The rural character of the town is well illustrated by an event in 1759. A large bear then passed along the farms in South Brooklyn, and being pursued took to the water near Red Hook, where he was shot from a boat.
The ethics of 1774 approved the aid of lotteries to build an orthodox church in Brooklyn, which the public were assured should be of no doubtful laxity, but a church conformable to the discipline of the Church of England, and under the patronage of Trinity Church, New York.
In the matter of amusements in 1774, New Yorkers came to Brooklyn for many of their sports. Here horse-races were run. In that year an ambitious innkeeper on "Tower Hill"—a site along the present Columbia Heights between Middagh and Cranberry Streets—announced that there would be a bull baited there every Thursday afternoon.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, Brooklyn numbered between three and four thousand persons grouped in four neighborhoods. There were then three ferries to New York. At the old (Fulton) ferry was a famous tavern which figured often in the times of British occupation. The two principal villages were then called Brooklyn-church and Brooklyn-ferry.
