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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM THE BOOKS OF 
 
 GEORGE MORGAN WELCH '03 
 
 COLONEL 
 
 Judge Advocate General's Department 
 Army of the United States 
 
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 NO. 23233 
 
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 3 1924 032 753 067 
 
Cornell University 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032753067 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
The STONE HOUSE 
 AT GOWANUS 
 
 Scene of the Battle of Long Island. Stirling^ 
 Headquarters, Comwallis's Redoubt, Occupied 
 by Washington. Colonial Residence of Dutch 
 Jirchitecture. Built by Nicholas Vechte, 1699 
 
 By GEORGIA FRASER 
 
 WITTER 
 
 Publishers, 
 
 and KINTNER 
 New York, 1909 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1909 BY 
 
 Witter and Kintner 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory Note 13 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 First Settlement at Gowanus 23 
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 The Stone House in 1699 35 
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 Military Works on Long Island 53 
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 American Troops on Long Island 67 
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 The Stone House as a Redoubt 75 
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 The Battle of Long Island 95 
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 The Retreat from Long Island 109 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 The British on Long Island 117 
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 After the Revolution 123 
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 Present Scene of the Battle 137 
 
 Notes, 1699-1909 153 
 
"CONSTANTLY PURSUING THAT ARRANT THIEF, 
 OBLIVION, AS HE STEALS INTO INFINITE DARKNESS 
 WITH THE PRICELESS HISTORIES OF OUR LAND, THE 
 ANTIQUARY HASTENS TO SNATCH SOME OF THE 
 FLEETING MEMORIALS FROM HIS HANDS "—FIELD. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 
 The House and Battlefield Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Colonial Silver 19 
 
 Copper Tea Kettle 20 
 
 Colonial Dressing Case 21 
 
 Prints of the Stone House 39 
 
 Map of Old Gowanus 46 
 
 Portrait of Lord Stirling 57 
 
 Military Map of 1776 72 
 
 Colonial Money 91 
 
 Letter of Washington to Stirling 92 
 
 Memorial Tablet in 
 
 The Old Willow Tree 129 
 
 Trunk of Old Willow Tree 131 
 
 Map of Gowanus — Present Time 143 
 
 Lithograph of Stone House 149 
 
 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn 151 
 
TO MY NEPHEW 
 ALEXANDER EASTON ERASER 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 DURING a recent sojourn at my old 
 home in Rihode Island, I renewed 
 acquaintance with a painting which 
 had been familiar to me on the walls of my 
 uncle's home during my childhood. 
 
 My uncle, Thomas Easton, was of that fam- 
 ily of Eastons from which Easton's Beach, at 
 Newport, was named, and to which belonged 
 Nicholas Easton, twice president of Rhode 
 Island under the Parliamentary Patent of 1643 
 — his second term immediately preceding that 
 of Roger Williams — and governor under the 
 Royal Charter; also John Easton, governor 
 under the same charter from 1690 to 1695. 
 
 The picture had been in my uncle's posses- 
 sion forty-one years, and he had received it 
 from his uncle, George Andrews, of Brook- 
 lyn, in whose possession it had been twenty- 
 one years, and to whose order it was painted. 
 
 When I returned to New York, I set about 
 an investigation of the scene represented — that 
 of a steeply-gabled house with the figures, 
 1699, attached to one end. The house is situ- 
 
 13 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 ated at the foot of some rising, wooded land 
 to the right of the foreground; to the left is 
 a lane, with enclosing wall and fence, leading 
 to a road which passes the farther side of the 
 house. Beyond the road there stretches mead- 
 ows with a stream or ditch running to a creek. 
 Still farther, to the right, is a road with clus- 
 tered trees and two houses. In the extreme 
 distance is a town or city. 
 
 In a general way I had learned of the local- 
 ity represented from the title — "The Washing- 
 ton House on Long Island." This, however, 
 called up merely vague memories of the great 
 general's campaign. In order to inform my- 
 self more particularly, I began a search which 
 took me to libraries, both public and private, 
 to historical museums, to genealogical soci- 
 eties, to calls on "old residents," and to col- 
 lectors of Americana. 
 
 Interest that I had thought to satisfy with 
 a visit or two to a local library and a trip to 
 the site of the scene depicted, carried me 
 farther and farther, and deeper and deeper, 
 into geographical and historical lore. I be- 
 came a peruser of old documents in faded 
 handwriting, of records of towns, churches, 
 and colleges. The historians did not satisfy 
 me, so I went to the historians' sources, and in 
 
 14 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 so doing became possessed of that fever for 
 research, that delight in a "find," which prob- 
 ably only the historian and the explorer know. 
 
 With but a single scene as my theme, a 
 single locality, I naturally concentrated 
 where others had diffused, and was thus en- 
 abled to compare and weigh certain points to 
 the more definite interpretation of them. Also, 
 while the painting soon became secondary to 
 my historic search, its presentment of a scene 
 since vanished, and never elsewhere pictured 
 fully, gave clues inaccessible to others. In 
 short, by the light of this limned presentment, 
 facts of history were brightened, and others 
 added: these reach from the present day back 
 to the Revolution, back to the Dutch Patents, 
 back to the Royal grant of the Indian island of 
 Matowack — Long Island — to the Earl of 
 Stirling, under whom it became the Isle of 
 Stirling; back to Hugh de Eraser from whom 
 my own grandfather, Hugh Eraser, was di- 
 rectly descended — Lord of Lovat and Kynnell, 
 and who, as the historian, William Eraser, 
 states, and as is also shown in the "Register of 
 Royal Letters," was cousin and patron to Peter 
 de Stirling away back in 1410. 
 
 Of Long Island and the Stirlings there is 
 much to tell, but in this history I have selected 
 
 15 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 only that which bears directly upon the story 
 of the Stone House, also known as the Wash- 
 ington House, at Gowanus, and the region 
 about it — the scene of the Battle of Long 
 Island in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 The many authorities consulted have given 
 vivid accounts of the different episodes of this 
 battle, but, as one of their number states, it is 
 difficult to gain from these a clear understand- 
 ing of the entire action. This, in a simple way, 
 I have endeavored to do, at the same time that 
 I have dwelt at length upon the engagement 
 of General Stirling with the British at the 
 Stone House, and over the area depicted in the 
 frontispiece to this volume. In this I have 
 been much asisted, as previously stated, by the 
 new light thrown upon the topography of the 
 region by the picture itself. 
 
 Personal search, extending over a year in 
 time, resulted in information regarding the 
 last days of the house and the region of the 
 battlefield which has never heretofore been 
 presented in print. Of my indebtedness, how- 
 ever, to the "Memoirs of the Long Island His- 
 torical Society," to Henry M. Stiles's "His- 
 tory of Brooklyn," to John Fiske's "American 
 Reivolution," and to those early historians, like 
 Furman, and later, Thompson, it would be 
 
 i6 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 impossible adequately to speak. To the many 
 tracts of Colonial history, of original manu- 
 scripts, and historical prints, in the Lenox 
 Library, I am particularly indebted. 
 
 Georgia Eraser. 
 New York, September i, 1909. 
 
 17 
 
7f u 
 H 
 
 o ^ 
 
 _ o 
 
 <r O 
 
 H a 
 
COPPER TEA KETTLE WITH CHARCOAL BURNER, USED BY 
 THE FAAULY OF JAOUES CORTIUAOU WHILE JN THE STONE 
 HOUSE AT COWAN US. NOW IN THE I'OSSESSION OF HIS 
 GRANDUAUCHTIiR. MRS. MERWIN RL SHMORE. 
 
COLON'IAL liRESSIN'G TABLE OF MAHOCAN'i LSEl) BY THE 
 FAMILY OF JAQUES CORTEL^'OU WHILE IN THE STONE 
 HOUSE AT GOWANUS. NOW IN THE POSSESSION OF HIS 
 GRANDDAUGHTER, MRS. MERWIN RUSHMORE. 
 
CHAPTER ONE LONG ISLAND 
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 
 
 THE first settlement by white people 
 within the boundaries of the present 
 city of Brooklyn was made in 1636, just 
 twenty-seven years after Henry Hudson 
 dropped anchor from the Halve Maen in what 
 is now New York Bay. 
 
 In the year 1636, "William Bennet and 
 Jacques Bentyn purchased from the Indians 
 a tract of 930 acres of land at Gowanus, upon 
 which, at some time previous to the Indian 
 War of 1643-45, ^ dwelling house was 
 erected." This was the beginning of the vil- 
 lage of Gowanus, near Gowanus Bay; and 
 the same name was given to the region border- 
 ing Gowanus Creek, afterward the canal, and 
 extending easterly to the wooded hills. 
 
 The name, Gowanus, is an Indian one, and 
 was said to be the place where an Indian, 
 called Gowane, planted his corn. 
 
 The second settlement within the present 
 city limits took place in the year following 
 that at Gowanus — 1637 — and, oddly enough, 
 
 23 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 in a section similar in character, a low tract 
 bordered by hills and pierced by bay and in- 
 let, and lying to the north, as Gowanus lay 
 to the south, of the peninsula of Brooklyn 
 Heights. This northern tract was known as 
 the Wallabout — originally Wahleboct — the 
 name being given to the bay and adjacent lands 
 as in the case of Gowanus. The settlers at the 
 Wallabout were known as Walloons, or for- 
 eigners, comprising, as they did, those who, 
 while coming directly from Holland, were not 
 of Dutch blood, but mostly political or re- 
 ligious refugees to that land of toleration from 
 France, England, Germany, and other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The first settler at the Wallabout, and the 
 second within the present limits of Brooklyn, 
 was Joris Jansen de Rapelie, or Rapelje, him- 
 self a "foreigner" of French descent. He is 
 described as an "emigrant" of 1623, who first 
 settled at Fort Orange (Albany), and in 1626 
 removed to New Amsterdam, on Manhattan 
 Island. According to this, Rapelie arrived in 
 the New World but fourteen years after 
 Henry Hudson reached its shores, and lived 
 in New York eleven years before removing 
 to Long Island. 
 
 At this time there was decided demarca- 
 24 
 
FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 
 
 tion between those of pure Dutch strain 
 and those who came with the Dutch in the 
 same ships but who were not of the same 
 blood. This is shown by the segregation, for 
 a considerable period, of the Walloons — not 
 only at the Wallabout but down through 
 Gowanus, where were already the settlers pre- 
 viously named, William Bennet and Jacques 
 Bentyn, the first English, the second French, 
 in origin. 
 
 We may credit, then, the first settlement of 
 Brooklyn to "foreign blood" though to Dutch 
 enterprise. The later incoming of pure Dutch 
 to this region, and the subsequent forming of 
 villages, led to an amalgamation which, go- 
 ing steadily on for a century and more, was 
 practically complete at the time of the Revo- 
 lutionary War. In this particular it must 
 be remembered that Dutch records gave Dutch 
 spelling to much that was not entitled to it, and 
 rigorous search would probably bring to light 
 the fact that many so-called early Dutch were 
 not Dutch at all in origin. 
 
 The first point known as Brooklyn, named 
 after Breuckelen in Holland, was on a direct 
 line between the Wallabout and Gowanus. 
 This was on the declivity southeast of the pres- 
 ent City Hall, about where Hoyt Street joins 
 
 25 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Fulton Street to-day. It will be seen that these 
 earliest settlers sought the low lands, not only, 
 probably, because the heights meant exposure 
 to the Indians, but because the hills were 
 wooded and would have to be cleared. Also, 
 the broad meadow lands must have appealed 
 to these people so late from Holland's green 
 stretches. 
 
 During the first half-century, progression 
 was made from thatched huts and stockades to 
 timber, brick and, in a few cases, stone dwell- 
 ings. The last, however, were so scarce as to 
 have been particularly designated as such in the 
 localities thus favored. As to minor necessities, 
 ships from Europe added blue china, some 
 silver, and a great deal of pewter to the table- 
 ware originally brought by the settlers. 
 Houses were amply supplied with linen, and 
 some cotton was raised and spun by the wo- 
 men. It is curious to note that foreign coun- 
 tries were supplying the American colonists 
 with goods of similar character to that which, 
 respectively, they furnish to-day. In the 
 cargo of the sloop Mary, wrecked on the 
 eastern point of Long Island in 1702, and 
 having aboard goods from the French settle- 
 ments in Canada for the Dutch of New 
 Amsterdam, there is found — besides wines, 
 
 26 
 
FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 
 
 brandies, and furs — goods listed by the mate 
 as follows: 
 
 "i bolt of Holland Duck, i piece of Broad 
 Canvas. i8 pieces and 2 remnants of several 
 sorts of stuff. 7 pieces of colored dimity. 8 
 pieces of striped Kentings. 4 Remnants of Al- 
 ligars. 3 remnants of Dyed Calico. 4 Printed 
 Calico Carpets. 2 Bundles of Beads. 9 Pieces 
 of Printed Lining or Calico, and a remnant 
 of Light Colored Cloth 14 yards. 2 pieces of 
 stuff and 2 remnants, i Piece of Light Col- 
 ored Flannel." 
 
 If this was a sample of the cargoes of 
 "goods" brought to the colonists of the period, 
 together with what was spun and woven by 
 themselves, we can imagine that the four- 
 posters were well valanced, and the belles of 
 the day well "done up" in the figured muslins 
 referred to as calico. 
 
 Home-made rugs and mirrors were in the 
 "best rooms" of ordinary homes, and there 
 were also some books and pictures, the first 
 mainly Bibles and Psalms. According to Val- 
 entine, "the walls of the principal rooms in 
 all classes of dwellings were adorned by en- 
 gravings, colored and plain, fifteen to twenty 
 in number, in narrow black frames." 
 
 The extensive trade with the East Indies, 
 27 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 and the East generally, by Holland at this 
 period, brought much of the Orient to the 
 Dutch settlements in America. In prominent 
 households, teakwood furniture, delicate 
 China, and rare Eastern silks were added to 
 the mahogany, pewter, and silver of those of 
 more moderate standing. Men and women of 
 the wealthiest class dressed elegantly — the 
 men in broadcloth, with satin and linen ac- 
 cessories; and the women in silks, linens and 
 velvets. Gold and silver ornaments were 
 plentiful, and diamonds were not unknown. 
 According to Stiles, many persons of ample 
 means came out from Holland, and these had 
 homes and apparel equal in many cases to 
 what they had been accustomed in the Old 
 world. Each prominent settler possessed at 
 least two slaves, valued at from one hundred 
 and twenty to one hundred and fifty dollars 
 each. 
 
 In the year 1660, there were thirty-one 
 families in the entire region of the Wallabout, 
 Breuckelen, and Gowanus; and the church 
 at Breuckelen, which presided over this united 
 section, numbered twenty-seven members. 
 These, however, increased rapidly thereafter. 
 
 Of this section of Western Long Island, a 
 most intimate account is given in the "Journal 
 
 28 
 
FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 
 
 of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80," by 
 Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, emissaries 
 from a religious sect called Labadists, who 
 visited America with the object of selecting a 
 suitable home for the sect. They write how, 
 crossing the ferry from Manhattan to Long 
 Island, they continued "up the hill, along open 
 roads, and a little wood, through the first vil- 
 lage, called Breuckelen, which has a small and 
 ugly church standing in the middle of the 
 road." This was the first church building in 
 Brooklyn, built in 1666. 
 
 They turned to the right after leaving 
 Breuckelen, arriving at Gowanus, where they 
 were well entertained with whatever their 
 hosts happened to have on hand, milk, cider, 
 and fruit being particularly mentioned. They 
 speak of the peach trees, "all laden with fruit 
 to breaking down." And continuing, "We 
 came to a place surrounded with such trees 
 from which so many had fallen off that the 
 ground could not be discerned, and you could 
 not put your foot down without trampling 
 them; and notwithstanding such large quan- 
 tities had fallen off, the trees still were as full 
 as they could bear." 
 
 They visited the house of Simon de Hart, a 
 French Walloon, who lived in Gowanus on a 
 
 29 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 part of the original Bennet and Bentyn pur- 
 chase. The house stood at what is now Twen- 
 ty-eighth Street. Here they found great hospi- 
 tality, together with a wood-fire of oak and 
 hickory. After describing this fire, they con- 
 tinue: "There had been already thrown upon 
 it, to be roasted, a pailfuU of Gouanes oysters, 
 which are the best in the country. . . . They 
 are large and full, some of them not less than 
 a foot long, and they grow sometimes ten, 
 twelve, and sixteen together, and are then like 
 a piece of rock. Others are young and small. 
 . . . They pickle the oysters in small casks, 
 and send them to Barbadoes and the other 
 islands. We had for supper a roasted haunch 
 of venison, which he (De Hart) had bought 
 of the Indians . . . and which weighed 
 twenty pounds. The meat was exceedingly 
 tender and good, and also quite fat. . . . We 
 were also served with wild turkey and a wild 
 goose. . . . We saw here, lying in a heap, a 
 whole hill of watermelons, which were as large 
 as pumpkins." 
 
