BKOOKLYN. 546 BKOOKS. phony Orchestra appears each year, and also the singers from the Metropolitan Opera. 7>iterary and dramatic clubs find an appreciative con- stituency, the latter class being re])rosented by such societies as the Amaranth, Booth, and Florence, which have more than a local reputa- tion, and have served as training schools for not a few members of the professional stage. Social clubs, liowever, do not play so im- portant a part as across the East River; but there are several well known institutions, such as the Brooklyn and Hamilton, lepresenting the old residents on the Heights; the Lincoln. Ox- ford, and I'nion Jjcague on the Hill: the Mon- tauk on the Park Slope; the Hanover in the Eastern District; the Algonquin of South Brook- lyn: and the Crescent Athletic. Lesser clubs abound in all sections of the city. Trade and Industry. Viewed from the east side of Manhattan Island, Brooklyn presents the appearance of a smoky seat of manufactures. The most notable establishments are the sugar-re- Jlneries; coffee and spice mills: chemical works; cordage and twine, and barrel factories : hat- works; boot and shoe factories; foundries, and boiler and iron works ; and ship-building yards. The greater part of the sugar refined in the United States is turned out in Brooklyn. These factories are located, mainly, along the East River shore, north of the Bridge, while south of the Bridge is the region of commerce. There are about 35 miles of water-front, along which nearly fifty lines of steamers (some of them transatlan- tic) dock, besides a large number of tramp steam- ers. The Atlantic Basin, opposite Governor's Is- land, has an area of 40 acres, with a wharfage of three miles, in which 500 large vessels can be accommodated at one time. The Erie Basin, to the South, has an area of_ 60 acres, and the Brooklyn Basin 40 acres. 'South of these are dry-docks, among the largest in the United States, one dock being GOO feet long and 124 feet wide. Its grain elevators and wareho)ises mark Brooklyn as one of the largest shipping points in the I'nited States, its trattic, however, being included in that for the port of New York. Kour-fifths of the grain received by the trunk railroads an<l the Erie Canal is stored in the Brooklyn elevators, which have a storage capac- ity of 20,000,000 bushels, and a correspondingly great transfer capacity. Go-EBNME?JT. See New York, paragraph on Govcnimeiit. Population. 1790, 4495: 1800, 5740: ISIO. S.Sn.'!: 1820, 11,187: 18.30. 20..5,'?5 : 1840, 47,(il.'?: 18.';0, 138.882: ISfiO, 279.122: 1870. 419,921: 1880, 599,495: 1890, 838..547 : 1900, 1,166,582, in- cluding 355,700 persons of foreign birth and 18,- 400 of negro descent. Htstory. Long Island was originally occupied hy thirteen tribes of the Algonquin nation, the site of Brooklvn belonL'ing to the Canarsie tribe. From them .Tacques Hent-n and Willem Adri- aense Bennett boiight, in 1636. a tract of 930 acres at Oowanus, extending from Twenty-sev- enth Street to New I'trecht. Tn 1637 .Toris .Jan- sen de Rapelje, a Walloon, bought 335 acres on Wallabout Bav, called bv the settlers the 'Waal- hogt.' The Indian name for this region was Mervckawick Bav, and the Indian name for what is now Brooklvn Heights was Ihpetonga. thehigh- lands. In 1630 Jan Evertsen Bout settled on the 'maize lands of Meryckawick,' and, with others, established Breuckelen, named for a town in Hol- land, about 18 miles from Amsterdam. In 163S the West India Company bought the land east and southeast of Wallabimt Bay. where the ham- let of Boswijck s])rang up. In 1042 a ferry was established from a point near the present. Fiilton Ferry to Peck Slip, and a hamlet called 'the Ferry' sprang u]) about it. In 1646 Breuckelen v.as organized, and the 'Five Towns' — Breucke- len, Wallabout, the Ferry, Oowanus, and Bed- ford, inland — were united, and received a patent from Governor Xicolls in 1667. In 1651 Mid- wout, later Flatbush. was founded, and the first church was built there in 1665. In 1666 the first Dutch church was built in Breuckelen. Af- ter the Colony jinsscd into the hands of the English, Long Island and Staten Island were called ridings of Yorkshire — Kings County, Staten Island, and Newtown constituting the West Riding — and this designation was used until 1683. In 1698 the population amounted to 509 persons, including 65 slaves, and at the beginning of the Revolution it was about 3500. On August 27, 1776, the battle of Long Island (q.v.) was fought on the site of Brooklyn, and the village was held by the British till November, 1783. Dur- ing the Revolution the British prison-ships were moored in Wallabout Bay, and it is estimated that, during the period 1777-83, as manyas 11,500 prisoners died of fever, starvation, and ill-treat- ment, the mortality on board the Xeir ■Irr.icii be- ing especially great, and the sanitary conditions especially revolting. In 1799 the first news- paper in Brooklyn was started, the Courier and Xew York and Lonr/ Island Advertiser. Brook- lyn was incorporated as a village in 1810, and received its charter as a city April 8, 1834. In 1848 occurred a disastrous fire, which destroyed seven blocks of buildings on and near Fulton Street. Williamsburg (to the north of Brooklyn, adjoining the East River), which had become a city in 1851, and Bushwick (including (Jreen- point) were consolidated with Brooklyn! in 1855. A new charter was granted in 1873, and amended in ISSO and 1881. In 1886 the town of New Lots (including East New Yorl<) was annexed; in May, 1894, the towns of Flatbush and (;raveBend were annexed; and New Utrecht, on July 1, 1894. Flatlands was taken in on January 1, 1896, when Brooklyn comprised all of Kings County, and was the largest city in extent in the State, with an area of 66.39 square miles. Under the act of the Legislature of 1897, creating the City of (ircater New' York, all of the City of Brooklyn as then existing was designated as the Borough of Brooklyn. Consult: Stiles, ,1 History of the City of Brookh/n (Brooklyn, 1869-70); Ostrander, A History of the f'ily of Brooklyn and Kinys Coun- ty (Brooklyn, 1894) : and Powell, Historic Toicns in the Middle States (New York, 1899). BROOKS, Charles William Shiki.et (1816- 74). An English atithor. He was admitted to the bar, but adopted literature as a jirofcssion, and was a frequent cemtributor to leading peri- odicals and journals. He wrote several dramas, among ihom The Creole (1847) ; and the novels. The Gordian Knot (1860) and The Silver Cord ( 1861 ) . But it is by his connection with Punch, first as contributor and then (after 1870) as edi- tor, that Brooks is best remembered. His con- tributions were signed "Epicurus Rotundus." In
