lEx iCtbrta SEYMOUR DURST When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Sver'tbing comes t' him wbo waits Except a loaned book." Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 http://archive.org/details/eastbrooklyn163700east EAST BROOKLYN 1637 * 1860 * 1922 BEING a BRIEF ACCOUNT * VENERABLE COMMUNITY 0/ HONORABLE TRADITIONS WHOSE NAME THE EAST BROOKLYN SAVINGS BANK is PRIVILEGED to PRESERVE: The Waal-Bogt, When, in 1637, the Walloons Purchased the Land from the Indians; East Brooklyn, When, in 1860, the Bank was Chartered ; Part of the Borough of Brooklyn, City of New York, When, in 1922, there is Opened, at Bedford and DeKalb Avenues, Where Turned the Old Cripplebush Road, zA Home for The EAST BROOKLYN SAVINGS BANK 5: 2 Historical Data Assembled and Put in Narrative Form by CLARENCE A. HEBB, A.M. 1 he author acknowledges indebtedness to: Stiles, History of Kings County, Including Brooklyn; History of the City of Brooklyn; Armbruster, The Eastern District of Brooklyn; Lamb, History of the City of Nev) York; Booth, History of the City of New York; Ostrander, History of Brooklyn and Kings County; Bergen, Early Settlers of Kings County; Man- ual of the Council of the City of Brooklyn, 1864; The Eagle and Brooklyn, History of Brooklyn and Kings County; also to the Long Island Historical Society for the use of its library; also to various individuals for reminiscences, records and pho- tographs; to the late John H. Ireland, to Frank M. Avery, William A. Graham, Henry B. Vanderveer, A. Remsen Boerum and to daughters of the late Samuel C. Barnes, Miss Emma Barnes, Mrs. Anna B. Robbins, and Mrs. Sarah B. Wyckoff; to Sic. Cederstrom, for the use of farm maps of Brooklyn, to Koch & Wagner, architects, and especially to David Morehouse, president of the East Brooklyn Savings Bank, for helpful criti- cisms and suggestions. THE BROOKLYN EAGLE PRESS Father of the East Brooklyn Savings Bank — //< bequeathed to it his largi 's t p ossession — w hich Was CHARACTER. Trustees, 1922 of the EAST BROOKLYN SAVINGS BANK {With Date of Election) * William A. Graham ----- 1895 Henry Von Glahn - - - - - 1898 John T. Barry - 1902 Robert L. Wensley 1906 Edgar J. Phillips ------ 1906 A. Remsen Boerum 1909 Clinton P. Case - 1911 Harry A. Moody - - - - - 1911 Alfred S. Hughes ------ 1912 James Sherlock Davis - - - - 1914 Edward F. Geer - - - - - - 1914 Luther M. Werner ----- 1915 David Morehouse - - - - - - 1915 Peter F. Carroll - - - - - 1919 William A. Higgins 1920 Henry B. Vanderveer - 1921 Walter F. Wells 1922 Building Committee: Clinton P. Case, chairman; James Sherlock Davis, vice-chairman; William A. Graham and David Morehouse. OME to the crossing of Bedford and DeKalb avenues, and you will see, on the southeast corner, the new home of the East Brooklyn Savings Bank. The building itself, its Renaissance architecture, its imposing columns, the beauty and strength merged in its lines, will compel admiration. Your memory will supply, in contrast, a picture of the old brick home of the bank at Franklin and Myrtle avenues, a veteran of half a century of service. But your memory, if it be normal, won't go back 300 years to give you a picture of the traditions of the bank, its antecedents in a community that was one of EAST BROOKLYN: Its NAME PRESERVED the beginnings of Brooklyn. It may not even go back sixty years to the origin of the bank in the unselfish enterprise of an austere schoolmaster. Samuel C. Barnes, the schoolmaster, was the father of the East Brooklyn Savings Bank. He bequeathed to it his largest possession — which was character. After all, it was a rich legacy, for the story of the bank is more than a story of money. Of the money, it may be said briefly that the bank in sixty years has been the custodian of 125,000 accounts, and its deposits have grown from $15,000 in 1862 to a thousand times that in 1922. Pause a moment before the new building. Its Historic foundations are laid in historic ground. You stand at Ground a turn of the old Cripplebush road, a highway that out- lived its usefulness when the fertile farms of the section were criss-crossed with city streets and converted into city lots. In those days, the generation before the Civil War, the section was known as East Brooklyn. You stand where, in the summer of 1776, the Continental and British arms clashed in the Battle of Long Island. The names of Washington, Stirling and Putnam come to mind; how the Revolutionary patriots were outnumbered and outflanked; how the