 Later they write of Gowanus : 
 
 "There is, toward the sea, a large piece of 
 low, fiat land which is overflown at every 
 tide, like the schorr (marsh) with us, miry 
 and muddy at the bottom, and which produces 
 
 30 
 
FIRST SETTLEMENT AT GOWANUS 
 
 a species of hard salt grass, or reed grass. 
 Such a place they call valey, and mow it for 
 hay, which cattle would rather eat than fresh 
 hay or grass. . . . There is also a tract which 
 is somewhat large, of a kind of heath, on which 
 sheep could graze. . . . This meadow, like all 
 others, is well provided with creeks, which are 
 navigable and very serviceable for fisheries. 
 There is here a grist mill driven by the water 
 which they dam up in the creek; and it is 
 hereabouts they go mostly to shoot snipe and 
 wild geese. In the middle of this meadow 
 there is a grove into which we went, and 
 within which there was a good vale cleared 
 off and planted." 
 
 The meadow here described was that di- 
 rectly at the Stone House of this history — 
 not erected till twenty years later — as the old- 
 est mill in Gowanus was at the historic mill- 
 ponds just beyond, in the frontispiece hidden 
 by the house itself. The heath where "sheep 
 could graze," the "grove," and the "dam in 
 the creek," proclaim that the area described 
 was the region of the Vechte farm, the subject 
 of the succeeding chapter. 
 
 The inhabitants of Gowanus, having the ad- 
 vantage of the creek, went to New York by 
 their own boats, rather than overland and to 
 
 31 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 the ferry. When back in New York, the 
 travelers speak of arriving at their house and 
 finding "Simon of Gouanes who had brought 
 a load of wood." 
 
 They went thereafter many times to 
 Gouanes, and other points on Long Island. 
 They were particular friends of Gerritt, 
 Simon de Hart's brother-in-law, who took 
 them in his boat on many of their trips around 
 New York Bay. Later, while in Mary- 
 land, they referred again to Gowanus oysters : 
 "After supper we eat some Maryland oysters 
 which he — their host — had brought up with 
 him. We found them good, but Gowanus 
 oysters at New York are better." 
 
 Of the bay at the Wallabout, which they 
 visited, and where they conversed with Caro- 
 lyna, wife of the settler Joris Jansen Rapelje 
 — herself a French Walloon — they write: 
 
 "This is a bay tolerably wide where the 
 water rises and falls much, and at low tide is 
 very shallow." 
 
 32 
 
CHAPTER TWO NICHOLAS VECHTE 
 
 THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 STARTING with the first farms of Go- 
 wanus and the Wallabout, land was taken 
 rapidly along the entire stretch connect- 
 ing the two points. These farms began at the 
 creeks or bays, and stretched up through the 
 meadows to the wooded hills, at the borders of 
 which the homesteads were built. As time 
 advanced, the evacuation of the nearby woods 
 by the Indians, and the pressure for more land 
 by the colonists, led to the accession of the 
 wooded patch in line with each previous 
 boundary, so that later patents in this vicinity 
 included clear rights from the waters of bay 
 or creek to the crest of the backing hills. At 
 the present day at Gowanus, this would mean 
 from the canal to the heights of Greenwood 
 or Prospect Park, including in the last-named 
 what is now Park Slope. In this manner each 
 farm had its waterway, its meadow, its garden 
 at the wood's edge, and its timber. 
 
 One of the above-described favored stretches 
 began at what is now the Gowanus Canal be- 
 
 35 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 tween First and Sixth Streets, stretched back 
 to the present Fifth Avenue, over what is prac- 
 tically level ground, then began the steep 
 ascent of the present Park Slope — traversed 
 transversely by Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and 
 Ninth Avenues — to Prospect Park, at the 
 point now^ crow^ned by the Litchfield Man- 
 sion, to-day park property. 
 
 This area, indicated in the accompanying 
 diagram, was known during the latter part of 
 the Seventeenth Century as the Vechte farm; 
 and in the year 1699 Nicholas Vechte erected 
 at the edge of his wooded slope the Stone 
 House of this history. 
 
 How long Nicholas Vechte owned the farm 
 previous to the erection of the house, or 
 whether any simpler edifice preceded it, is a 
 matter merely for conjecture. What is known 
 is this: It was the only stone house in Go- 
 wanus at the time of its erection, and for a long 
 time thereafter; it was built so staunchly as to 
 withstand siege in one of the hottest engage- 
 ments of the Revolutionary War, its walls be- 
 ing several feet thick; and it remained in 
 existence till the last decade of the Nineteenth 
 Century, even then Gatling guns being neces- 
 sary, it is said, to force apart the stones of its 
 walls. 
 
 36 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 And not only staunchly but finely was it 
 built, a splendid mansion for its day and place 
 — two stories and a half in height, the gable 
 adorned with brass figures of the date of 
 erection, 1699. Most dwellings of this period 
 were but a story and a half in height, with a 
 door and two windows on the main side. The 
 fact that the Stone House at Gowanus was of 
 sufficient length to have a door in the middle 
 with windows on either side, as well as its 
 unusual height, probably gave it the appella- 
 tion, used by historian Thompson and others, 
 of "double house." 
 
 The time of the building of the Stone House 
 was one rife with momentous affairs of state 
 in the New York Colonies; in the year 1691 
 the first permanent "Assembly of representa- 
 tives of the people" was established — the first 
 real step in freedom of government for these 
 colonies. Trouble with the Indians had then 
 well abated, and piracy — with which the 
 American and West Indian coasts had been 
 affected — came to an end about this time. In 
 fact, it was in the same year as the building of 
 the Stone House at Gowanus, 1699, that the 
 famous Captain Kidd — who had been sent 
 three years previously from England to sup- 
 press piracy, and who had himself become the 
 
 37 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 worst pirate of all — landed near Easthampton, 
 Long Island, and there buried some of his 
 often referred to treasure. Incidentally, it may 
 be stated that the treasure there buried was re- 
 covered. 
 
 Back of the Stone House ascended the 
 wooded hill ; trees edged the roadway, a stone 
 wall and a fence enclosed the garden, and the 
 meadow stretched before to the creek. To 
 the left could be seen the waters of Gowanus 
 Bay, widening to the distant Bay of New York. 
 Across the creek, the land rose to hills, extend- 
 ing northeasterly as far as the eye could see, 
 grassy and in places tree-topped — the penin- 
 sula of Brooklyn Heights. 
 
 Before the house, across the road, there 
 bubbled a spring of clear water. This spring, 
 no doubt, determined the location of the home- 
 stead. It was the source of a stream which 
 found its way acrpss the meadow to the creek. 
 
 Written originally, Claes Arentse Van 
 Vechten, or by himself Klaes Arents Vecht, 
 Nicholas Vechte "with his wife Lammetie, 
 three children, and a boy (colored slave) emi- 
 grated from Norch, or Nora, a community in 
 the province of Drenthe, Holland, in the ship 
 Bonticoe (Spotted Cow), arrived in New 
 Netherlands, in April, 1660, Settled, as near as 
 
 38 
 
l; 1 1.1, Mvl Ma.VSUIX Mill ■it. 
 
 THE STONK 1-lOUSE .\T C.OW'.AN US . AS PICTURED IN THE 
 VALENTIXE .MAXUAI. OF 1 858. REPRODUCED BY PERMIS- 
 SION' OF Till-: LENOX l.n'.R.\R'i\ 
 
 THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS FRONTISPIECE TO 
 
 THE "HISTOR'i' f)F liR0OKL\N," B'l' HENRY R. STILES. 
 REPRODUCED R'l' PER.MISSION OF TH i; LI-;NO.\ LIBRARY'. 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 can be ascertained, in the Eighth ward of 
 Brooklyn, on the farm extending from First to 
 Fifth Streets, and erected in 1699 the old stone 
 house known as the Vechte mansion." 
 
 The above is taken from the history of the 
 Bergen family (which intermarried with the 
 Vechtes) by Teunis G. Bergen, who goes on 
 to say: 
 
 "It is possible that he — Claes or Nicholas 
 Vechte — may have resided at one period on 
 Staten Island, for he obtained, September 29, 
 1677, from Governor Andros, a patent for 120 
 acres of upland and 12 acres of meadow along 
 the Kil Von KuU on said island, which prem- 
 ises he conveyed January 17, 1689, to his son, 
 Gerrett Claesen, as per record of deeds in 
 ofRce of secretary of state. New York." 
 
 Regarding the above, it is practically cer- 
 tain that the builder of the Stone House at 
 Gowanus lived for a considerable period at 
 Staten Island on this same patent on the Kil 
 Von Kull, after his arrival in the New World ; 
 as this would adequately explain the fact that 
 he and his son Hendrich had been twenty- 
 seven years in the New World at the time of 
 their signing the oath of allegiance to the new 
 governor, Dongan, on Long Island in 1687, 
 although no mention had been previously 
 
 41 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 made of either father or son in this region. 
 So influential a family would undoubtedly 
 have been noted in Long Island annals had 
 they resided there; so it is probable that the 
 date, 1687, very nearly coincides with the re- 
 moval of the family from Staten Island and 
 the Kil Von Kull to western Long Island — 
 two regions not at all dissimilar in character. 
 Also, it was close to this period, in 1689, that 
 Claes conveyed the Staten Island property to 
 his son, Gerritt, as previously noted. 
 
 Gerritje, the daughter of the Staten Island 
 Gerritt, and consequently granddaughter of 
 Nicholas (or Claes) Vechte, married Fred- 
 erick Jacobsen Bergen. About the same time, 
 another of the Bergens married the daughter 
 of Simon De Hart at Gowanus, that De Hart 
 whom the Labadist travelers so frequently 
 visited, and whose house is described in the 
 first chapter of this book. Owing to this mar- 
 riage, the De Hart House became subse- 
 quently the Bergen House, long famous in 
 history. Also, by these marriages, became 
 linked the De Hart and Vechte families, 
 whose homesteads at Gowanus — the former 
 at the cove, the latter at the creek — remained 
 till modern times as the two oldest houses of 
 the region about. 
 
 42 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 Owing to the varying spelling of names at 
 this period, confusion of personality is fre- 
 quent. For instance, not only was the family 
 name of the builder of the Stone House con- 
 stantly varied, but the first as well; also, 
 the middle name was frequently used as the 
 final one. Thus, Gerritt, son of Claes Vechte, 
 was referred to, even in legal documents, as 
 Gerritt Claessen, when his entire name was 
 Gerritt Claesen Vechte, or Van Vechten. 
 Also, in legal matters the wife used her maiden 
 name only, as indeed she did in many others. 
 Consequently, as a widow, Gerritje Bergen 
 would sign herself as Gerritje Vechte; also, 
 sometimes as Gerritje Claessen, from her 
 father's middle name. Tracing relationship 
 thus becomes something of a puzzle to stu- 
 dents of the time; and were the names as set 
 down to be alone relied upon, the search might 
 prove, in certain cases, almost futile. 
 
 Hendrich Vechte, also written Hendrich 
 Claessen Vechte, went with his father to Long 
 Island. In 1690, he was elected a commis- 
 sioner of Brooklyn, and was "re-elected each 
 successive year until 1699." It is possible that 
 his failure of re-election in this year — the date 
 of the completion of the Stone House — was 
 
 43 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 due to the family's removal from Brooklyn to 
 Gowanus, then two distinct communities. 
 
 As time goes on, however, the name ap- 
 pears in Long Island records. In 1701, Hen- 
 drich is named as a justice of the peace. About 
 this time Sarah Van Vechten married Teunis 
 Rapelje, grandson of that Joris Jansen 
 Rapelje, who first settled the Wallabout, 
 and whose daughter was proclaimed the 
 first white child born on American soil 
 north of Virginia. The grandmother of this 
 Teunis, and wife of the settler Joris Jansen 
 Rapelje, was the famous Catelyna Trico, who 
 talked with the Labadist travelers, and who, 
 like the vivacious Parisian she was before 
 her arrival in the New World, left to posterity 
 the oft-quoted account of her experiences in 
 the ship New Netherland, reaching these 
 shores in March, 1623, with "thirty Walloon 
 families" ; as well as her subsequent journey- 
 ing to Albany, then Fort Orange, the return 
 to New Amsterdam, and the final settling on 
 Long Island. She was long the social arbiter 
 of this section, and her grandson's marriage to 
 Sarah Van Vechten probably brought her fre- 
 quently to the Stone House at Gowanus. 
 
 The church in Brueckelen, described by the 
 Labadists, which presided as well over the 
 
 44 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 spiritual welfare of Gowanus and the Walla- 
 bout, and which the Vechtes attended together 
 with the Rapeljes, the Brouers, and others 
 of now well-known names of the neighbor- 
 hood, was the scene of as lively controversies 
 as often stir the peace of present-day religious 
 organizations. In a quarrel between factions 
 of the church as to whether the minister, a 
 Mr. Freeman, should be allowed to preach on 
 a certain Sunday, it is stated by Furman, in 
 his "Notes Relating to the Town of Brooklyn 
 on Long Island," that "Hendrich Vechte, 
 Esq., a justice of the peace, was presented at 
 the King's county sessions. May the 14th, 
 1710, for coming into the Brooklyn Church on 
 Sunday, August 10, 1709, with his pen and ink 
 in his hand, taking of people's names, and 
 taking up one particular man's hatt, and in 
 disturbance of the minister and people in the 
 service of God." 
 
 In commenting on this. Historian Thomp- 
 son writes : 
 
 "Vechte's plea was that in obedience to an 
 order of the Governor, he did go into the 
 church as alleged, to take notice of the persons 
 that were guilty of the forcible entry made 
 into the church, that by Abram B rower, and 
 others, by breaking of said Church door with 
 
 45 
 
B 
 
 D 
 
 E 
 F 
 G 
 
 H 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 K 
 
 L 
 M 
 
 Stone House of Gowanus, owned by the Vechtes in 1699 and 
 
 1776. 
 The Lower Mill, built by Abram Brower in 1701. Owned by 
 
 Nehemiah Denton during the Revolutionary War, and then 
 
 called Denton's Mill. 
 The Upper or Gowanus Mill — Oldest Mill in Brooklyn, 
 
 called Freeke's Mill during the Revolutionary War. 
 Branch of Gowanus Creek extending into Vechte Farm. At 
 
 the present day an arm of Gowanus Canal. 
 Upper, or Freeke's Mill-Pond. 
 
 Lower Mill-Pond. Called Denton's Mill-Pond during the War. 
 Private canal of Nicholas Vechte, connecting Brower's Pond 
 
 with his own creek. 
 Porte Road, running from Gowanus Heights across mill-ponds. 
 Flatbush Road, running from Flatbush, over Wooded Heights, 
 
 to Brooklyn. 
 Gowanus Creek, now the Gowanus Canal. 
 Brook on the Vechte Farm, rising from spring beside the Stone 
 
 House and emptying into arm of the Gowanus Creek. 
 Gowanus Creek widening to Gowanus Bay. 
 Island where many soldiers were buried. 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 force and arms, forcibly entering into said 
 Church, notwithstanding the forewarning of 
 Mr. Freeman, the minister, and his people to 
 the contrary." 
 
 The court discharged Vechte, declaring that 
 he acted but in the performance of his duty 
 as laid down by the Governor. But it is to be 
 noted that Mr. Hendrich Vechte was a mem- 
 ber of the court which discharged him. 
 
 This particular quarrel in the church was 
 the occasion of disputes leading almost to fisti- 
 cuffs, and, as one complainant has it, "all over 
 these Dutch ministers." 
 
