Then came Thomas Morrell, of Newtown, who bought the Titus homestead farm of twenty-eight acres, prepared a map, and set down Grand Street as a dividing line. In 1812, Morrell obtained from New York city a grant for a ferry from Grand Street, Bushwick, to Grand Street, New York.
This new town site, extending between North Second Street as far over as the present South First Street, received the name of Yorkton. The rivalry between the Morrell and the Woodhull ferry became very heated. "While Morrell succeeded as to the ferry," writes Mr. Stearns, "Woodhull managed to preserve the name Williamsburgh; which applied at first to the thirteen acres originally purchased, and had extended itself to adjoining lands so as to embrace about thirty acres, as seen in Poppleton's map in 1814, and another in 1815, of property of J. Homer Maxwell. But the first ferry had landed at Williamsburgh, and the turnpike went through Williamsburgh out into the island. Hence, both the country people and the people coming from the city, when coming to the ferry, spoke of coming to Williamsburgh. Thus Yorkton was soon unknown save on Loss's map, and in the transactions of certain land-jobbers. Similarly the designations of old farm locations, being obsolete to the idea of a city or a village, grew into disuse; and the whole territory between Wallabout Bay and Bushwick Creek became known as Williamsburgh."
At this time the owners of shore property refused to have a road opened through their property or along the shore. The two ferries were not connected by shore road, nor with the Wallabout region, and neither ferry prospered during the lifetime of either Woodhull or Morrell. General Johnson, in going from his Wallabout farm to Williamsburgh, "had to open and shut no less than seventeen barred gates within a distance of a mile and a half along the shore." The owners opposed Johnson's movement for a road, but with the aid of the Legislature the road was opened, business at the ferries immediately improved, and Williamsburgh began to grow. A Methodist congregation built a church in 1808; a hotel appeared at about the same time, and in 1814 there were 759 persons in the town. Noah Waterbury, by the building of a distillery at the foot of North Second Street and other enterprises, earned the title of "The Father of Williamsburgh."
[CHAPTER X]
BROOKLYN VILLAGE
1811–1833
Brooklyn during the "Critical Period" in American History. The Embargo and the War of 1812. Military Preparations. Fortifications. Fort Greene and Cobble Hill. Peace. Robert Fulton. The "Nassau's" First Trip. Progress of Fulton Ferry. The Village Incorporated. First Trustees. The Sunday-School Union. Long Island Bank. Board of Health. The Sale of Liquor. Care of the Poor. Real Estate. Village Expenses. Guy's Picture of Brooklyn in 1820. The Village of that Period. Characters of the Period. Old Families and Estates. The County Courts removed to Brooklyn. Apprentices' Library. Prisoners at the Almshouse. Growth of the Village. The Brooklyn "Evening Star." Movement for Incorporation as a City. Opposition of New York. Passage of the Incorporation Act.
As the hamlet of Brooklyn waxed in size and took on the characteristics of an organized community, with a formulated political plan, a fire department, a commercial nucleus that justified a petition[17] to the Legislature for the establishment of a local bank, and a population of nearly 5000 people, it began to feel more directly and inevitably than it ever had theretofore the effect of political and commercial movements in the State, and in the nation as a whole.
The early years of the present century, during which Napoleon was terrorizing Europe, were years of formative uncertainties to the young United States. John Fiske has called this time "the critical period" of American history. Speaking of the extraordinary commercial manifestations of the post-Revolutionary period, Mr. Fiske says: "Meanwhile, the different States, with their different tariff and tonnage acts, began to make commercial war upon one another. No sooner had the other three New England States virtually closed their ports to British shipping than Connecticut threw hers wide open, an act which she followed up by laying duties upon imports from Massachusetts. Pennsylvania discriminated against Delaware, and New Jersey, pillaged at once by both her greater neighbors, was compared to a cask tapped at both ends.
"The conduct of New York became especially selfish and blameworthy. That rapid growth, which was so soon to carry the city and the State to a position of primacy in the Union, had already begun. After the departure of the British the revival of business went on with leaps and bounds. The feeling of local patriotism waxed strong, and in no one was it more completely manifested than in George Clinton, the Revolutionary general, whom the people elected Governor for nine successive terms. From a humble origin, by dint of shrewdness and untiring push, Clinton had come to be for the moment the most powerful man in the State of New York. He had come to look upon the State almost as if it were his own private manor, and his life was devoted to furthering its interests as he understood them. It was his first article of faith that New York must be the greatest State in the Union. But his conceptions of statesmanship were extremely narrow. In his mind, the welfare of New York meant the pulling down and thrusting aside of all her neighbors and rivals. He was the vigorous and steadfast advocate of every illiberal and exclusive measure, and the most uncompromising enemy to a closer union of the States. His great popular strength and the commercial importance of the community in which he held sway made him at this time the most dangerous man in America."