redoubt at Fort Putnam, now known as Fort Greene, was unequal to its task; how the enemy was eluded by the astonishing retreat by night across the river. The American line extended from Wallabout Bay to Gowanus, and was not far from where the new bank building stands — to the North and West. The British line was to the South. EAST BROOKLYN Its NAME PRESERVED The Prison Ship Jersey WHICH LAY IN VVALLABOUT BAY DURING THE REVOLUTION! Off to the North, in Wallabout Bay, after the battle, came the prison ships, to remain during the six years of the British occupation. Aboard these hulks of tragedy and horror, the old jersey and her satellites, there perished, in the acme of human misery, 11,000 citizens and sailors, martyrs to the cause of the American Revolution. A sacred shaft is our Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene. But the traditions of East Brooklyn and its bank go far back beyond the days of the Revolution. It is now 140 years since the prison ships lay in Wallabout Bay. The community was nearly that many years old when the struggle for Independence was won. It is a venerable community. And for nearly 200 years it was known as the Wallabout. Today it is given to the bank to preserve for pos- terity the name East Brooklyn. P a a e Seven & igJE l mm 1637: The WALLOONS at WALLABOUT THE Pilgrim Fathers were shortly followed to the New World by the Walloons. Like the Pilgrims, the Walloons were religious refugees who had found an asylum in Holland — Holland, which in our day still shelters refugees. They were persecuted Protestants from the Belgic Provinces, who had not, as had the Dutch in 1579, thrown off the yoke of Spanish sovereignty. Often referred to as Huguenots, these people from along the Meuse were strangers or foreigners to the Dutch — Waalsche^ whence the name, Walloons. Thirty Dutch Vessel families of them came to the New Netherlands in 1623, Families aboard the first vessel of colonists sent over by the Dutch West India Company. And it was destined that one of these families should be the first settlers at Wallabout Bay, and become the ancestors of a long and multiplied line of sturdy, worthy Brooklynites. The original Wallabouter was Joris (George) Jansen Rapalje. He and his wife, whose name was Catalyntie Trico, proceeded with companions up the Hudson to Fort Orange, now Albany, when they arrived from Holland. They lived for three years at the trading post that the Dutch had established there. In the meantime, in 1626, came Peter Minuit, who purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for the equivalent of $24 in beads and buttons, and built a fort at the lower end of the island, which he called New Amsterdam. Rapalje came down the Hudson, and lived for a number of years near the fort with his family. As the colony grew, Rapalje, as well as his neighbors, had an eager eye on the fair land across the river — 1637: The WALLOONS at WALLABOUT Long Island. In 1636 the New Amsterdamers began to deal with the Indians for farms, and there were numerous realty transactions similar to that negotiated by Minuit in 1626. Settlers moved across the river to till the soil — to Gowanus, Amersfoort (Flatlands), Mid- woudt (Flatbush), Gravesend, New Utrecht, "The Ferry," Bushwick, Newtown, Jamaica, Breuckelen (Brooklyn) and the Wallabout. Rapalje in 1637 bought a farm of 335 acres south and east of Wallabout Bay. Nature, in making Long Island, had provided a Land of Promise for the adventurous settlers. Hudson, after his voyage in 1609, had told what sort of place it was — "as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly trees as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them." The Indians, dressed in deerskins, and decked in feathers and furs, had brought to Hudson's men corn and tobacco, which they had raised on the Island. So the fertile fields where the maize and tobacco grew, the low lying shores where the sedge abounded, the sandy bays and inlets lavishly supplied with fish and oysters, beckoned to the settlers, and perhaps reminded them of their old home country. Back from the shores sloped the hills, capped with woods, "full of great, tall oaks." Page Sine «- . X Silver Tankard, a Wedding Gift to Sarah Rapalje, in 1647 Rapalje Buys at Wallabout 1637: The WALLOONS at WALLABOUT In the woods was no end of game, beast and bird. Food, skins, furs and feathers were had for the hunting of the deer, foxes, turkeys, geese, partridges and quail. The settlers found the richest