 In the "History of Kings County" by Henry 
 R. Stiles, there is set forth an incident which 
 at once brings the humanness of Nicholas 
 Vechte close to the readers of the Twentieth 
 Century, and brings close also the two old 
 neighbors, Vechte and Abram Brouer. The 
 narrative runs : 
 
 "Denton's pond (so-called by the historian 
 because of its ownership by Nehemiah Denton 
 at the time of the Revolution) was the subject 
 of a curious contract about 1709 between its 
 original proprietors, Abram and Nicholas 
 Brouer, and Nicholas Vechte, the builder and 
 occupant of the old 1699, or Cortelyou, house. 
 To the strong predilection of his race for 
 
 47 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 canals and dikes and water communications, 
 old Vechte added the traits of eccentricity and 
 independence. His house stood on a bank a 
 few feet above the salt meadows, at a distance 
 of a hundred yards from the navigable waters 
 of the creek. To secure access to them, from 
 his kitchen door, Vechte dug a narrow canal 
 to the creek, but the ebb-tide often left his boat 
 firmly sunk in the mud when he wished to 
 reach the city market with the produce of his 
 farm. He, therefore, contracted with the 
 Brouers to supply him with water from their 
 pond; and a channel was dug, in furtherance 
 of his scheme, to a water-gate, through which 
 his canal was to be flooded. The old Dutch 
 farmer was acustomed to seat himself in his 
 loaded boat, while it was resting in the mud 
 of the empty channel, and hoist his paddle as 
 a signal to his negro servant to raise the gate. 
 The flood soon floated his boat, and bore him 
 out to the creek, exulting with great glee over 
 his neighbors whose stranded boats must await 
 the next flood. The contract for this privilege, 
 as well as another, by which Vechte leased the 
 right to plant the ponds with oysters," are 
 still in existence. (Notes.) 
 
 From the early part of the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, little mention is made in histories of the 
 
 48 
 
THE STONE HOUSE IN 1699 
 
 locality of either the Van Vechten family or 
 its neighbors; due to the fact that records 
 were lost with the occupation of the Brit- 
 ish during the Revolution. Of such as re- 
 mained, it is stated that in 1751, Nicholas 
 Vechte of Gowanus, grandson of the first 
 Nicholas, is facilitating approach to his prop- 
 erty from the sea. The narrative runs: 
 
 "In August, 1751, Isaac Sebring, in consid- 
 eration of 117 pounds, conveyed to Nicholas 
 Vechte, Jerry Brouer, and others, all Gowanus 
 residents, the fee of a strip of meadow, begin- 
 ning at the east side of a little island where 
 John Van Dyke's mill-dam is bounded upon, 
 running from thence northerly into the river, 
 and twelve feet and a half wide." He was also 
 to make a ditch along this strip, according to 
 Stiles in his "History of the City of Brook- 
 lyn," at least six feet deep, "and to allow the 
 grantees the use of a footpath, two feet and a 
 half wide, to dragg, or haul up their canoes or 
 boats. March 16, 1774, the Colonial Assem- 
 bly of the state passed an act empowering the 
 people of Gowanus to widen the canal, keep 
 it in order, and tax those who used it." 
 
 The canal was a short cut by water to New 
 York for Gowanus residents. It ran from the 
 creek to what is now Atlantic Basin, and was 
 
 49 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 used up to modern times. From first to last, 
 the love of canals, as well as the name 
 Nicholas remained in the family, Nicholas 
 Vechte, great-grandson of the builder of the 
 Stone House, still owning the property at the 
 time of the Revolutionary War. 
 
 
 «^.- &^^i'^:,^^./i^ 
 
 FACSIMILE OF THE SIGNATURE OF JAQUES 
 CORTELVOU, FROM THE "HISTORY OF THE 
 BERGEN FAMILY," BY TEUNIS BERGEN. 
 
 50 
 
CHAPTER THREE LORD STIRLING 
 
 MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 BROOKLYN, by the year 1776, was 
 possessed of some four thousand in- 
 habitants. Writers have referred to it 
 at that time as a prosperous agricultural com- 
 munity. It had undergone difficulties in the 
 way of titles to lands under alternating Dutch 
 and English rules, and had come through some 
 serious affairs with the Indians ; hence, at this 
 time, it was about ready to settle down to 
 the enjoyment of comforts achieved in the 
 new home. 
 
 These settlers were possessed of good lands ; 
 they had schools and churches ; no doubt many 
 of them considered the altercation with Eng- 
 land but another of those upheavals of govern- 
 ment which had at times deprived them of 
 their land titles and made security of prop- 
 erty uncertain. However this may be, there 
 is no doubt that many viewed with intense con- 
 cern the arrival, on the i8th of February, 
 1776, of four hundred troops under General 
 Charles Lee. 
 
 53 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Disliking these intruders upon their peace, 
 many adhered to this sentiment both actively 
 and passively throughout the war. And the 
 feeling increased with the spread of the first 
 military operations from the peninsula of 
 Brooklyn Heights — overlooking New York 
 Bay on the west — to that series of easterly 
 heights from which could be viewed the vast 
 plain stretching to the southern shore of Long 
 Island. Prospect Range was the name given 
 to the eastern series of hills, whose posi- 
 tion is very well indicated on the popular 
 maps of Brooklyn by the green-tinted area of 
 the Cemetery of the Evergreens, Eastern Park- 
 way, Prospect Park, and Greenwood Ceme- 
 tery. Military operations were thus brought 
 directly into that fine belt of farms which be- 
 gan in the salt meadows of Gowanus and 
 stretched back through the woods to the crest 
 of Prospect Range. Officers were stationed 
 in the farm houses, and the soldiers pitched 
 tents about, while agricultural pursuits gen- 
 erally were given over to the activities of de- 
 fense, even the women dropping their weav- 
 ing to wait upon the army which had so pre- 
 cipitately overwhelmed western Long Island. 
 
 General Lee it was who first offered 
 outside assistance to New York, and who 
 
 54 
 
MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 subsequently, on February 3rd, arrived there 
 from Connecticut with twelve thousand men. 
 Lord Stirling, at the time, was military com- 
 mandant at New York, and he had while 
 there "performed a very gallant act," accord- 
 ing to historian Heading: "Although the 
 Asia man-of-war, a British ship, lay in the 
 harbor, he one night fitted out a pilot boat and 
 some smaller boats, and taking his men with 
 nothing but muskets, put to sea and captured 
 an English transport laden with stores, etc., for 
 the enemy at Boston." 
 
 Less than two weeks after his arrival on 
 Long Island, General Lee started south to 
 Charlestown; and on March 6th Lord Stirling 
 crossed to Long Island and took command of 
 the projected works there. That he skilfully 
 and assiduously pursued the task of fortifica- 
 tion is everjrwhere admitted — an almost in- 
 credible amount of work having been accom- 
 plished in the following months. That it was 
 not entirely completed is not surprising when 
 time, and the extent of the defenses, are con- 
 sidered. 
 
 On Brooklyn Heights a chain of forts was 
 established. These began with Fort Putnam 
 on the north, and extended to Red Hook, the 
 southernmost point of the peninsula. The 
 
 55 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 first of these to be mounted with guns was 
 Fort Stirling, situated at Coenties Slip, or at 
 what is now Columbia, Orange and Clark 
 Streets, which in the frontispiece to this vol- 
 ume would be directly back of the City Hall 
 spire, and overlooking the East River. In- 
 trenchments and redoubts marked the lines be- 
 tween the forts. 
 
 To the east, on Prospect Range, no forts as 
 such were attempted; but earthworks, re- 
 doubts, and barricades were general, and 
 a regular picket line extended from what is 
 now Eastern Parkway to Greenwood. The 
 line was especially strong at Gowanus — the 
 nearest point in the eastern range to the lines 
 at Brooklyn, and the most direct in approach 
 from the southern, or ocean, shore of Long 
 Island. 
 
 The Americans in Brooklyn had British in- 
 vasion from both land and water to consider; 
 and there was the added uncertainty as to 
 whether New York or Brooklyn would be 
 first attacked. For this reason, the work of 
 fortification in both places was little less than 
 stupendous, time considered, extending in its 
 entirety for fifteen miles — from the heights of 
 Gowanus on Long Island, to those of Harlem 
 on Manhattan. In Brooklyn half the male 
 
 56 
 
•ORTRAIT OF LORD STIRLIXC, FROM THE PAIXTIXG BY 
 BEXIAMIN WEST, IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. RORIiRT WATTS. 
 
 'THE OFFICERS GI\E LORD STIRLING THE CHARACTER OF AS 
 ',RA\"E A MAX AS E\'ER LI\i;D." FIELD. 
 
MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 population were drafted for the work of de- 
 fense, and they were obliged to furnish, beside 
 picks, hoes, shovels, and axes, wood and brush 
 for the barricades. 
 
 While Prospect Range was prepared for 
 outpost or picket duty only, the tremendous 
 importance of these heights as a natural bar- 
 rier between the southern shore of the island 
 and the lines at Brooklyn was fully appreci- 
 ated by all concerned. For this reason, no 
 doubt, General Lord Stirling, among the brav- 
 est and most resourceful of the American com- 
 manders, was here placed in charge on the 29th 
 of June — ^when the British fleet, and the army 
 under Howe, anchored off Sandy Hook. 
 
 With his arrival off the coast, Lord Howe 
 immediately began overtures for peace. Find- 
 ing, however, that the only condition which 
 would be entertained by the colonists was abso- 
 lute independence, he proceeded to land a 
 large force at Staten Island — in all about nine 
 thousand men. Here he was joined by a num- 
 ber of loyalists, particularly from Long Island. 
 
 Further negotiations with Washington were 
 then attempted, backed by advices from Eng- 
 land, who at that particular moment was in no 
 mood for war with the American Colonies, 
 having her hands full with troublesome foes 
 
 59 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 on the Continent. But again the negotiations 
 failing, Howe proceeded to land his entire 
 force, and on the 22nd of August an immense 
 British army took camp at Gravesend — 
 stretching thence for several miles toward 
 Jamaica Bay. 
 
 In the "Memoirs of the Long Island His- 
 torical Society" there is given a vivid descrip- 
 tion of this period : 
 
 "For five days the white tents of the enemy 
 covered the plain beneath the hills, almost as 
 far as the eye could distinguish their form. 
 Five miles to the south they stretched, in an 
 unbroken line. . . . The roll of the enemy's 
 drums, the rattle of arms and accoutrements 
 in the daily parade, and the shout of command, 
 rose faintly to the ear from the wide plain; 
 and the sight and sound combined to exhibit 
 to the sadly thin and feeble lines of the Amer- 
 ican army on the hills, what a vast armament, 
 what gigantic forces, could in a single hour 
 be hurled upon them." 
 
 In Brooklyn, General Greene had command 
 within the lines. He was a most capable offi- 
 cer, and had made himself acquainted with all 
 the details of arms and locality. Washington 
 was now obliged to give particular attention 
 to Brooklyn, although the British ships in 
 
 60 
 
MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 command of Admiral Howe, brother of the 
 General, lay menacingly in the bay, and might 
 at any moment attack New York. 
 
 New York, at this time, was about its pres- 
 ent width at Wall Street. North and south, 
 it reached from Chatham Street to the Bat- 
 tery; and beyond, "Bowery Lane" ran through 
 a bower of orchards and gardens. Fortresses 
 were all along the water front, at the northern 
 end of Manhattan Island, and across on the 
 Jersey shore. Many of the streets were barri- 
 caded, and a line of redoubts ran from river 
 to river on Canal Street. 
 
 The army was about evenly divided between 
 Brooklyn and New York. While New York, 
 situated on the mainland, would prove un- 
 doubtedly the ultimate place of attack, yet it 
 had been pointed out that the Heights of 
 Brooklyn overlooked New York as Bunker 
 Hill and Dorchester Heights overlooked 
 Boston. 
 
 Washington's headquarters at this moment 
 were on Manhattan, but his time was spent 
 about equally between New York and Brook- 
 lyn. Carefully and anxiously he visited every 
 point of the fortifications. On the 23d of Au- 
 gust, Howe issued a proclamation to the loyal- 
 ists of Long Island, promising protection to 
 
 61 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 such as would relinquish American arms and 
 join the King's forces. On the day following, 
 Washington addressed the soldiers in Brook- 
 lyn. His address ran in part: 
 
 "The enemy have now landed on Long 
 Island, and the hour is fast approaching in 
 which the honor and success of this army, and 
 the safety of our bleeding country, will depend. 
 Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are 
 freemen, fighting for the blessings of liberty, 
 and slavery will be your portion, if you do 
 not acquit yourselves like men. Remember 
 how your courage and spirit have been de- 
 spised and traduced by your cruel invaders, 
 though they have found by dear experience at 
 Boston, Charlestown, and other places, what 
 a few brave men, contending in their own land, 
 and in the best of causes can do against hire- 
 lings and mercenaries. . . . Those who are 
 distinguished for their gallantry and good con- 
 duct may depend on being honorably noticed 
 and suitably rewarded; and if this army will 
 but emulate and imitate their brave country- 
 men in other parts of America, he (the com- 
 mander) has no doubt they will, by glorious 
 victory, save their country, and acquire to 
 themselves immortal honor." 
 
 But while thus rallying his troops, there 
 62 
 
MILITARY WORKS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 can be little doubt of Washington's anxiety. 
 Again and again he visited the Brooklyn lines. 
 On the 26th, General Greene, being prostrated 
 by a fever w^hich affected about one-quarter 
 of the troops in Brooklyn, was superseded by 
 General Putnam. As this officer was more or 
 less unacquainted with the locality, the change 
 did not add security to the situation. On the 
 «ame day, Washington visited all the outposts. 
 According to Lossing, "on the 26th, he (Wash- 
 ington) again visited the lines. . . . All that 
 day he was occupied in visiting the redoubts 
 and guard posts, and reconnoitering the enemy, 
 until he made himself well acquainted with 
 the relative position of the belligerent forces." 
 It is said that what he then observed "gave 
 him great anxiety." 
 
 The idea of certain historians that Wash- 
 ington never went without the lines at Brook- 
 lyn cannot be upheld, one excellent authority 
 notwithstanding; it is not easy to believe that 
 a commander like Washington would not 
 have been an eye-witness to the enemy's 
 position at this critical moment, and him- 
 self have viewed the works of defense 
 nearest the British lines. In fact, from the 
 Heights of Brooklyn, it would have been 
 impossible to have viewed the British 
 
 63 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 encampment, or to have taken cogniz- 
 ance of the successive moves of the enemy 
 after landing. The real point of vantage in 
 this respect v^^as that occupied by the forces 
 (large map) on the slopes of Gowanus, and 
 here to the Stone House, the most important in 
 the neighborhood, as early history has it, Wash- 
 ington must have come. Indeed, at this par- 
 ticular moment, it was probably only the 
 threatening attitude of the British ships in 
 the harbor which called Washington to Man- 
 hattan at all. On the evening of the 26th he 
 was reported as "very anxious," and unable to 
 sleep, feeling sure that with the morning the 
 Republican arms would be attacked by both 
 land and sea. Yet he finally composed him- 
 self with the now famous, oft-quoted reflec- 
 tion : "The same Providence that rules to-day 
 will rule to-morrow." Thus giving himself 
 into the hands of Divine guidance, he fell 
 asleep, only to wake in the morning, as he had 
 expected, to the "deep thunder of distant 
 cannon." 
 
 64 
 
CHAPTER FOUR GENERAL HOWE 
 
 AMERICAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 TRlOOPS from Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
 Maryland, and New England had been 
 poured into Brooklyn. As previously 
 suggested, many of these were raw recruits — 
 at the same time, the "very flower of the Amer- 
 ican army" was at Gowanus with Stirling. One 
 of Stirling's regiments was made up of young 
 men from the most prominent families of 
 Maryland. According to a Hessian account, 
 they were " very tall, fine men. The same 
 writer declares that Stirling's was the only 
 American regiment on Long Island which 
 was regularly uniformed and armed. The 
 men wore a red and blue uniform, and carried 
 very fine English muskets and bayonets." 
 
 Four roads led from the south shore of 
 Long Island to Brooklyn. Two of these were 
 more or less natural passes in the hills, one 
 by way of Flatbush directly through what is 
 now Prospect Park, and the other a little 
 north by the town of Bedford. The third 
 made a detour toward Jamaica, skirting the 
 
 67 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 hills to the east at what is now the cemetery 
 of the Evergreens; while the fourth and, 
 strategically, the most important, turned the 
 western foot of the hills by the bay shore, and 
 swung around through Gowanus. This was 
 called the Shore Road, as it followed the shore 
 of New York Bay from the Narrows, at which 
 point the British army and navy were in direct 
 communication with each other. (Large map.) 
 Because the Shore Road was the most direct 
 route from the British camp to the Brooklyn 
 lines, the region of its approach was most 
 thoroughly fortified, and placed in command 
 of Stirling. The adjoining pass through the 
 hills was given to General Sullivan. The ex- 
 treme east was unprotected except by guard- 
 posts. The reason for this was probably two- 
 fold: first, there were not enough troops to 
 garrison the entire range; second, it was still 
 uncertain at what point — whether at Man- 
 hattan or Brooklyn, whether by land or water, 
 or both — the first move would be made, and 
 Washington relied on Stirling to give warn- 
 ing of the enemy's line of action. When 
 this could be ascertained, American troops 
 were to be massed at the point of intended 
 attack — which was probably the best that the 
 Commander-in-Chief could do, with fifteen 
 
 68 
 
AMERICAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 miles of fortified front imperfectly garrisoned, 
 and one-third of the army in Brooklyn help- 
 less with fever. 
 
