[CHAPTER XI]
THE CITY OF BROOKLYN
1834–1860

Government of the City. George Hall, first Mayor. Plans for a City Hall. Contention among the Aldermen. Albert G. Stevens and the Clerkship. The Jamaica Railroad. Real Estate. The "Brooklyn Eagle." Walt Whitman. Henry C. Murphy. Brooklyn City Railroad. The City Court established. County Institutions. The Penitentiary. Packer Institute and the Polytechnic. Williamsburgh becomes a City. Progress of Williamsburgh. Mayor Wall and the Aldermen. Discussion of Annexation with Brooklyn. The "Brooklyn Times." Consolidation of the Two Cities. Mayor Hall's Address. Nassau Water Company and the Introduction of Ridgewood Water. Plans for New Court House. Proposal to use Washington Park. County Cares and Expenditures. Metropolitan Police.

The act of incorporation erected the city of Brooklyn from the village and town of Brooklyn, dividing the city into nine wards. By Section 50 of this act, provision is made against closing or altering streets "within the first seven wards, or fire and watch district, set apart as such by the owners thereof, etc., and graded, leveled, paved, or macadamized, and against closing or altering streets in said city laid out and opened and used as such for ten years from the passage of this act, without the consent of the Common Council." The act was otherwise conservative in adjusting the new plans to existing conditions.

The government of the city was vested in a mayor and a board of aldermen, the latter, to the number of two from each ward, to be elected annually. The selection of a mayor was conferred upon the Aldermen, whose first choice was George Hall.

Hall was born in New York, in 1795, in the year preceding his father's purchase of the Valley Grove Farm at Flatbush. He was educated at Erasmus Hall, and chose to follow his father's trade of painter and glazier. He made friends, and established a good business position. In 1826 he became a Trustee in the third district of the city. He became president of the village, and in 1833 was reëlected after a hot contest, the bitterness of which resulted from Hall's support of the movement to exclude hogs from the public streets, and to prevent the unlicensed selling of liquor in groceries and elsewhere. The defeat of what was called the "Whig-Hog-Rum" party was announced amid much excitement.

In the July following the choice of Hall as Mayor of the new city, it was resolved to raise $50,000 for the purchase of ground for a city hall. General agreement fixed upon the junction of Fulton and Joralemon streets as sufficiently central. In January of the following year (1835) a committee of the corporation reported favorably on low lands of the Wallabout for a city park, and before the close of the year ground was selling for $1000 an acre.

In May the Aldermen chose Jonathan Trotter for Mayor. Trotter was an Englishman who had been in this country since 1818, and who in 1828 had opened a leather-dressing factory in Brooklyn. He became an Alderman, representing the fourth ward, in 1834.

In 1834 the total valuation was $15,642,290; in 1835 it was $26,390,151; in 1836 it was $32,428,942; and in 1837, $26,895,074. Previous to 1838, the assessments were made by wards, and it is impossible to give the aggregates. The valuation and total taxation for subsequent years, up to 1860, are as follows:—

YEAR.VALUATION.TAXATION.
1838 5,198,956$112,817.94
183926,440,634145,331.39
184025,447,146134,139.66
184125,596,862151,038.24
184224,715,380159,205.84
184321,812,941159,189.64
184423,260,385176,271.21
184524,788,886163,726.24
184626,918,613227,433.94
184729,927,029250,244.13
184831,246,305306,138.16
184932,446,330404,332.90
185036,665,399411,044.78
185145,005,518572,776.63
185258,058,485617,855.64
185368,328,546772,915.81
185472,849,503959,209.18
185594,791,2151,532,692.68
185695,859,7351,381,114.39
185799,016,5981,783,834.19
1858104,475,2751,567,948.39
1859101,052,6661,256,820.94
1860103,680,5661,969,794.00