for those that were born here, raised families here and improved communities over the years, Brooklyn has never been ‘uncool’.