 Points of locality were soon well known to 
 Howe. He was possessed of numerous spies, 
 and was assisted by such loyalists of the dis- 
 trict as had joined the British at Staten Island, 
 and also after the landing at Gravesend. He 
 was able, therefore, when the time came, to 
 find his way by native guides through lanes 
 and woodpaths — keeping to the four main 
 lines of approach previously indicated, yet 
 really avoiding the barricaded roads, and the 
 redoubts and earthworks thrown up around 
 the passes. 
 
 Previous to the 27th, the British had shown 
 some intention of making their way gradually, 
 various skirmishes having occurred on the 
 25th and 26th. On the evening of the 26th, 
 however, while the British lay so close to the 
 American outposts that the pickets on the hills 
 could sometimes hear calls and drum beats, 
 fires were burning in the enemy's camp and 
 there was no sign that anything out of the 
 ordinary was contemplated. But when night 
 had descended so that nothing was visible but 
 the campfires which he purposely left burn- 
 ing, Howe noiselessly began to form his 
 
 69 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 troops in marching order. By midnight all 
 preparations were complete, and the start to- 
 ward Brooklyn made. 
 
 The troops were in four divisions. The 
 nearest, or Shore route to Gowanus, was given 
 to General Grant with his Highland regi- 
 ments. The next in point of geography, the 
 Flatbush Road, crossing Prospect Range, was 
 entrusted to the Hessians under General de 
 Heister. The third, by way of Bedford, was 
 in the hands of General Cornwallis ; while the 
 remainder of the army, conducted by Howe in 
 person, and with Generals Clinton and Percy, 
 followed the farthest or eastern road by 
 Jamaica and the present Cemetery of the 
 Evergreens. 
 
 It was the British intention to have Grant 
 and de Heister engage Stirling and Sullivan 
 respectively; while the other generals with 
 one-half the army were to swing to the north- 
 east, and, later, joining their compatriots in 
 action, complete a circle which would enclose 
 all the American troops without the Brook- 
 lyn lines. According to the understanding, 
 Grant would — by right of nearest way — en- 
 gage the enemy first. But he had orders to be 
 chary, to hold back until an agreed signal 
 from the other divisions should inform him 
 
 70 
 
AMERICAN TROOPS ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 that they had been successful in turning the 
 Americans' left. 
 
 Grant's route from the Narrows along the 
 Shore Road to that point between the foot of 
 Gowanus Bay, or Cove, and the beginning of 
 the wooded heights — called then the Heights of 
 Gowanus, now Greenwood — where he was in- 
 tercepted by Lord Stirling, is plainly shown on 
 the accompanying British Military Map, and 
 lettered MM. The opposing forces of the 
 Americans at this point are also plainly shown 
 but not lettered. Lord Stirling's position dur- 
 ing his address to his men at the junction of 
 the Porte and Gowanus — or Shore — Road be- 
 side the Stone House on the Vechte farm, and 
 just opposite the mill-pond, is well indicated. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE ISLE OF STIRLING 
 
 THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 IT is a singular coincidence that in the 
 battle which ensued, General Stirling, its 
 principal figure, was fighting on territory 
 to which at one time he had personally laid 
 claim. Born William Alexander in New York, 
 1726, just half a century previous to this en- 
 gagement, he had visited England in order to 
 establish his right to the title and estates of the 
 Scotch Earls of Stirling. These estates included 
 property both in Europe and America; and, 
 strange as it may appear, the whole of Long 
 Island was included in the American portion. 
 This island — called Matowack by the Indians 
 — was part of a grant, which included Nova 
 Scotia and Nantucket, made to William Alex- 
 ander, First Earl of Stirling, by James the 
 First of England. The English monarch 
 had been a particular friend of Stirling when 
 the former was James the Sixth of Scotland. 
 Stirling was possessed of certain qualities 
 which James lacked but aspired to. On the 
 other hand, Stirling aspired to place and 
 
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 REPRODUCED FROM FADEN S ATLAS, BY PERMISSION OF THE LENOX LIBRARY. 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 power, not being satisfied with the literary 
 gifts which undoubtedly were his. As a say- 
 ing of the time had it, James was born a king 
 and aspired to be a poet, while Stirling was 
 born a poet and aspired to kingship. However 
 this may have been, it was William Alexander, 
 First Earl of Stirling, who did so much to- 
 ward the translation of the Psalms. He was 
 a poet of undoubted talent, and was as well a 
 friend of poets — particularly of Drummond 
 of Hawthornden — but also became possessed 
 of a wide range of interests, which included 
 for a time the New World, as well as all that 
 was going on in state politics and finances in 
 England. He was the dispenser of the 
 Baronetcies of Nova Scotia, himself the Pre- 
 mier Baronet, as well as Viscount of Canada 
 — favors of James I, and Charles I. 
 
 When granted to Stirling by the Council 
 of New England at London at the re- 
 quest of the monarch, the island of Matowack 
 was given the name of the Isle of Stirling; 
 and the Earl immediately placed his agent 
 there, and collected quit-rents from the set- 
 tlers. This ownership and agency, together 
 with the collecting of rents, continued through 
 the lifetimes of the Second and Third Earls of 
 Stirling; the Fourth Earl, however, sold his 
 
 76 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 rights in the island to the Duke of York, at 
 the same time that the Duke was given pos- 
 session of New Amsterdam, changing the 
 name to New York. The price was to be three 
 hundred pounds per year. This, however, 
 was never paid, and it was on the basis of 
 this non-payment that William Alexander of 
 New Jersey, when claiming the lapsed title of 
 the Earls of Stirling, as well as their estates, 
 included in this his right to Long Island. His 
 claim was based on descent from the uncle of 
 the First Earl. 
 
 This claim was not allowed by the Crown, 
 but his countrymen thought he was justly en- 
 titled to its benefits, and henceforth he was 
 known among them as Lord Stirling. 
 
 On the eventful 27th of August, 1776, when 
 at three o'clock in the morning Stirling set 
 forth from his quarters, the Vechte farm at 
 Gowanus, to face the British foe, it would not 
 be a matter for surprise had thoughts of his 
 denied inheritance mingled with the loftier 
 ones of patriotism. In any case, one of the 
 most heroic battles of the Revolutionary War 
 was fought that day, and on soil once an Im- 
 perial gift to the American general's kinsman. 
 
 Stirling's gallantry in the face of what he 
 must have known to be overwhelming odds 
 
 77 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 was evidenced in the words he spoke after 
 forming the men for battle; he referred to a 
 speech which, while in England, he had heard 
 delivered on the floor of the House of Lords 
 by this same General Grant against whom they 
 were proceeding to march. In this speech 
 Grant had averred that, given five thousand 
 men, he could drive all disaffected Americans 
 clear across the continent. Stirling, referring 
 to this speech, said to his men: 
 
 "He may have his five thousand men with 
 him now; we are not so many, but I think we 
 are enough to prevent his advancing further 
 over the continent than this mill-pond." 
 
 According to Field, the tide-mills of Brook- 
 lyn "formed one of the most striking and char- 
 acteristic features of the scenery. The slug- 
 gish streams where the lazy tide crept in its 
 sinuous course among the reeds, were dammed 
 at convenient points, and when the ebb had 
 lowered the surface below the flume suffi- 
 ciently, the clatter of the simple machinery 
 announced that the run of six hours had com- 
 menced." 
 
 Speaking of these mills, Teunis Bergen 
 writes: "The one known as Freeke's Mill, or 
 the old Gowanus Mill, was probably the old- 
 est. Its mill-pond was formed by damming 
 
 78 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 off the head of Gowanus Kil. In 1661 this 
 mill was held conjointly by Isaac de Forest 
 and Adam Brouer, the latter purchasing the 
 interest of the former." 
 
 As in the days of the Indians, when Gowane 
 planted his corn in the fields round about, the 
 grain still grew abundantly in Gowanus, and 
 was ground ia the mills called respectively 
 Freeke's and Denton's at the time of the Revo- 
 lution, or "Upper" and "Lower" by the sol- 
 diers. Denton's mill, however, was built by 
 Abram and Nicholas Brouer, sons of Adam 
 Brouer. The pond was formed by damming 
 a branch of the Gowanus Kil, which ran at 
 the foot of the farms of Nicholas Vechte and 
 that of the Brouers. The Porte Road, which 
 ran across the creek between the two ponds, 
 was exactly on the line between the Vechte and 
 the Brouer farms. The proprietors of these 
 mills were said to have been loyally true to the 
 American cause. 
 
 The old Gowanus road, which was "estab- 
 lished in 1704, left the Flatbush turnpike just 
 above the toll-gate, and ran south in the gen- 
 eral direction of Fifth Avenue, until it reached 
 the vicinity of the present Fifth Street, where 
 it deflected southwesterly towards the present 
 junction of Middle Street and Third Avenue, 
 
 79 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 thence following the line of that avenue along 
 the shore. 
 
 "Branching off westerly from the Gowanus 
 road . . . was the road leading to Denton's 
 and Freeke's Mills. On the roads were the 
 houses of Nehemiah Denton and John C. 
 Freeke (time of the Revolution). These men 
 had been merchants; were rich; and among 
 the first in Brooklyn to use coaches or 
 barouches." 
 
 These names have caused much confusion 
 in Revolutionary history, resulting in the 
 impression that the action took place over 
 a much wider area than was the case. In point 
 of fact, except for the morning engagement 
 with Grant at Greenwood, practically the en- 
 tire area of the battle between Stirling and the 
 British was encompassed within the space pic- 
 tured in the frontispiece to this volume. The 
 only bridged way over the creek and salt 
 meadows was at these mills, and when the 
 upper or "yellow mill" was set on fire by the 
 British, the Americans had to take chances 
 with the lower mill, or swim the current of the 
 creek. 
 
 As for Stirling's words to his soldiers — 
 words of pride and heroism — they might have 
 been realized had Sullivan been able to hold 
 
 80 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 De Heister and the Hessians at bay on the 
 Flatbush Road. On Stirling's side, everything 
 pointed to victory till the rout of Sullivan left 
 the way open for Cornwallis, and, later, those 
 that had come by the route still farther to the 
 east. As it was, Stirling advanced from his 
 position on the Gowanus slope opposite the 
 mill-ponds, beside the Stone House, and went 
 as far as the foot of what is now Greenwood,, 
 before encountering Grant. 
 
 The British, at word of Stirling's coming, 
 had entrenched themselves in the woods. It 
 was as yet not near daylight, and for a time 
 both generals satisfied themselves with sending 
 out companies of forty or fifty men at a time. 
 Indeed, it is said that Stirling was surprised at 
 the British general's apparent timidity. This 
 was explained later when, at dawn, Grant re- 
 ceived a signal from the British right telling 
 him that De Heister had met Sullivan and 
 been victorious. Then ensued the real battle 
 — as Fiske says, the first real battle of the 
 Revolutionary War — beginning with Stirling 
 and Grant at Greenwood, and ending with 
 Stirling and Cornwallis at the Stone House at 
 Gowanus. 
 
 For several hours the battle raged between 
 Grant and Stirling, and Stirling was holding 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 his own handsomely, when word arrived that 
 the British were advancing upon his rear, and 
 that Sullivan had fallen before De Heister, 
 and was now a prisoner of the Hessians. Stir- 
 ling was not slow in perceiving his danger. 
 Leaving several regiments to continue the en- 
 gagement with Grant, he turned back along 
 the road he had that morning traversed. He 
 met Cornwallis at the Stone House; the 
 British general had taken possession of Stir- 
 ling's quarters, and was using the house as a 
 redoubt. 
 
 The Americans outside the Brooklyn lines 
 were now in possession of but a small segment 
 of that circle of conquest planned by the Brit- 
 ish. This consisted of the open Gowanus 
 meadows threaded by the creek, and with 
 crossings only at the mill-ponds. It was un- 
 doubtedly a beautiful sight on that summer 
 day — the water, the waving grass, and the 
 velvety slopes of the opposing western heights 
 where were ensconsed what remained of the 
 American arms on Long Island; — ^yet a ter- 
 rible place in which to be trapped for battle, 
 as the sea rose at high tide and found its way 
 through the tall meadow grass, which, con- 
 cealing it, made a deceptive path of retreat. 
 
 At this moment, however, Stirling had no 
 82 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 intention of retreating. He had succeeded 
 with Grant, he had left brave men to continue 
 that engagement, and with Maryland, Dela- 
 ware, and Pennsylvania troops, he believed 
 that he could cope with Cornwallis, conse- 
 quently he went at the task with his usual 
 determination and bravery. Three times, it is 
 said, he charged the Stone House where 
 Cornwallis was entrenched, and where the 
 British commander had placed guns, both 
 within the house pointing through the win- 
 dows, and without at the corners. And with 
 each charge the British fell back. 
 
 It seemed for a time as though victory 
 were to perch on the Americans' banners, 
 and for a time it did: Cornwallis was dis- 
 lodged from the house, and his guns taken. 
 Indeed, the sturdy little fort — and sturdy it 
 was with its thick, impenetrable walls — was 
 the only point of real victory in the entire 
 battle of Long Island. But just as this was 
 accomplished, word came of reinforcements 
 for Cornwallis. The whole right wing of 
 the British had made successfully the long 
 detour of the Jamaica Road, had found prac- 
 tically no resistance to the north-east, and was 
 now — with Howe himself in charge, as well 
 as Generals Percy and Clinton — sweeping 
 
 83 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 around to form that circle of conquest which 
 Grant, Cornwallis and De Heister combined 
 had been as yet unable to complete. 
 
 Stirling now saw that victory of arms was 
 impossible, yet he would not surrender. Again 
 his eyes must have swept that open segment of 
 charming but treacherous meadow land which 
 lay between him and safety on Brooklyn 
 Heights. To the north, by the mill-ponds, he 
 beheld a scene that must have momentarily 
 sickened his heart: the British, in the last stage 
 of conquering march, had set fire to the "yel- 
 low" or upper mill, leaving open only the 
 causeway by the lower, or Denton's mill. But 
 even this was soon in flames. 
 
 It was then a question of surrender or sacri- 
 fice — indeed of martyrdom — and Stirling 
 chose the latter. In order to save the bulk of 
 his forces, he called to him six companies of 
 Smallwood's Maryland regiment of riflemen, 
 and with these, now himself using the Stone 
 House as a redoubt, he charged home upon 
 the " astonished " Britishers, who had ex- 
 pected immediate surrender. Again and 
 again the little host faced the rain of English 
 bullets, sustaining the charge nobly, and hold- 
 ing their own until the last of the men had 
 found safety across the meadows. 
 
 84 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 Thus the bulk of Stirling's army arrived 
 safely within the lines at Brooklyn. It is 
 authoritatively stated that of the thousands 
 who engaged in battle, but four hundred on 
 each side were killed ; and of the one thousand 
 Americans who were taken prisoners, prac- 
 tically all were from Sullivan's command. In- 
 deed, General Stirling and his brave four 
 hundred Marylanders so successfully engaged 
 the whole of the British forces at the Stone 
 House, that those who safely retreated carried 
 with them within the lines the Maryland 
 colors, and several prisoners whom they took 
 on the way. 
 
 On the military map of the fateful year 
 1776, made by the British, and here illustrated, 
 the line of American works on the Heights of 
 Brooklyn is plainly set forth. The exact posi- 
 tion of the nearest stronghold — Fort Box — to 
 the Stone House, and the American soldiers' re- 
 treat therefrom under cover of the New York 
 regiments brought over by Washington on the 
 one side, and the Maryland regiments under 
 Stirling at the Stone House on the other, is 
 plainly indicated by the line drawn between 
 Fort Box and the Gowanus road at the Vechte 
 farm. The final course of the struggle at the 
 narrowest space between the American lines 
 
 85 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 on Brooklyn Heights and the redoubt at 
 Gowanus, may be traced clearly ; also the posi- 
 tion of the main redoubts on the heights of 
 Gowanus overlooking the plain and encamp- 
 ment of the British previous to the 27th, as well 
 as the various lines of advance, and points of 
 engagement. 
 
