By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Sailors have long looked to the sky for clues to the impending weather. In the morning, when the sun was low in the sky, a red sky was understood to mean that a storm was likely. Just don't tell it to the judge. On November 10, 1939, the seagoing...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
No man ever, perhaps, got so much the best of old Beard as did Louis Heineman, the housemover of the Twelfth ward” (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1891) When Louis Heineman died in 1904, he was reportedly 104 years old, and likely the oldest...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Frank Schmidt, known to the police as "Dutch Frank," a junk dealer operating in and around Red Hook Point faced trial for dealing in stolen goods, October 1855. Junk dealers made their living buying spare sails, ropes and old iron from...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Alf Dyrland was Captain of the MARY A. WHALEN from her rechristening in 1962 until 1978 when he retired. He was her first captain; she was his last boat. Alf loved the MARY deeply. As he lay dying in 1996, what he said out loud...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The Fibre Disintegrating Company had large factory in Red Hook making paper from bamboo during the period after the Civil War. Schooners sailed the bamboo from Jamaica to Brooklyn. The Journal of the Society of Arts reported that at...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1908, the New York Supreme Court ruled in a dispute between the India Wharf Brewing Company and the New York Dock Company. The case provides some insight into the business of dock companies. The basic facts of the case were: The India Wharf...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
In 1928, Joseph Stephens, an employee of Beard's Erie Basin, tripped on a winch handle, fell and hurt his arm. The State Industrial Board awarded him compensation for the days he was unable to work. Beard and the Travelers Insurance Company...