soil at Wallabout Bav, Gowanus and Flatlands, and these were the first localities cultivated. Shortly the whole stretch of shore lands, from Gowanus to Newtown Creek, was broken by the plow. East of Wallabout Bay, the entire area extending to Newtown Creek and to Maspeth was purchased from the Indians for "eight fathoms of duffel (coarse woolen cloth), eight fathoms of wampum, twelve kettles, eight adzes and eight axes, with some knives, beads and awl blades." This property was acquired in 1647 by Hans Hansen Bergen, a native of Bergen, Norway, who came from Holland in 1633, and it adjoined the tract that Joris Rapalje had bought. Sarah Rapalje Bergen, in the year that he bought his farm, married Hans Bergen Sarah Rapalje, daughter of his neighbor, Joris. Sarah was a notable person, for, born in 1625, she was the first white girl born in the Empire State. Her birthplace was probably Fort Orange, though Brooklyn has claimed the distinction. She was one of eleven children of Joris Rapalje, was herself twice married, and had twelve children, six of them Bergens and six of them Bogarts. Her second husband was Teunis Gysbert Bogaert, who after the British occupation, took out a new patent for the Bergen land. Ultimately part of the property was handed down to the Johnsons, the family of which Gen. Jeremiah Johnson (1766-185 2), thrice Mayor of Page Ten 1637: The WALLOONS at WALLABOUT the old city of Brooklyn, was a distinguished member. Joris Rapalje had four sons and seven daughters, and he named the sons Jacob, Jan, Jeronimus and Daniel. Jacob was killed by the Indians — for the settlers had intermittent warfare with the local tribes of red men. Of the daughters in the family, besides Sarah, one was married to Rem Jansen van der Beeck, and the sons of this Rem became the Remsens, and here originated all the Remsens in the United States. Rem and Remsen, and Rem Remsen, were good old names, long preserved. The Board of Trustees of Kings County had a Rem Remsen as a member continuously from 1727 to 1776. Another sister of Sarah married a Ryerse, whence came the Ryersons. So started from the Wallabout numerous Brooklyn families whose names have been written large in the history of the community — Rapelyes, Bergens, Remsens, Ryersons, Nostrands, Schencks, Skill- mans, Johnsons, Boerums, Spaders and others. Origin of the Remsens First Picture of New Amsterdam showinc long island and wallabout creek in the background. engraved IN" HOLLAND, FROM A SKETCH MADE BY A DUTCH OFFICER IN 1635 e Eleven HIS Rapalje Catalyi Rapali t alynne HER M Hans T Hans HIS M \R K Bergen facsimile OF Teunis Gyshert Bogaert'. S AUTOGRAPH WAAL-BOGTGmw.- EAST BROOKLYN W: AAL-BOGT, Waale-Boght, Wahlebocht, Wallo- nenboght, Wallaboucht, Wallabout — so it has been spelled. The name has provided historians with disputes as to origins. Whether it originally signified the Bogt of the Waal, that is, the bend of the inner harbor, or whether it meant the Bogt of the Walloons, or bay of the foreigners, the reader may guess. At all events, this bend was a big round bay, fashioned in a way to suggest that Nature had taken a huge bite out of the north shore of our Brooklyn. Bigness and roundness, and sandy shore fringed with a luxuriant growth of sedge, have long since been crowded from the map by the invasion of great para- phernalia of commerce and industry. The Navy Yard, the Cob Dock, the railroad terminal, the market, with their wondrous works, have left little bay to the Wallabout. But the old Wallabout Bay — picture it, if you will, Wallabout as a broad letter U. The shore line at the base of the Bay letter was originally the line of our present Flushing avenue. To the left, at the base, was marshy land that has become the City Park. At the upper left tip of the U in the Colonial days was Remsen's tide mill, with a dam confining the lower left hand corner of the bay, forming a mill pond. Over to the East, at the base of the right hand upright of our U was the mouth of a creek, Wallabout Creek, or Rennegaconck, as the Indians called it. Where the creek entered the Bay is the site of the Naval Hospital, and it was here also that Joris Rapalje built his home when he came to live permanently on his farm. He began serving as magistrate in Breuckelen in 1655. WAAL-BOGT Grows: EAST BROOKLYN Bedford Corners NOW BEDFORD AVENUE AND FULTON STREET. IN 1662 THE "UNOCCUPIED WOODLAND SITUATED IN THE REAR OF JORIS RAPALJE" WAS GRANTED TO A GROUP OF WAI.LABOUTERS, INCLUDING JORI3 