 The centering of final action around the 
 Stone House has never been fully explained in 
 cause. This house was really equipped as a 
 fort by the Americans ; its walls were pierced 
 for loopholes, and the main story reinforced to 
 a thickness of six feet. From the house there 
 ran a subterranean passage to the neighbor- 
 hood of the crossing at the creek. It is un- 
 certain whether this passage was built by 
 Nicholas Vechte as a means of escape in event 
 of attack by the Indians in the early days, or 
 whether it was constructed by American 
 soldiers after the house was selected for pur- 
 poses of defense. In any case, the holding of 
 this fortified position would add security to the 
 American soldiers because of the underground 
 passage. This explains Cornwallis's eagerness 
 to capture the house in the beginning, and 
 the terrific fight put up by Stirling to regain 
 it. It was, probably, with captured American 
 guns that Cornwallis held the house when 
 
 86 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AS A REDOUBT 
 
 Stirling — turning back from Greenwood and 
 Grant — marched to its possession. The fury — 
 thus explained — of the Americans' attack 
 drove "the astonished Britishers" from their 
 position, as elsewhere noted ; and they held it 
 till the very last, when the whole British army 
 on the island was bearing down upon it. 
 
 That some of the Americans escaped by 
 means of the underground way, is probably 
 certain while Stirling held the place; and 
 possibly before, at Cornwallis's first attack 
 upon it and previous to Stirling's final arrival 
 upon the scene. 
 
 While the structure as a whole was too 
 strong to fall before the English guns, it must 
 have been riddled and injured in many places. 
 Indeed, signs of the restoration of parts are 
 shown plainly in the frontispiece ; and it is the 
 opinion of the writer that the facade was orig- 
 inally "stepped," according to the most elegant 
 architectural fashion of the time, and that 
 these points were so much injured in the battle 
 that they were subsequently "filled in" to a 
 regular roof-line. This assumption is based 
 upon double facts. First, the angle-lines of 
 masonry bordering fancifully both facades 
 indicate that these rows of apparently decora- 
 tive angles are of different material from 
 
 87 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 that of the rest of the edifice; second, the 
 facade, front and rear, extends beyond — or 
 over-rides — the roof, which would hardly be 
 the case were it not clearly a projection for 
 ornamental purposes. No sketch of the house 
 antedates the Revolutionary War, so the de- 
 ductions drawn are solely those from the prem- 
 ises set forth above, but which seem sufficiently 
 strong. This mansion equalled any in the 
 Dutch colonies of this period, if it did not sur- 
 pass such, in elegance of architecture. And 
 in this connection it may be pointed out that the 
 best that could be had at the time would un- 
 doubtedly have been secured by such an inno- 
 vator and successful monopolist of privileges 
 as Nicholas Vechte proved himself to have 
 been in the account of his special canal, and 
 the outwitting of his neighbors in the private 
 flood-gate. 
 
 88 
 
COLOXIAI, AIOXE'l- ISSUED HY XEW J ERSE\ , HOME OF EORIJ 
 STIRLIXC, IN' 177'-), ABOLT THREE MOXTHS PRE\IOLS TO 
 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. THE TOBACCO LEAF 
 IS EMBLEMATIC OF THE ONE-TIME USE OF THE I'LAXT AS A 
 MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE IN A?»IERICA. IT IS NOTICEABLE 
 THAT THE PENALTY FOR COU XTERFEITI XG WAS DEATH. 
 
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CHAPTER SIX MARYLAND TROOPS 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 MANY historians have given vivid 
 accounts of the Battle of Long 
 Island. These accounts often speak 
 of the Stone House "as partly of brick 
 and partly of stone." This is a curious 
 error, w^hich, however, may be explained by 
 the fact that the house v^^hich at present bears 
 a tablet in memory of this engagement is of 
 brick; in itself, this is now an old house, built 
 long before the demolishment of the Stone 
 House; so that the confusion of the actual 
 sites, later noted, has caused confusion regard- 
 ing the material of which the historic house 
 was built. It was of stone, and that only until 
 after the war when a wooden addition was 
 built at the rear. Even as early as 1824, the 
 Stone House was renowned for its antiquity; 
 Furman, in his "Notes Relating to the Town 
 of Brooklyn on Long Island," says: "Among 
 the most ancient remains are two houses, one 
 owned by the family of Cortelyou, built in 
 1699." He does not state that this is the oldest 
 
 95 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 house, but it was, undoubtedly, one of the 
 three oldest standing at that time. And writ- 
 ing in 1834, historian Thompson says: " The 
 oldest building supposed to be now standing 
 in the town is situated at Gowanus, in the 
 southern part of the city, owned, for several 
 generations, by the Cortelyou family, which 
 was doubtless a very fine and substantial 
 edifice at the period of its erection, in 1699. 
 It is a double house, built of stone, and was 
 occupied by the Commander-in-Chief of the 
 American army in 1776, a short time anterior 
 to the battle of Long Island." 
 
 It is to be noted that neither historian calls 
 this the Cortelyou House, merely stating that 
 it was then occupied by a family of that name ; 
 but from these early statements, certain his- 
 torians who came later fell into the error of 
 naming it the Cortelyou House. 
 
 In the frontispiece, the hill shown in the 
 distance to the left of the house, known as 
 Bergen Hill, was occupied by Fort Box, 
 named after Major Daniel Box, General 
 Greene's "Brigade-Major" — this position is 
 now commemorated by Carroll Park; also by 
 Fort Greene, which was but three hundred 
 yards from Fort Box. Fort Putnam (in the 
 war of 1 81 2 the name was changed to Fort 
 
 96 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 Greene) was, in the picture, at about that 
 point in the distance framed by the edge of 
 the trees at the right. This mounted five guns. 
 Corkscrew Fort, or Cobble Hill, was close to 
 where the City Hall appears. During the 
 Revolutionary War an almost continuous par- 
 apet ran from Fort Putnam to Fort Box — the 
 entire pictured distance of the frontispiece; 
 and from this parapet thousands watched the 
 conflict at the foot of the opposing easterly 
 heights between General Stirling and the com- 
 bined power of the British army on Long 
 Island. 
 
 On the morning of the 27th of August, Gen- 
 eral Washington had hurried to Brooklyn 
 Heights "two well-drilled Pennsylvania and 
 Massachusetts regiments." Later, others from 
 New York were added. 
 
 "Along the space of ground that intervened 
 between the line of entrenchments and the 
 East River, several detachments, from the 
 army in New York, were hastening to defend 
 the passage of the creek, and to effect a diver- 
 sion in favor of the broken troops, by threat- 
 ening an attack. Washington had early in 
 the day exerted himself to the utmost in bring- 
 ing over troops from New York to reinforce 
 Sullivan and Stirling; and now that their 
 
 97 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 forces were utterly crushed, he still strove to 
 cover the retreat of the fugitives, and to 
 strengthen his lines." 
 
 Fort Box was immediately to the west of 
 the mill-ponds, and commanded the Porte 
 Road which ran down from Prospect Heights 
 between them. At this point Washington was 
 stationed during the battle between Stirling 
 and the British at the Stone House. Field 
 says: 
 
 "Washington visited the defences at this 
 point (mill-ponds) during the day (27th) and 
 while giving orders to the Colonel in com- 
 mand, a man who seemed to be a citizen of the 
 Island, was observed to have become inextric- 
 ably fastened in the mud of the pond, while 
 fleeing from the enemy. Some of the soldiers 
 were desirous of going to his aid, but Wash- 
 ington ordered them back, saying that their 
 effort would be unavailing, for they would be 
 unable to extricate themselves and would thus 
 unavoidably be made prisoners of the enemy." 
 
 The two mills were on either side of the 
 same (Porte) road, at some little distance from 
 each other. This Porte Road was much used 
 by Flatbush farmers, who preferred going by 
 Gowanus and a much more hilly road to the 
 ferry, than by paying toll the other and nearer 
 
 98 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 way. The Porte Road was the second road 
 established from the ferry to Flatbush, it cross- 
 ing the creek at the mills, and winding up to 
 the opposite, or Bergen Hill, thence following 
 the present direction of Smith Street to the 
 ferry. 
 
 Regarding the number of American troops 
 on Long Island at this date, the "Memoirs of 
 the Long Island Historical Society" says: 
 
 "It is very difficult to form a satisfactory 
 estimate of the number of the American troops 
 on Long Island, on this and the subsequent 
 days. Washington, in his letter to Congress, 
 written on the 26th, says: 'The shifting and 
 changing which the regiments have undergone 
 of late has prevented their making proper 
 returns, and the courts put it out of my power 
 to transmit a general one of the army.' The 
 whole number of American troops which 
 crossed to Long Island at various times, before 
 and after the battle, has been estimated from 
 nine to eleven thousand; but the difficulty of 
 estimating the strength of the force opposed 
 to the British is greatly increased by the man- 
 ner in which Washington rated his troops. 
 In some of his letters which mentioned num- 
 bers it is evident that he referred only to the 
 regulars, entirely disregarding the militia, 
 
 99 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 During the battle, also, and on the subsequent 
 days, troops were crossed in regiments, bat- 
 talions, companies, and even in organized 
 squads, which in the hurry and confusion were 
 hardly even enrolled. At this time, however, 
 the whole American force was probably not 
 greater than five thousand five hundred men." 
 
 Regarding Stirling's troops, the same au- 
 thority writes : 
 
 "Atlee's Pennsylvania and Smallwood's 
 Maryland regiment, with Col. Haslett's Dela- 
 ware battalion, composed the column with 
 Lord Stirling. Cols. Smallwood and Haslett 
 had been detained in the city on the night of 
 the 26th, being engaged in official duty at the 
 court-martial then sitting for the trial of 
 Lieut.-Col. Zedvdtz. At the rising of the court 
 it was too late, as Col. Smallwood asserts, for 
 crossing the East River to Brooklyn; but 
 pushing over early next morning they joined 
 their regiments on the field of battle, while 
 these were warmly engaged in repelling the 
 first attack." 
 
 The following clear account of what hap- 
 pened within the radius shown in the frontis- 
 piece, is from the same excellent authority as 
 the above: 
 
 "Although the mortality of the day is 
 100 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 largely attributed to the dangerous bog and 
 water of Gowanus Creek and its ponds, yet, 
 when it is remembered that the battery which 
 Cornwallis had placed at the Vechte House 
 was now pouring its discharge of grape and 
 canister upon every point of the crossing, it 
 is not hard to believe that most of those who 
 fell in the creek perished from these missiles 
 rather than by drowning. The brave fellows 
 who had toiled so painfully in dragging the 
 twelve pounder through the sand were now 
 amply rewarded by the splendid results of 
 its firing. After almost superhuman exertions 
 in bringing their heavy piece into position, 
 they opened fire upon Cornwallis' battery, at 
 the Stone House, and in a few minutes had 
 the satisfaction of putting it out of range. . . . 
 The British field pieces were probably light 
 four and six pounders, and unable to endure 
 the heavy shot and accurate firing of the little 
 band of artillerists, so that although these ar- 
 rived too late in the day to aid in repelling 
 the attack of the British columns on Stirling, 
 or to assist his devoted corps of Marylanders 
 in their assaults on the Vechte House, they 
 actually accomplished the result which that 
 General designed, in driving the enemy's bat- 
 tery from the post." 
 
 lOI 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Of these same troops, Field says : "The Bat- 
 talion was one of the few uniformed and well- 
 disciplined organizations in the American 
 Army, and was at once relied upon by General 
 Washington for performing the most hazard- 
 ous and important duties." Regarding their 
 part in the battle at the Stone House, the same 
 author states : 
 
 "So fierce and persistent was the onset of 
 the Battalion that the British were driven in 
 confusion from their battery at the Stone 
 House on the Gowanus Road. The guns would 
 have been spiked or turned upon the enemy 
 but for the brave fire of the grenadiers, who 
 had flung themselves into the house, the strong 
 walls of which made it a formidable redoubt. 
 
 "For more than an hour the Battalion had 
 maintained the terrible fire concentrating 
 upon them, and five times assaulted an enemy 
 more than twenty times their strength. Shat- 
 tered at every charge upon their impregnable 
 lines, their discipline, their ardor, and their 
 heroism restored their regimental order at 
 every repulse." 
 
 Now, "beneath the streets and vacant lots 
 lie the remainder of these brave sons of Mary- 
 land." 
 
 According to Field, "The officers (of the 
 
 I02 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 American army) give Lord Stirling the char- 
 acter of as brave a man as ever lived." 
 
 The follow^ing British account of the ac- 
 tion at Gowanus — written, in fact, by General 
 Howe himself — gives accurate data of their 
 own movements; at the same time, their ex- 
 planation of why they did not hold the Stone 
 House at the critical period, is highly inter- 
 esting as well as amusing. This, indeed, was 
 the one point of victory for the Americans, 
 though it was admirably backed by General 
 Stirling's encounter with Grant at Greenwood. 
 
 "About midnight he (Grant) fell in with 
 their (Americans') advanced parties, and at 
 daybreak with a large corps, having cannon, 
 and advantageously posted, with whom there 
 was a skirmishing and cannonade for some 
 hours, until by the firing at Brooklyn the 
 rebels, suspecting their retreat would be cut 
 off, made a movement to their right in order 
 to secure it across a swamp and creek that 
 covered the right of their works." 
 
 At the point farthest north on the march of 
 the British army to Gowanus, at two o'clock 
 of the morning of the fateful 27th of August, 
 there occurred the scene at the "Rising Sun 
 Tavern" between William Howard, its pro- 
 prietor, on the one hand, and Generals Howe, 
 
 103 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Percy, Cornwallis, and Clinton, on the other. 
 This point is marked by the junction of the 
 roads on the "Woody Heights." The British 
 generals were seeking a guide for the advance 
 from this point over the path or "pass" in these 
 same "Woody Heights" to Bedford, in their 
 march to Gowanus. At the butts of their 
 pistols, Howard was forced to conduct them 
 along the unguarded pass, and thus made pos- 
 sible their descent upon Stirling's forces be- 
 tween the mill-ponds and the Stone House. 
 
 Some of Cornwallis's forces had traversed 
 the pass from Flatbush to Bedford over Pros- 
 pect Range, and these Cornwallis later joined, 
 and with them made the first attack upon 
 Stirling's redoubt. 
 
 Some authorities give Sullivan, and some 
 Stirling, the entire command without the lines 
 at Brooklyn. The probabilities are that each 
 was in charge of his particular territory — Sul- 
 livan to the east and north, Stirling to the 
 south and west. Putnam, who on the 27th 
 was in charge of Brooklyn Heights, gave 
 very little account of himself during the battle. 
 His ignorance of matters, owing probably to 
 his recent command, furnishes what excuse 
 there was. 
 
 General Sullivan's position is clearly repre- 
 104 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 sented on the war map as facing, from Pros- 
 pect Heights, the British before him at Flat- 
 bush. From this point, the march of the 
 victorious British straight down the old 
 Porte Road to the Stone House, is clearly 
 indicated. So, from west, from north, from 
 south, came the entire British forces upon the 
 home of old Claes Vechte. 
 
 Perhaps the memories of that day drove the 
 last Nicholas of whom we have any knowl- 
 edge away from Gowanus and the home of his 
 ancestors. For what was left for him? — A 
 riddled hearth, a blood-soaked field, pictures 
 of brave, fighting, fleeing, wounded, dying 
 men. Some other home he sought. And when 
 the years of the war passed, when fresh young 
 leaves pierced the sod, when the dead were 
 buried, and nature had thrown its mantle of 
 peace over the scene of strife, others came to 
 occupy the brave old house — eyes which had 
 not witnessed the fearful struggle without, nor 
 the demolishment within. And again, the 
 house, the orchard and wood at the back, the 
 garden at the side, the meadows before, the 
 creek and bay in the distance, became the 
 scenes of domesticity. But the word of the 
 strife would never pass — not even when walls 
 were buried like the very soldiers who fell 
 
 105 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 around them, nor when green fields became 
 streets for city feet to tread. The old Stone 
 House at Gowanus, and its fields and creek, 
 have become history. 
 
