By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The large Red Hook, Brooklyn estate of Jordan Coles was put up for sale on June 2nd, 1836, following his death. The map shows the Gowanus Creek, before it was turned into a canal; mills and mill ponds; scattered houses and a mansion, not aligned...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
The large Red Hook, Brooklyn estate of Jordan Coles was put up for sale on June 2nd, 1836, following his death. The map shows the Gowanus Creek, before it was turned into a canal; mills and mill ponds; scattered houses and a mansion, not aligned...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Tide mills were used in Red Hook to grind grain into flour. They were also used to grind ginger. Water from the twice daily high tides was captured in mill ponds. A gate could be opened, sending the water rushing down a channel and...
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
2016 draft map created by Eymund Diegel, based on his research describing Red Hook streams, ponds, tide mills up to around 1850. The base map is the Bernard Ratzer's 1766 survey. Captions are derived from Stile's comprehensive...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Historian Henry Stiles writes in his 1884 history of Brooklyn: "The southern portion of the Hook was a high hill covered with locust, poplar, cedar, and sassafras trees. This hill was cut down in 1835 by Messers. Dikeman, Waring and Underhill for...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
Conover Street was most likely named after John Conover who in 1757 owned a large property bordering on a mill pond, which was roughly defined by today's Court, Summit and Hamilton Streets. An article in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle , February 26, 1910...
By The Red Hook WaterStories team
A version of Bernard Ratzer’s map made by him for the British Government in 1767. A copy of this map appears in Henry R. Stiles’, 1867 book A History of Brooklyn . According to www.geographicus.com, the map was drawn by Henry’s brother Edward...