RAPALJE, TEUN1S BOGAERT AND HANS BERGEN The creek itself was about a mile long, and its length marked the northern boundary of the land Rapalje bought from the Indians. The land extended along the creek to "a certain swamp (kreuplebush) to a place where the water runs over the stones." This was the low wooded land north of the present Flushing avenue, about at Marcy, and was later known as Johnson's wood. Kreuplebush, originally het kreuplebosch, was also interpreted as a thicket or copse, extending over a stretch of ground from the head of Wallabout Creek to Newtown Creek. The word came to be Cripplebush, and was given to a highway, also called the road to Newtown. This road ran from Bedford Corners (Bedford avenue and Fulton street) northward along the line of Bedford avenue to DeKalb, eastward to Nostrand, and northward again about to Myrtle, where it struck off "cross lots" to Newtown, skirting the Wallabout settlement. There was also a hamlet known as Cripple- bush, north of Bedford, but the odd name did not survive for either the highway or the village. WAAL-BOGT Grows EAST BROOKLYN Rapalje's farm extended from the Bay to the marshes, or about from Grand avenue to Marcy. To the south it reached as far as the woods, which began at DeKalb avenue. Across the creek, the northern boundary, lay the Bergen-Bogart land, later the Johnson estate, and beyond, on a knoll overlooking the East river, the Walla- bouters in 1660 built a blockhouse, which they called When Kiekout, or Lookout. The site was a stopping place for Capt. Kidd . , , , u 1 • 5 1 Passed By Captain Kidd, when that bold and notorious gentleman was pursuing a courtship at Bushwick. The old block- house was included in a farm acquired by Jean Meserole, who came from Picardy, France, in 1663. For more than a century the name of Rapalje was identified with the ancestral farm, the land passing from son to son's son. In 1755, however, the homestead passed to Martin Schenck, husband of a great grand- daughter of the original Joris, and herself a Rapalje. At the time of the Revolution the old farm at the Wallabout was the Martin Schenck farm. Martin Schenck, Jr., sold to the Government the Naval Hospital grounds, and his sister, Mrs. Francis Skillman, sold a parcel to Samuel Jackson. Meanwhile the Nostrands, descendants of early Flatbush settlers, came upon the scene, and Garret Nos- trand acquired from Daniel Rapalje in 1765 a tract which would lie to-day between Nostrand and Bedford avenues, and which was handed down to the Nostrands of old East Brooklyn. The Remsens were prominent Wallabouters during the Revolution. On the East side of the bay were the homesteads of William and Abraham Remsen. On the Page Fourteen WAAL-BOGT Grows EAST BROOKLYN The Old Remsen Farmhouse West side was Remsen's mill. The farm land adjoining the bay was used during the British occupation as the camping ground of enemy soldiers, but there were patriots in the community, unawed by the soldiery. In 1780 Major H. Wyckoff, an American officer, was hidden for two days in an upper room of Rem A. Remsen's house, while a British lieutenant of the prison ship Jersey, was quartered below. Remsen finally helped Wyckoff to escape. Meanwhile there were enlisted with the Colonial forces young men of the Wallabout, among them William Boerum, Isaac Boerum and Rem A. Remsen. To-day the name of Abram Remsen Boerum, in the list of trustees of the East Brooklyn Savings Bank, is a reminder of the patriotic past. As late as 1804 the settlement at the Wallabout had but eight dwellings. It was a farming community, as it had been for 150 years. Generation after generation P eg e Fifteen WAAL-BOGT Grows : EAST BROOKLYN had come and gone, tilling the soil and raising tobacco, wheat, corn, barley, peaches, potatoes, and probably a goodly representation of the variety of produce that is in evidence at the Wallabout to-day, under vastly different conditions and circumstances. The expansion of Wallabout to a city's estate came Absorbs 1 J the Village after 1830, and from about that year to i860 the section was known as East Brooklyn. It was in 1834 that Brooklyn received its charter as a city, and Wallabout, or East Brooklyn, was an integral part of the city. From a population of 9,000 in 1823, Brooklyn grew to 36,233 in 1840. The steamboat had come, steam ferryboats churned the waters of the East river, the Long Island railroad was started, churches and banks were built, and real estate boomed. The Old Boerum Homestead Page