 A little below the mill-ponds, in the creek, 
 there was the island mentioned by the Laba- 
 dists during their visit to Gowanus. Upon 
 this island, situated about at Second Street 
 near the present canal, a great many of the 
 Revolutionary unknown heroes were buried. 
 This occurred both immediately after the 
 battle — when the residents of Gowanus were 
 compelled to bury the dead that lay upon their 
 lands — and during the succeeding years when 
 the plows of the farmers upturned the 
 bones that lay as near the surface of 
 the ground as their furrows. This bury- 
 ing place has never been disturbed; only 
 the surrounding area has been filled, and 
 undoubtedly the surface of the spot itself 
 raised several feet. Here, therefore, lie most 
 of the bones of the brave young Marylanders 
 who gave their lives at the Stone House that 
 their fellow-soldiers might find safety. It was 
 of these soldiers that, "on the i6th of August, 
 the Maryland Council of Safety announced 
 to our delegates in Congress, 'We shall have 
 with you in a few days four thousand men, 
 
 io6 
 
THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND 
 
 which is all that we can arm and equip, and 
 the people of New York, for whom we have 
 great affection, can have no more than our 
 all.' " 
 
 General Stirling could not bring himself, 
 when all was over, to surrender to the British 
 Commander, and went back through the 
 woods till he found the Hessian general, De 
 Heister. He was then taken aboard a man- 
 of-war, where Sullivan was already a prisoner. 
 Of the numbers of Sullivan's men who were 
 taken the same day, history has often spoken ; 
 on the site of Fort Putnam — later converted 
 into a park called Washington Park — a monu- 
 ment has been erected to those who died while 
 prisoners on the ships in the harbor. It has 
 been called the Martyrs' Monument. 
 
 107 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN GEN. WASHINGTON 
 RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND 
 
 WHY there was not an attack by the 
 British navy at this moment remains 
 one of the mysteries of the war; for 
 Manhattan, comparatively defenseless from 
 its low position at the southern end, must have 
 fallen an easy victim to the British ships, and 
 this would have completely cut off any avenue 
 of retreat for the Americans from Brooklyn. 
 However, the presence of the American 
 troops which were hurried over from New 
 York, and who helped to cover the retreat of 
 Stirling's soldiers across the meadows, to- 
 gether with the presence of the chief himself, 
 undoubtedly heartened the soldiers within the 
 Brooklyn lines. (See Notes.) 
 
 That night, on Prospect Range, and on the 
 lowlands before the American lines, the Brit- 
 ish slept. They were happy in the conscious- 
 ness of victory, and no doubt believed that 
 another day would see the beginning of a 
 siege of Brooklyn Heights which would ulti- 
 mately prove successful to royal arms. They 
 
 109 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 were tired with a day of battle after a long 
 night of marching — so tired that one night's 
 rest was probably insufficient to inspire a 
 desire for further action. Added to this, with 
 daybreak, a fog which enveloped everything 
 was discovered to have made its way up the 
 bay, so that the now nearby line of American 
 fortifications was invisible. Further activity 
 was therefore delayed by the British. 
 
 Lord Howe thought this delay advantage- 
 ous; it would give his soldiers time for 
 further rest. But Washington took no rest. 
 He went to and fro, conferring with his gen- 
 erals, examining his own and the enemy's 
 position, and speculating upon the advisability 
 of this or that course of action. 
 
 It was no part of Washington's plan to 
 allow himself to be hemmed in on the Heights 
 of Brooklyn with the enemy around by water 
 and land. With another day of fog, his 
 preparations were completed. He had sent 
 orders to Manhattan for every available craft 
 to be centered in the East River, extending 
 from about the point of the present Brooklyn 
 Bridge terminal to Wallabout Bay — that sec- 
 tion where the river was narrowest and best 
 out of reach of the British ships. Yet, so 
 close were these ships, and so near the British 
 
 no 
 
HRONZE TABLET. FOUR AN'I) ONE-HALF B'l FIVE FEET, ATTACHED TO 
 THE BRICK HOLSE AT THE CORXER OF FIFTH WENUE AN'D THIRD 
 STREET, BROOKIAN". IX MEMOR> OF THE OLD STOXE HOUSi:, CALLED 
 THE CORTELVOU HOUSE WHII.i: OCCUI'lliD HV THE FWIIIA' OF 
 JAQUES CORTELVOU. 
 
 WE SHALL HA\E WITH "I'OU IX A FEW DA"! S FOUR THOUSAXD MEX. 
 WHICH IS .\LL THAT WE CAX ARM AXD EOUII', AN'D THE I'EOPLE OF 
 NEW "I'ORK, FOR WflOM WE HA\E C.RIiAT AFFECTION, CAX HA\lt XO 
 
 MORE THAN' OLR AM,." MAR^LAXD COUXCIL OF SAFETY TO THE 
 
 NEW \'ORK DELE(;ATES IX CONGRESS, .AUGUST lO, 1 77b, CONCERNING 
 THE MAR\LAXI) TROOPS WHO FOUGHT AT THE STONE HOUSE. 
 
RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND 
 
 camp, that it seems almost impossible such an 
 array of river craft could have been gotten to- 
 gether w^ithout the enemy's notice; this, too, 
 where there was plenty of Tory sympathy, and 
 numerous feet willing to run on errands of 
 warning to the British. It speaks well for the 
 guarding of the American lines, and the quick 
 action and manceuvering of the chief, that on 
 the morning of the 30th, with the fog's lifting, 
 the British awoke to find their supposedly 
 caged birds flown. The Heights of Brooklyn 
 were deserted, and the Americans safely across 
 the East River. 
 
 The British had lost a supreme chance, and 
 Washington's untiring activity was rewarded. 
 On the 3rd of September following, he writes 
 to Congress: 
 
 "Since Monday scarce any of us have been 
 out of the lines till our passage across the East 
 River was eflfected. Yesterday morning and 
 for forty-eight hours preceding that, I had 
 hardly been ofif my horse, and never closed my 
 eyes." 
 
 And not only were the Americans not sat- 
 isfied with getting themselves and their effects 
 from under the very noses of the British, but 
 once on Manhattan Island they proceeded to 
 Governor's Island — in Colonial times called 
 
 113 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Nutten, and even later, Nut Island — which 
 was but a quarter-mile from the Long Island 
 shore, and three-quarters from Manhattan. 
 This island is now the headquarters of the 
 Department of the East, and is so close to 
 the Long Island shore that, according to 
 tradition, at one time it was possible at low 
 tide to walk on dry land from one shore to 
 the other. This island had been well gar- 
 risoned, and it was not the Americans' plan 
 to leave so valuable an equipment behind; so 
 having landed safely at New York, they went 
 over and, according to the loyalists' own his- 
 torian, Jones, who complained bitterly of the 
 British laxity at this time, they carried away 
 "two thousand men, forty pieces of heavy can- 
 non, military stores, and provisions in 
 abundance." 
 
 114 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT THE LOYALISTS 
 
 BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 BRITISH troops were now in possession 
 of the works so zealously pushed by 
 General Lee and Lord Stirling. Over 
 Prospect Range, across the lowlands, their 
 tents swarmed. British officers occupied the 
 Stone House and the farmhouses of the dis- 
 trict; and up on Brooklyn Heights the forts 
 of the Americans became the forts of the 
 British. To the loyalists, this would seem a 
 promise of better things and, no doubt, for a 
 time they so considered it. But not long. 
 Of the British occupation their own historian, 
 Jones, previously quoted, writes : 
 
 "This day, though then looked upon as the 
 most fortunate one that could happen for the 
 Long Island loyalists, proved in the end a 
 most unfortunate one, for instead of finding 
 protectors in the King's troops, they were most 
 scandalously, barbarously and indiscrimin- 
 ately plundered; sufifered every insult and 
 abuse during the whole war." He complains 
 117 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 that they, the inhabitants, "were well paid for 
 their loyalty." 
 
 As to General Stirling, it is pleasant to state 
 that he was soon exchanged, and was enter- 
 tained by General Washington at the latter's 
 headquarters at Harlem — now Washington 
 Heights — on Manhattan. In an original 
 manuscript letter in possession of the Lenox 
 Library, and dated Morristown, March 3, 
 1776, General Stirling writes: 
 
 "At Long Island I lost two valuable horses, 
 and all my Baggage, and in consequence of 
 my captivation there, I was plundered and 
 lost about five hundred pounds' worth of 
 furniture." 
 
 A curious document of the months im- 
 mediately following the evacuation of Long 
 Island by Washington, and printed in 
 New York by Rivington, chief printer 
 and publisher of the time, throws con- 
 siderable light upon points of locality. It 
 is dated 1776, and is a farce purporting to set 
 forth circumstances connected with the Battle 
 of Long Island. Written as it was to ridicule, 
 by enemies of the Republic, truth of char- 
 acter is absolutely wanting, its place being 
 taken by gross falsehood. Yet facts of loca- 
 tion were necessary to give semblance of life 
 
 118 
 
BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 to even this fiction, and for such it may be 
 legitimately drawn upon. As to certain dia- 
 logue relating to the plunder of the natives 
 by the soldiers, it is both curious and amusing 
 to notice that the writer attributed to the 
 Americans exactly the behavior which their 
 Tory historian, Jones, recorded as their own. 
 Witness the follov^dng: 
 
 SCENE: A Small House in a Field. 
 
 Enter LASHER and CLARK. 
 
 Clark. Behold, Colonel, these flocks and herds; with 
 the sword of Gideon have I made them mine; and hon- 
 estly collected them, in the district allotted to me by our 
 agreement. 
 
 Lasher. I rejoice with you in the acquisition. My 
 harvest from the Wallabout is like the miraculous 
 draught: — two hundred and seven head of horned beasts, 
 and thirty-seven horses, graze where my guards direct. 
 
 Clark. Favor has not been so amply manifested unto 
 me; for from the farthest verge of Gowanus, even from 
 Casper's house, till you come to Brewer's mills, one hun- 
 dred and nine horned, and twenty beasts of burthem were 
 all I could collect. 
 
 Lasher. But for some twenty head of cattle, the glean- 
 ings of Gowanus in the orchard of one Bergen, (see house 
 on road to right, in frontispiece) I would not go so far; 
 these once obtained, we will be near each other. 
 
 Regarding the above, it is a fact that with 
 the advance of the British upon the southern 
 shore of Long Island, and their subsequent 
 occupation of the entire plain between the 
 
 119 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 sea and Prospect Range, the natives and 
 soldiers drove the live stock of this district 
 within the American picket lines, so that im- 
 mense herds ranged over the hills and plains 
 of Gowanus. 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE: A Hill at Gowanus about two miles from 
 Brooklyn lines, with an encampment on it. 
 TIME: About three o'clock in the morning. 
 Enter a SOLDIER. 
 
 Sol. Where's General Stirling? . . . Sir, it is I that 
 call, to inform your lordship, there has been a great deal 
 of shooting toward the Red Lion within this little while. 
 
 SCENE : A hill with troops drawn up, under arms. 
 
 TIME: Broad day-light. 
 
 Enter SULLIVAN and STIRLING. 
 
 5a/. Let your brigade immediately take post in the 
 bottom, and extend from the small house below, (see 
 frontispiece) as far as the STONE HOUSE upon the 
 left: and farther, if the hill gives them cover. 
 
 SCENE. FORT GREENE in BROOKLYN. (In 
 frontispiece, hill showing to the left of the house.) 
 
 LINES. Centinel on one of the Merlins, looking out. 
 Enter WASHINGTON. 
 
 Wash. What do you so earnestly look at, Centry ? 
 
 Cen. Look this way. Sir; there they run like many 
 deer, and will get in: but the poor souls yonder, that 
 come across the meadows, and attempt to cross the mill 
 creek. Oh, what a number of these stick in the mud. 
 
 Of course, the entire document, as pointed 
 out, is a mass of fabrication as far as char- 
 
 120 
 
BRITISH ON LONG ISLAND 
 
 acter delineation is concerned; and the lines 
 quoted are but to bring home more forcibly 
 the "local color" and points of locality, which 
 this literary effort of the day succeeds in 
 doing despite its serious objectionableness as 
 history. 
 
 With the further movements of the Revo- 
 lution, this book has little to do. The scene 
 changes, while interest remains with the 
 Stone House, with Gowanus, and the distant 
 Heights of Brooklyn. The British held pos- 
 session of this region till the close of the war. 
 With their evacuation went also many of the 
 loyalists of the district — one historian stating 
 that a third of the whole population of Brook- 
 lyn went to Nova Scotia — so that present day 
 Brooklyn descendants of the time represent 
 those families who remained true to the Amer- 
 ican cause. 
 
 FACSIMILE OF THE SIGNATURE OF NICHOLAS 
 VECHTE^ FROM THE " HISTORY OF THE 
 BERGEN FAMILY," BY TEUNIS BERGEN. 
 
 121 
 
CHAPTER NINE THE STONE HOUSE 
 AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
 
 IN 1790, Nicholas Vechte sold the Go- 
 wanus estate on which stood the Stone 
 House to Jaques Cortelyou for $12,500. 
 From this period on, the house was known 
 either as the Stone House, or the Washington 
 House — from Washington's presence there 
 previous to the battle, in consequence of 
 which it was often referred to as Washington's 
 Headquarters on Long Island, the picture of 
 the house frequently being so designated. 
 
 Jaques Cortelyou was direct in descent from 
 Jaques Cortelyou, the original owner of the 
 first stone house at New Utrecht — the same 
 house that was occupied by General Howe 
 upon the British landing at New Utrecht, and 
 which later became a part of Fort Hamilton, 
 on the Narrows, and was included in the bar- 
 racks up to modern times. (Large Map.) 
 
 The Cortelyou House at New Utrecht was 
 visited by the previously mentioned Labadist 
 travelers in 1679, though as early as 1665, 
 records have it that "J^Q^^s Cortelleau, 
 
 123 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 younger hope," lived at New Utrecht. They 
 state that the house of Jaques Cortelleau was 
 the second one built by the owner, the first hav- 
 ing been destroyed by fire ; and in this they are 
 confirmed by contemporary records, which 
 add that the inhabitants of the surrounding re- 
 gion were asked to contribute a day's labor 
 toward the erection of Jaques Cortelleau's new 
 house, he having been grievously afflicted by 
 fire. 
 
 Evidently, the second house was intended to 
 withstand both fire and time, as it was of the 
 same strength and durability as the Stone 
 House at Gowanus, bought by Jaques' de- 
 scendant of the same name, surviving from the 
 Seventeenth till the last half of the Nineteenth 
 Century. (See Notes.) 
 
 The Labadists became great friends of 
 Jaques Cortelyou, whom they describe at that 
 time as quite an old man. They made several 
 visits to his home, and at one time thought 
 of buying from him a tract of land owned by 
 himself and "several partners" on the Passaic 
 River in New Jersey. Of one of these visits 
 to him, starting from New York, they write : 
 
 "We both left about noon to go over to 
 Long Island, and passed through Breucklen 
 and Vlacke Bos (Flatbush, thus taking a dif- 
 124 
 
AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ferent route from previous ones by Gowanus) 
 over New^ Utrecht on a large, fine wagon 
 road to Najack (the part of New Utrecht 
 occupied by the Nyack Indians, upon 
 whose land Jaques Cortelyou had built), 
 where we arrived about three o'clock. It had 
 been very warm through the day, and we 
 were all in perspiration and fatigued. After 
 we had rested and eaten something, we went 
 outside upon the banks of this beautiful bay, 
 to breathe a little air, and look at several 
 vessels going and coming." Jaques "had been 
 to the fish fuyck, which they had lying there 
 upon the shore and out of which they had 
 taken at noon some fine fish. . . . The day be- 
 fore he had shot a woodcock and partridge 
 before the door of the House." 
 
 At the time of the Labadists' visit, Cortelyou 
 was paying the Indians twenty bushels of 
 corn a year as rent for his land. He is spoken 
 of by writers of his time as a "mathamatician, 
 a sworn land surveyor, and a doctor of medi- 
 cine." He enjoyed the position of "official 
 surveyor" to New Amsterdam, and he it was 
 who, in 1653, made that map of New Amster- 
 dam ordered by the Governor, which present 
 generations long searched for. 
 
 The office of surveyor descended in the 
 125 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 family; in 1704 Peter Cortelyou was one of 
 three men appointed to lay out the King's 
 Highway, later Fulton Street, Brooklyn. 
 
 The bronze tablet, placed by the Sons of the 
 Revolution on the house now standing on the 
 southwest corner of Third Street and Fifth 
 Avenue, bears the following inscription : 
 
 "The site of the old Cortelyou , . 
 House on the Battlefield of 
 Long Island. Here on the 27TH 
 of August, 1776 — ^two hundred 
 and fifty out of four hundred 
 brave Maryland soldiers under 
 the command of lord stirling 
 were killed in combat with brit- 
 ish troops under cornwallis." 
 
 Above the inscription there is etched an 
 imaginary picture of the conflict. The house 
 is represented close at hand, two stories and 
 a half in height and situated just at the rise 
 of a hill. 
 
 As a matter of fact, this should not be called 
 the Cortelyou House of history, the latter, as 
 explained above, having been situated at New 
 Utrecht; moreover, the house represented 
 and thus honored in the tablet — the Stone 
 126 
 
AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
 
 House of Gowanus — was not on the site 
 of the brick dwelling to which the tablet is 
 attached. The famous house stood some one 
 hundred feet to the rear or west of the present 
 edifice, and about fifty to the left or south. 
 The southwest corner of the house was nearly 
 coincident with the old willow tree which still 
 stands on the property. As a young tree, this 
 willow appears in certain of the later sketches 
 of the house which were used as illustrations 
 to histories, and which are subsequently de- 
 scribed in detail in this chapter. 
 
 At the time of its final destruction, some 
 twelve years previous to this writing, the 
 house occupied a corner of what was the 
 Washington Park — so-named from the house 
 — Baseball Grounds, and was used by the 
 players as a club house. The wooden addi- 
 tion to the rear was the part mainly used by 
 the boys, and according to Mr. John Moore, a 
 resident of the locality since the fifties, they 
 gained entrance by jumping down through 
 door or windows. 
 
 As the house, in history, was always de- 
 scribed as two stories and a half, it became a 
 current fallacy of later days that the original 
 roof had disappeared, and with it one of the 
 stories. But this is inconsistent with the fact 
 
 127 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 that the house retained to the end its original 
 gable with the date, 1699, affixed to it. 
 
 Referring to the frontispiece of this volume, 
 it is to be noted that the wooden addition 
 spoken of by Mr. Moore is not only well above 
 ground, but has a foundation ample in height. 
 To have made it necessary to "jump down" 
 through door or windows in order to gain en- 
 trance, the house must have been buried to a 
 point above the pictured or original doorsill, 
 thus reducing the visible portion of the 
 house to a story and a half; and that this was 
 the case is practically assured from the fact 
 that the slope shown in the painting at the back 
 of the house had even then long since vanished 
 — the undulating wooded hills of this slope 
 having given place to the gradual, even 
 descent from the park to-day. 
 
 Mr. Litchfield, whose grandfather bought 
 the property from the Cortelyous in 1846 and 
 extended Third Street across the lowlands, 
 states that the street was sixteen feet above 
 the level of the meadows ; so that the original 
 ground level of the Stone House would 
 thus have been sixteen feet below the present 
 surface — confirming eye-witnesses that the 
 house appeared as though "in a hollow" even 
 after having been buried to its second story. 
 
 128 
 
THE OLD WILLOW TRi:f;, WHICH STOOD X i;ar thi; door of the stone 
 
 HOUSE AS IT LOOKS TODA'i'. IT IS SHOWN AS A SAPLING, REACHING 
 ABOUT THE EAVES, IX THE TWO I'RIN'TS AND THE LITHOGRAPH ELSE- 
 WHERE REPRODUCED. 
 
 BENEATH THESE STREETS AND VACANT LOTS LIE THE REMAINDER 
 OF TPIOSE BRA\-E SONS OF M,\R\LAND." FIELD. 
 
SECTION OF THE TRUNK OF THE OLD WILLOW TRILE WHICH 
 STOOD NEAR THE DOOR OF THE STONE HOUSE, SHOWING 
 PRESENT ACE AND CONDITION. 
 
AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
 
 With the building of Third Street across 
 the meadows, and the consequent filling-in of 
 the meadows themselves, there also became 
 lost to view the spring, and the brook which 
 flowed from it to the creek — shown plainly on 
 the farther side of the road in the frontispiece. 
 Mr. Moore states that the spring is still bub- 
 bling beneath the ground, and that the stream 
 yet finds its way to the canal but a few feet 
 helow the surface. 
 
 Also, when the upper house was finally 
 demolished, the stones which composed it were 
 thrown in to make filling, so that there remains 
 to-day beneath the turf of this historic area, 
 not only the spring and brook, but the founda- 
 tion and lower floor of the house intact, and 
 practically the entire material of the second 
 floor and gable. 
 
 The brass figures upon the gable-ends re- 
 mained to the last. They were over two feet 
 in height, their supports penetrated the walls, 
 and were firmly riveted on the inside. These 
 were removed at the time of general destruc- 
 tion, and are probably in the possession of 
 some person in Brooklyn. 
 
 Under its various names — the Vechte-Cor- 
 telyou House, the Washington House, the 
 Stone House at Gowanus, Washington's Head- 
 
 133 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 quarters, Stirling's Headquarters, Cornwallis's 
 Redoubt; and with such captions as "Scene on 
 the Gowanus Road," "The Oldest House in 
 Brooklyn," or "Stirling's Last Stand at the 
 Stone House," together with several presenta- 
 tions as an example of Colonial Dutch archi- 
 tecture merely — the house itself has figured 
 largely in book illustration. The best known 
 example is undoubtedly that in the Valentine 
 Manual for 1858. This is an illustration of 
 ordinary book-size, showing the front angle 
 of the house. It is the only Brooklyn or Long 
 Island edifice of any sort reproduced in the 
 Manuals. 
 
 It is interesting to note that the same point 
 of view, to a hair's breadth, is taken in the 
 drawing of the Valentine Manual as in the 
 picture of the house forming the frontispiece 
 to Henry R. Stiles' "History of the City of 
 Brooklyn." A certain post in the enclosing 
 fence is depicted as exactly in line with the 
 angle of the southwest, or right-hand, corner 
 of the house. This is true also of the large 
 full-page illustration in the Emmet Collec- 
 tion, which is styled, "Sketch on the Gowanus 
 Road," with the sub-title, "Washington's 
 Headquarters." In fact, these three illustra- 
 tions are identical as far as the point of view 
 
 134 
 
AFTER THE REVOLUTION 
 
 and general delineation is concerned, leading 
 to the conclusion that they were drawn from 
 one and the same pictorial source, a few slight 
 changes alone being introduced as suggestions 
 of originality. For example, the frontis- 
 piece to Stiles shows the brook and a sunken 
 barrel at the spring in the immediate fore- 
 ground, with two young girls romantically 
 near. In Emmet, the girls and the brook are 
 omitted, there remaining only the barrel. In 
 Valentine, neither the girls, the brook, nor 
 the spring appear, the foreground being short- 
 ened at this point. A young willow tree near 
 the door appears in both Stiles and Valentine. 
 Undoubtedly, these slight changes or additions 
 were often in accordance with facts of the time 
 of the respective prints. 
 
 The young willow tree near the door of 
 the house in Valentine and Stiles' frontis- 
 piece is topographically valuable, showing, as 
 it does, its exact position with reference to the 
 house ; for this tree — now old, gnarled, but in 
 season still garlanded with green — ^yet stands 
 on the vacant plot beneath which lie con- 
 cealed the remains of the Stone House. 
 
 135 
 
CHAPTER TEN LATER DAYS 
 
 PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 
 
 FROM the village of something less than 
 four thousand inhabitants during the 
 Revolutionary War, Brooklyn ad- 
 vanced to the dignity of a town in 
 1816, and to that of a city in 1834, 
 when its population registered 23,310. 
 Having become a city, the idea of a City Hall 
 was broached, and in the same year — 1834 — 
 a triangular lot of land at a purchase price of 
 $52,909 was secured. At the time, this piece 
 of land was practically on the outskirts of the 
 city. The corner stone was laid in 1836, and 
 work begun; but this was afterward stopped, 
 owing to "hard times." When, in 1848, the 
 work on the City Hall was completed, the 
 population had almost doubled, being regis- 
 tered as 90,000; and in two successive years, 
 from 1848 to 1850, twenty-one hundred build- 
 ings were erected in the city, many of these 
 extending southward, along what is now Court 
 Street, edging but slightly, however, toward 
 the lowlands, so that the amphitheatre of 
 
 137 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 Revolutionary action remained practically as 
 before. 
 
 But a change was imminent. Already, in 
 1846, a plan had been broached for the con- 
 struction of a canal at Gowanus — this, in a 
 measure, to follow the bed of Gowanus Creek, 
 but to confine the waters within exact limits, 
 and to deepen the bed so as to drain the sur- 
 rounding area. According to record, the canal 
 was to be "five feet below low water mark, 
 four feet above high water mark, one hundred 
 feet in width, and a mile in length." The same 
 report stated that the "purpose of the canal 
 was to drain some 17 acres of land" at Go- 
 wanus, almost the area of the mill-ponds. This 
 was also the size of the plot of vacant ground 
 connected with the Stone House, and for a 
 time, as previously stated, occupied by the 
 Brooklyn Baseball Club. It is that part of 
 the Stone House property which extended 
 below the wooded slope and comprised the 
 meadow lands. In the same year it was pro- 
 posed to appropriate the historic seventeen 
 acres for a public park. Had this been done 
 the Stone House, with all its moving and pic- 
 turesque memories, would have been saved for 
 us of the present generation, and those who 
 come after. 
 
 138 
 
PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 
 
 The ten years between 1840 and 1850 really 
 marked the commencement of the new or 
 present city of Brooklyn. Plans for parks, for 
 public institutions, for new roads, were begun, 
 and in the main vigorously pushed. The 
 "new" was the keynote of the time, and as is 
 usual in such cases, the old was forgotten — 
 built upon, passed over, and the loss considered 
 but a necessary factor in the sweep of progress. 
 It was not until later, when a sense of comple- 
 tion — more or less — of wealth, of culture, of 
 leisure in certain directions, had settled upon 
 the still growing community, that minds went 
 back to that part of the historic past which 
 had been swept away. With the planning of 
 the Gowanus Canal, thoughts reverted to the 
 part played by the region traversed by the his- 
 toric creek, the meadows around, and the 
 slopes on either hand. The central point of 
 all, the Stone House, became the centre of 
 interest, and it was at this time that the propo- 
 sition was entertained to make the place a park 
 and to preserve the historic house. 
 
 While this subject was so vitally in the air, 
 the picture referred to so often in the progress 
 of this story of Gowanus, was painted. This 
 was in the year 1846, while plans for the canal 
 were being considered, and before work had 
 
 139 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 begun, so that the old creek still traversed the 
 meadows, and on the distant heights of Brook- 
 lyn the new City Hall had taken on the dignity 
 of a spire or cupola, but within the edifice 
 work was still going on. It represents the 
 transition between the old and new as, per- 
 haps, no other picture in the world anywhere 
 represents it; in the lowlands, everything re- 
 mained at that moment as it had one hundred 
 and fifty years before — in 1699, or 1776; on 
 the heights changes were approaching, but the 
 slopes were as yet practically unaltered. 
 
 At this momentous hour there happened to 
 reside in Brooklyn an artist, Louis Grube, who 
 was born in Kerzenheim, Germany. He was 
 educated at Manheim, and had come to Amer- 
 ica to join a brother who lived at Pough- 
 keepsie. He taught drawing and painting in 
 the Poughkeepsie Collegiate Institute for a 
 short time, and then removed to Brooklyn. He 
 was thirty-five years of age, when the agita- 
 tion began for the new Gowanus Canal, 
 awakening, as it did, memories of the historic 
 neighborhood. How splendidly the artist 
 embraced these memories, and how perfect 
 was his realization of the relation of historic 
 Gowanus to the opposing and neighboring 
 heights, how truthfully the representation of 
 
 140 
 
PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 
 
 the entire scene upon canvas, may be realized 
 from history and from geography. One can 
 imagine the young artist filled with the en- 
 thusiasm of the history of the spot, at the same 
 time that he reproduces with his brush the 
 scene that lay before him at the moment — -the 
 still unmutilated, dignified edifice, with its 
 lanes, its roads before the door, its stone wall, 
 its fence, its shading trees — even its old Dutch 
 kitchen, probably later devoted to other uses; 
 then the oft-remarked meadows, lush from his 
 brush, the brook flowing away to the creek 
 which had brought old Nicholas Vechte's 
 canoe or flat-bottom nearly to his door. 
 
 Then the scene spreads, and so glovdngly 
 and truthfully is this distance depicted it must 
 speak of the painter's heart as one with his 
 plan. There is the road over the slope at the 
 right, the old road, with the snug little house 
 on the near side — the Michael Bergen place, 
 rebuilt by his grandson, Michael Grant, at the 
 time of the Revolution. This family gave its 
 name to the present Bergen Street, now four 
 city blocks north of the head of the Gowanus 
 Canal, or the Gowanus Creek, where were 
 situated the historic mill-ponds. Still farther 
 rises the uncompleted spire of the City Hall, 
 and the two church steeples that were standing 
 
 141 
 
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 143 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 at that time. In the course of a few years after 
 this painting, the entire area represented about 
 the City Hall changed, the old hill upon 
 which it stood being lowered so that a new 
 first story to the City Hall, including the 
 sweep of steps to the main entrance, was added. 
 The differing color of the steps and first story 
 to-day tells the extent to which the hill was 
 lowered. After this change, the appearance of 
 the locality altered rapidly; the old, low build- 
 ings shown around the City Hall in the paint- 
 ing gave place to new and higher ones; in 
 time, these rose to such a height that the City 
 Hall was entirely obscured from Gowanus. 
 
 Curiously, the area about the City Hall was 
 lowered approximately the same number of 
 feet that the area about the Stone House was 
 raised. In consequence, one must climb the 
 grandstand of the present baseball club at 
 Third Street and Fourth Avenue — site of 
 the lower mill-pond — or the elevated railroad 
 at Fifth Avenue and Third Street, to obtain 
 an idea of the relative position of the two areas 
 as they were one hundred, or two hundred, 
 years ago. The high buildings about the City 
 Hall make up somewhat to the distant observer 
 for the loss in height of the hill itself. 
 
 The lane at the picture's left lower corner in- 
 
PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 
 
 dicates perfectly the position of the present 
 Fifth Avenue, and if in imagination continued 
 to the right, will show with exactitude where, a 
 decade after the picture's execution. Fifth 
 Avenue was cut through the hill adjoining the 
 house at the rear. 
 
 With the new roads came new houses. The 
 new houses must of necessity be on the new 
 grade of the new streets. The present brick- 
 house of the tablet on Fifth Avenue was to 
 occupy the exact spot indicated by the right- 
 hand wooded rise in the painting. It came 
 down, this rise — shovelful by shovelful — each 
 one thrown forward to create the mound 
 which banked around the Stone House to the 
 second floor, and sloped in exact decline to the 
 meadows, the fresh greenness of which hence 
 became a monotonous stretch of desolate new- 
 laid soil. 
 
 From this last state, the ball club came and 
 reclaimed it, for the pleasant green sod, the 
 well-kept surroundings of a prominent ball 
 club, were much pleasanter to the sight than 
 the preceding desolation. Now, since the re- 
 moval of the club, the land is once more deso- 
 late, and the house gone. So we are to thank 
 Mr. Grube for the preservation to us of the 
 scene as it was before the vandalism of a great 
 
 145 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 city's advance had annihilated its natural 
 charm and hidden its historic features. 
 
 Louis Grube lived for many succeeding 
 years in Brooklyn — painting in his studio in 
 the old Athenaeum Building, and teaching art 
 in the famous Lockwood Academy. He ex- 
 hibited his paintings at the current exhibitions, 
 and one, entitled "Butterflies" — is now in the 
 Brooklyn Institute Museum. So far as is 
 known the painting in question is the only 
 historic painting of Brooklyn he undertook, 
 and this fact is not difficult to understand when 
 we realize the scope of the scene under dis- 
 cussion ; for he had here a subject which took 
 with its swing practically all that was of vivid 
 or thrilling interest in the battle of Long 
 Island, also the most noted example of 
 early Colonial Dutch architecture in the city, 
 and a glimpse of that Gowanus where was 
 made the first white settlement, where was 
 built the first house on the territory now com- 
 prising the city of Brooklyn. It represents the 
 heart of historic Brooklyn as far as its relation 
 to the course of the Revolutionary War and 
 the making of the free and independent States 
 of America is concerned. As such, it is of na- 
 tional interest. And a writer has said of this 
 scene : 
 
 146 
 
PRESENT SCENE OF THE BATTLE 
 
 "The very dust of these streets is sacred. 
 And our busy hum of commerce, our grading 
 of city lots, our speculations in houses reared 
 on the scenes of such noble valor, and over the 
 mouldering forms of these young heroes, seems 
 almost sacrilege." For here they fell and were 
 buried, these "young heroes" vv^ho fought v^^ith 
 Stirling, or who fell in the attempt to cross the 
 meadows. (See Notes.) 
 