Sixteen W A A L - B O G T Grows EAST BROOKLYN The Navy Yard came to the Wallabout and the shore marshes were filled in. In 1800 John Jackson sold part of his Wallabout farm land to the Government, and in 1827 the work of enclosing the Yard began. From 1841 Then to 18 ci the construction of the stone dry dock at the S orT . i t • Navy Yard Navy Yard was in progress, and it took a year to drive 9,000 piles for the foundation. Along came industry. Wallabout creek was bulk- headed, and rafts of lumber moved up the stream to Johnson & Spader's lumber yard. A coal yard, a sul- phur factory, and in 1830, a famous old rope-walk, built of brick and operated by steam — Tucker's rope factory — altered the landscape. A distillery was built on Skillman street and another on Franklin avenue, both between Park and Flushing avenues. The distilleries and their grains encouraged another industry — dairying. East Brooklyn was noted for its dairies in the forties, and the abundant springs of the section were utilized for cooling the milk and cream. The milk business brought artisans and shops to Flushing avenue — blacksmiths, wheelwrights and feed stores. Gardner's tannery was built at the western end of the Wallabout road, and there went the hides. For a long time the only building in that vicinity had been the old Boughton homestead, an ancient little house that has survived into the twentieth century, a relic in the back yard of a densely populated block on Cumberland street, near Flushing avenue. The Boughton property had a beautiful rose garden, whence strolled old folk and young of a fine Sunday afternoon. Page Seventeen /^a-n ffcecfJcU^^ AS THE V SIGNED 200 YEARS \CO ON A QUIT-CLAIM DEED OF JAN. 7, 1723 WAAL-BOGT Grows : EAST BROOKLYN Farms and dairies gave way to the modern city. For some years, the growth of East Brooklyn was concen- trated north of Myrtle avenue, and that street, as well The as Flushing avenue, experienced a mercantile prosperity jL*™ that made it for a time an important business thorough- fare of the city. Block after block of brick buildings, with stores, were erected, and the old inhabitants marveled at the changes. The development south of Myrtle ave- nue came after the forties. As late as 1842 the territory from Myrtle avenue to Fulton street, and from Fort Greene to Division avenue, contained but thirty houses. Old Ship House at the Navy Yard NAVY SHIPS WERE CONSTRUCTED UNDER COVER, AND THE SHIP HOUSE WAS LONG A FAMILIAR ITEM OF THE YARD'S EQUIPMENT Page Eighteen 1 860: SAMUEL C. BARNES Starts a BANK Schoolmaster IN the year that Brooklyn became a city, and East Brooklyn became a part of it, in 1834, Samuel C. Barnes came to East Brooklyn. He was from Ireland. He had not set out to make this his home, but the place pleased him. Educated at Foyle College, he found a place for his talents as the Wallabout village schoolmaster. He was a remarkable character — a strong character, Samuel as a glance at his picture must suggest. He was more than a pedagogue. He became an adviser of the people. A believer in hard discipline, an earnest worker, puritanical perhaps, but sincere in his worship of integrity, he became a force for good among the parents of the children he taught. Thrift he espoused as a cardinal virtue. A lecture that he delivered in 1856, at the Wallabout Presbyterian Church on Franklin Avenue, on the subject, Wallabout and the Wallabouters, is still preserved, and it reveals a portrait of the man himself. Said the good Mr. Barnes in the course of his lecture: The inhabitants in the olden time were singularly plain in attire and manners, and in speech, yet did they manifest for each other a degree of genuine friendship now rarely observable in modern Wal- labouters. For instance, when one had cut his winter's store of wood, his neighbor stood ready with his team to assist in carrying it home; or, if he needed help in his harvesting, it was cheerfully given, and as cheerfully reciprocated, when there was occasion. And the corn husking and the spinning frolic witnessed the same neighborly feeling. At the latter, the thrifty housewife and buxom daughter attended with their wheels, and there was a merry hum of spindles, and mingling of happy voices, till the flax or wool of the hostess was converted into thread. Ah, byegone days of true social happiness! But I think I hear some modern belle asking what that was. A wheel, miss, yes, a veritable spinning wheel, which the noble daugh- ters of the old Wallabouters