 Through the fortuitous circumstances pre- 
 viously indicated, the plot upon which stood 
 the Stone House, and the entire stretch of the 
 meadow before it as far as the creek or canal, 
 and in width from Third to Sixth Street — is 
 still unoccupied, though pressingly sur- 
 rounded on all sides by buildings. It would 
 yet be possible to uncover the spring and 
 brook, and to unearth and set up the Wash- 
 ington House, the old Stone House of 
 Gowanus. With turfed surface, bordering 
 trees, and flowers where once stood the garden, 
 this spot might again be made to bloom as 
 during Colonial and Revolutionary occu- 
 pancy. Washington Park, long its name, 
 could be restored to it, and the house serve not 
 only as a place of abiding interest itself, but 
 as a museum for Colonial and Revolutionary 
 relics. The iron figures recording the date of 
 
 147 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 erection — 1699 — ^^^ still in existence, and 
 might again adorn the gable; also a wooden 
 tablet which, within the house, told of Wash- 
 ington's presence. This, no doubt, could be 
 secured, the house furnished in duplicate of 
 the days before the war, and a charming 
 monument laid to those pioneers of our history 
 who gave their hearths for their nation's need. 
 Such museums as the Jumel Mansion on 
 Washington Heights, Manhattan, and the Van 
 Cortlandt Mansion at Van Cortlandt Park, 
 are wonderful revivifiers of the days which 
 they represent. How much more so, then, 
 this site restored to its original form, repre- 
 senting, as it does, not only a homestead of 
 earlier interest than either of the above, but 
 the scene of a great battle — itself the important 
 redoubt; altogether, with surroundings, repre- 
 senting an opportunity for historic preserva- 
 tion unequalled at the present time in America. 
 
 148 
 
COLORED LITHOGRAl'lI OF THi; STOXi; HOUSH AT COWAXLS. KV N . 
 CURRIER, FROM THE ORIGINAI, OIL I'AINTING I5V LOUIS (;RU1;i; RI-I'RO- 
 DUCEU AS FROXTISPIIX'E TO THIS BOOK. 
 
 "the OLDEST BUILDIXG SUPPOSED TO BE XOW (18,^4) STAXDING IN 
 THE TOW X IS SITUATED AT GOW AXUS IX THE SOUTHERX PART OF THE 
 CITY, OWNED, FOR SE\'ERAL GENERATION'S. BV THE CORTELI'OU FAM- 
 ILY, WHICH WAS DOUBTLESS A VERY FINE SUBSTANTIAL EDIFICE AT 
 THE PERIOD OF ITS ERECTION IN I'XjQ. IT IS A DOUBLE HOUSE, BUILT 
 OF STONE, AXD WAS OCCUPIED ]'.\ THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF 
 THE AMERICAN .ARM'i' IN 1 77b, .A SHORT TIME .ANTERIOR TO THE 
 BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND." THOMPSON. 
 
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i699 NOTES 1909 
 
 CAROLINE AMELIA CORTELYOU, daughter 
 of the last Jaques Cortelyou, and who was herself 
 born in the Stone House at Gowanus, married Merwin 
 Rushmore of Brooklyn. At the present time, Mrs. Rush- 
 more's Colonial home is filled with treasures dating back 
 through two centuries and more. Among these are silk 
 gowns of antique patterns, beautiful shawls, old Dutch 
 Bibles, andirons, lamps, candlesticks, silver ware, copper, 
 pewter, quaint mirrors brought from France, a foot- 
 warmer, chests of drawers, four-posters, chairs of Shera- 
 ton, and one "rush-bottom" of the exact date, 1790, of 
 the family's entry into the Stone House. Besides many 
 other pieces of antique mahogany, sufficient to completely 
 furnish a modern five-story residence, Mrs. Rushmore is 
 the happy possessor of a spinet which once adorned the 
 parlor of the Stone House. Her manuscripts include let- 
 ters relating to affairs of the Cortelyou family for many 
 generations, as well as a slave bill made out by her grand- 
 father, Jaques Cortelyou. 
 
 According to Mrs. Rushmore, all the bricks used for 
 ornamental purposes in the Stone House, and for the fire- 
 places and ovens, were brought from Holland. After the 
 demolishment of the house, bricks from the fireplace were 
 sold by Daughters of the Revolution at a fair in Brooklyn. 
 
 153 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 II 
 
 AS the mill-ponds were artificial expansions of arms 
 of the creek, it is probable that old Nicholas Vechte's 
 privilege concerning the water of Denton's Pond in flood- 
 ing his private stream had its origin in the fact that the 
 pond really extended into his — iVechte's— property. The 
 eastern boundary of the Vechte farm was at the Porte 
 Road, what is now practically First Street; and in all the 
 old grants or titles of this region, the boundaries extended 
 in a straight line from the wooded heights in the rear, to 
 the creek. This would have given Vechte proprietary 
 rights upon the land below First Street as far as the 
 creek. As the pond, when formed — about two years after 
 the building of the Stone House — extended nearly to 
 what is now Third Street — in the Frontispiece directly 
 hidden by the house, and about the distance away of the 
 present Fourth Avenue from Third Avenue — ^Vechte 
 must have granted the use of the portion of his land 
 flooded by the mill-pond, or else sold it outright, to his 
 neighbor and friend, Adam Brouer. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE town of New Utrecht extended from the Go- 
 wanus line to the southern shore of Long Island, 
 hence included the Narrows, where is now Fort Hamil- 
 ton, and the village of New Utrecht, some distance inland 
 to the east. The Cortelyou House on the Narrows, 
 which was occupied by General Howe upon landing, is 
 indicated on the accompanying British military map — a 
 line being dr^wn from the house to the village of New 
 
 154 
 
i699 NOTES 1909 
 
 Utrecht. Architecturally, this house did not compare 
 with the Stone House at Gowanus; it was but one story 
 and a half in height, but was strongly built of field stone. 
 
 IV 
 
 SOME authorities maintain that the British ships but 
 made a feint of attacking New York on the 27th of 
 August; others declare that an attack was fully intended 
 and in fact begun, but that the ships which were sent up 
 New York Bay could get no further than Red Hook 
 — the southern point of Brooklyn Peninsula, guarding 
 Gowanus Bay — ^where they were stopped, not only by the 
 guns of Red Hook, but by adverse winds, and the out- 
 going tide. 
 
 IN "The Life of Lord Stirling," by his grandson, Wil- 
 liam Alexander Duer, it is stated that most of the cor- 
 respondence which passed between Lord Stirling and 
 General Washington is missing. In the preface, the 
 writer accounts for this as follows: 
 
 "As the author is well aware that whatever of value or 
 interest may attach to his work will be due to the corre- 
 spondence it embraces, he cannot forbear expressing his 
 regret that a number of the most important letters in the 
 original collection are not now to be found. They were 
 selected from the mass, and laid aside for greater security ; 
 but, as not unfrequently happens in such cases, they were 
 lost — perhaps, through the very means intended for their 
 preservation. This accident is the more to be lamented, 
 
 155 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 as the letters in question comprised the correspondence 
 of . . . General Washington with Lord Stirling, dur- 
 ing the revolutionary war." 
 
 The letter — of which the facsimile is presented in thb 
 book — of General Washington to Lord Stirling, is, there- 
 fore, one of the lost letters referred to by Mr. Duer. Dr. 
 Robert Watts of New York, the present owner of the 
 letter, and who is the grandson of Robert Watts who mar- 
 ried Lord Stirling's daughter Mary, informed the writer 
 that this particular letter was found in the secret drawer 
 of an old desk by a friend of the family, who then turned 
 it over to an uncle of Dr. Watts, whence it came to him. 
 The letter was written while the American Army was in 
 camp near Trenton, and while Lord Stirling was actively 
 engaged in military life in New Jersey, performing the 
 same kind of hazardous feats of bravery for which he had 
 been distinguished even before the Battle of Long Island. 
 
 That Lord Stirling's advice was constantly sought by 
 the Commander-in-Chief is evidenced by numerous letters, 
 one of which contains the following from Lord Stirling to 
 General Washington: 
 
 "In obedience to your Excellency's request in Council 
 the 6th instant, I now give you my opinion on the several 
 questions stated, viz: That since there is still a very high 
 probability of the second division's arriving from France, 
 and of our soon having a superior force in these seas, we 
 ought to adhere to our original plan for this campaign of 
 co-operating with our allies, and with our whole force, 
 for the reduction of New York; and then pursuing such 
 other objects as the season of the year and the character 
 of the seats of operation will permit. By departing from 
 this plan, we risk everything; we can then have no other 
 
 156 
 
i699 NOTES 1909 
 
 objects in view but what lie at a great distance; and we 
 shall have the opportunity of striking the enemy at the 
 fountain head, with the highest probability of success, etc." 
 This was dated Sept. 9, 1780, at Camp Kanahkumac. 
 
 General Washington followed this advice, acting upon 
 it the following May in his advance upon New York as 
 far as the Hudson ; but the failure of the French part of 
 the expedition at this point caused him to withdraw, and 
 he then proceeded to Virginia. At this time Lord Stir- 
 ling was ordered to Albany to take command of the North- 
 ern Division, as an invasion from Canada was then feared. 
 
 Stirling's modesty where his own ability and bravery 
 were concerned is shown in his answer to the compliment 
 paid him by General Stark, whose letter ran as fol- 
 lows: "I ... am very happy that an officer of your 
 influence and military experience has been appointed to 
 this critical and important command." To which he re- 
 plied : "Your friendly observations upon my abilities 
 rather paint me the person I wish to be, than the one I 
 sincerely think I am." 
 
 Upon the capitulation of Stirling's old foe at the Stone 
 House — Lord Cornwallis — to General Washington, Stir- 
 ling wrote to Washington as follows: "Rhynbeck, No- 
 vember 26, 1 78 1. Dear Sir — I most heartily congratulate 
 your Excellency on the glorious victory you have attained 
 over the British arms on the 19th of October, at York and 
 Gloucester in Virginia, an event, important in the affairs 
 of Europe, as well as of America. It will weigh heavy 
 in the scale of negotiations, and I hope, secure peace to 
 the latter, on the principles of independency and honour, 
 with permanent advantages to our generous and illustrious 
 allies. I should have had the honour of expressing to your 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 excellency the joy I feel on this occasion, much sooner, 
 had I not been engaged on the northern frontier — whence 
 I am just returned." He then goes on to recount his ex- 
 periences in detail. 
 
 Lord Stirling died at Albany on January 15, 1783, 
 after a month's illness undoubtedly brought on from his 
 untiring activity in the cause of his country. He was 
 fifty-seven years old. General Washington then wrote to 
 Lady Stirling: 
 
 "It only remains, as a small but just tribute to the mem- 
 ory of Lord Stirling, to express how deeply I share the 
 common affliction on being deprived of the public and 
 professional assistance, as well as the private friendship, 
 of an officer of so high rank, with whom I have lived in 
 the strictest habits of amity, and how much those mili- 
 tary merits of his Lordship, which rendered him respected 
 in his lifetime, are now regretted by the whole army. It 
 will doubtless be a soothing consideration in the poig- 
 nancy of your grief, to find that the General officers are 
 going into mourning for him. Mrs. Washington joins 
 with me in requesting that Your Ladyship and Lady 
 Kitty will be assured that we feel the tenderest sensibility 
 on this melancholy occasion. With sentiments of perfect 
 esteem and respect, I am, etc." 
 
 William Alexander, afterward called Lord Stirling, 
 was born in New York in 1726. At the age of thirty- 
 one he went to England, and while there became a friend 
 of the Duke of Arg)de, who, with others, assisted him In 
 the prosecution of his claims to the earlship. In this, the 
 Duke of Argyle probably felt the claim of ancestral 
 friendship — that between the First Earl of Stirling and 
 the then Duke of Argyle. The Argyles were at the time 
 
 158 
 
i699 NOTES 1909 
 
 in possession of the house in the town of Stirling built 
 by Alexander, the First Earl of Stirling, and now called 
 Argyle's Lodgings. 
 
 While only created earls of Stirling in the Seventeenth 
 Century, the Alexanders were of the strain of the Scot- 
 tish kings, Alexander II and III ; and they were associated 
 with the town of Stirling during several previous cen- 
 turies, at different times the name of Stirling being con- 
 nected with theirs. These considerations undoubtedly in- 
 fluenced the English monarch in bestowing the title of 
 Earl of Stirling upon William Alexander of Scotland. 
 
 It was while he was in England in pursuance of his 
 claims, that the portrait of the American Lord Stirling, 
 reproduced in this volume, was painted by Benjamin 
 West. 
 
 The blood of the progressionist flowed rightfully in 
 Lord Stirling's veins. The cause of the people which he 
 espoused in 1776 in America was paralleled in essence 
 by the work of the First Earl of Stirling in his efforts in 
 behalf of humanity, while associated with James II of 
 England, when he caused laws to be passed which, from 
 their character, would rate him a sociologist to-day. 
 These included, "Laws for the Poor, Laws for Appren- 
 tices, Laws for the Indigent, Laws Against Excessive 
 Usury, Laws Against Brokers." 
 
 VI 
 
 ACCORDING to many persons now living, it was 
 a difficult matter to dispose of the brook and spring 
 during the "filling-in" of the Stone House property; but 
 the problem was solved by piping the stream, and this is 
 
 159 
 
THE STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 
 
 the way the water of the once charming little brook now 
 finds its way to the lateral canal— previously the arm of 
 the creek which extended into the meadow of the Stone 
 House. Mr. Rushmore speaks of gathering watercress 
 for the table from the brook, and this was kept up even 
 after the Cortelyou family had removed from the house. 
 
 VII 
 
 IN views of the house shown in the Valentine Man- 
 uals, in Stiles' "History of Brooklyn," and in the Em- 
 met Collection, there appears a Colonial-roofed house to 
 the left of the Stone House, and apparently on the same 
 road. This was the home of Adrian Cortelyou, brother 
 of Jaques, and built at the time of the purchase of the 
 Stone House. In the frontispiece, the Denton home, 
 where lived the owners of the mill-pond, appears just to 
 the right of the gable of the Stone House, between that 
 and the chimney of the addition. 
 
 VIII 
 
 MR. TEUNIS BERGEN was the agent for trans- 
 ferring the property of the Stone House from the 
 Cortelyous to the Litchfields. This was in 1846, when 
 the atmosphere of all Gowanus was saturated heavily 
 with the impending changes, as set forth in Chapter X. 
 The announcement of the proposed sale of the property 
 added to the intensity of the historic interest which caused 
 not only the painting of the house and battlefield by 
 Louis Grube, but also the writing of "The Life of Lord 
 
 160 
 
1699 NOTES 1909 
 
 Stirling," by William Alexander Duer, his grandson — 
 written in this same year, 1846, and published the year 
 following, 1847, by the New Jersey Historical Society. 
 
 IX 
 
 A LITHOGRAPH of the oil painting of the Stone 
 House by Louis Grube was made by N. Currier, a 
 New York publisher, at a period between the date of the 
 painting (1846) and the year 1850, at which time the 
 firm became Currier & Ives, and thus thereafter signed all 
 publications. Here, as in many prints of the period, this 
 lithograph while keeping to the main facts of the original 
 painting, shows minor changes; there is to be noted the 
 presence of the young willow tree near the door — un- 
 doubtedly grown to this height during the time intervening 
 between the painting of the scene by Mr. Grube and the 
 date of the lithograph ; also there are slight changes in the 
 grouping of the trees generally, the addition of a hitching 
 post, and a porch at the main doorway. This porch is 
 plainly out of value in the lithograph, showing it to have 
 beeen pictorially extraneous. 
 
 While the grace and mellowness of the painting are lost 
 in the lithograph, the latter well presents the artist's his- 
 toric motive, the distance particularly having been ren- 
 dered with considerable discrimination so as to bring out 
 distinctive features. The lithograph is about the same size 
 as the painting, and is entitled, "The Old Stone House on 
 Long Island, 1699." To the writer's knowledge, two of 
 these lithographs remain in existence, one being now in the 
 possession of Mrs. Merwin Rushmore. 
 
 161