were not ashamed to play on, for the Page Sinetecn 18 6 0: S A M UEL C. BARNES Starts a BANK purpose of preparing the wherewithal to clothe themselves, their fathers, husbands and brothers. Samuel C. Barnes was principal of old No. 4, a school built in 1836 for the Wallabout district, on Classon avenue, near Flushing. The building exemplified advanced ideas in school architecture for those days, being two stories in height. The second story was not needed at the time, for there were pupils enough to occupy only one floor; but in later years the policy of the authorities of the village was found to have been wise foresight. While filling the duties of schoolmaster, Mr. Barnes ever impressed upon pupil and parent the precepts of thrift. In the course of time there came an inspiration to organize a scheme of systematic saving. Canvassing the community, he obtained support, and started the East Brooklyn Accumulating Fund Association. He was its secretary, and kept its accounts. It was out of this association that came the idea of a for a Bank mutual savings bank in the district, and in i860 Samuel C. Barnes secured a charter for an institution to be known as the East Brooklyn Savings Bank. In the following year the bank opened its books for business. Mr. Barnes was the first treasurer of the bank. The treasurer was the active executive officer of those days, the presidency being in the nature of an honorary office. And when the pupils of old No. 4 grew up, some of them carried on the work of their preceptor in the bank, as offi- cers and trustees. Thomas J. Atkins, president from 1907 to 1909, was one of Mr. Barnes' old pupils. So, too, was John H. Graham, trustee from 1886 to 1895, and father Page Twenty 1860: SAMUEL C. BARNES Starts a BANK John H. Ireland WHO DIED JAN. 14, 1922. TRUSTEE, 1892- 1920; SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT, 1907- 1909; FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT 1909-1920. (RESIGNED) of William A. Graham, now vice-president of the bank. So, too, was John H. Ireland, who passed away in January, 1922, in his 85th year. Mr. Ireland attended No. 4, under Mr. Barnes, for nine years. Subse- quently he served the bank for 28 years as a trustee, and up to 1920, when he retired, was first vice-president. Mr. Ireland retained to the last a vivid mental picture of his schooldays. He was one of the "older boys" when Mr. Barnes was keeping the books of the Accumulating Fund Association, and he was also one of the pupils selected to write names and deposits in the books. Thus the savings bank, when it came, had an intimate meaning, even for the children. It was of the community — not a thing apart — and belonged to old and young alike. The community had profound respect for Samuel C. Barnes. Mr. Ireland recalled that the schoolmaster and the minister were exceptions to the rule of calling everybody in the neighborhood by their first names — Tom, Jim, John and Sam. But it was never Sam Barnes. The school- master was Mr. Barnes, as the minister of the Wallabout Presbyterian Church was Mr. Greenleaf. Shortly before he died Mr. Ireland related: The Late Mr. Ireland's Recollections GNATLRES ON THE DEED OF 1860: SAMUEL C. BARNES Starts a BANK Mr. Barnes was a strict disciplinarian in the school. He was a firm believer in the doctrine that sparing the rod means spoiling the child, as most of us could testify. But he was impartial, treating the children of the rich and of the poor alike. He was thorough in the rudiments; particularly so in spelling, etymology, penmanship and grammar. Every pupil, old enough, was obliged to take a spelling lesson every morning. I remember well how the boys and girls were ranged around the room for this lesson. He would give a prize to the pupil who stood at the head of the class at the end of the month, thus stimulating our efforts. In the writing lessons, every pupil must hold the pen in a correct position, and if caught holding it otherwise, would receive a sharp rap over the knuckles with the ruler. For thus taking pains, the pupils usually turned out to be good penmen. Mr. Barnes was not only particular about us intellectually, but he gave us good advice about our habits and morals. As children we rather feared Mr. Barnes than loved him, but as we grew to be men we came to feel for him not only great respect, but great attachment. Old No. 4 Schoolhouse — Birthplace of the Bank THE BARNES SCHOOL WHICH STOOD ON CLASSON AVENUE, NEAR FLUSHING Page Tioenty-t