The Occulted Villages of Brooklyn
An armchair excavation in to Brooklyn rural past
Let’s enjoy a bit of armchair archeology together. In a pervious essay I mentioned what are sometimes called the “six Dutch villages of Brooklyn.” These refer to the settlements established under Dutch rule on Long Island in the mid-seventeenth century. They were Breuckelen (Brooklyn) established in 1646 , New Utrecht in 1657, New Amersfoort (Flatlands) in 1636 , Midwout (Flatbush) in 1652 , Boswick (Bushwick) in 1661, and Gravesend in 1646.
These are considered mostly boring by historians of New York, who, like the City itself, see the land and people beyond the isle of Manhattan as something merely to be digested and and absorbed into the force of Leviathan. The history of the high and mighty villages is instead left to the local intrepids who publish slim volumes of maps and photographs, hinting at the occulted “secret Brooklyn.” Even as Manhattan was consumed by streets and avenues over the centuries the Dutch settlements of Long Island mostly remained villages with their farmland working as market gardens and hay makers for the City for centuries. After the great Consolidation of 1898 when the boroughs became part of New York City the villages’ farm land quickly disappeared. But the villages themselves, despite a flood wave of new streets, buildings and millions of new people, did not. Or not entirely. Let’s have a look.
Google Maps (Map 1) gives us some indication of the villages’ locations with various names it has sprinkled around. What we first notice at this scale is that there is a Flatbush AND a “Midwood” (formerly Midwout)—supposedly once to have been the same place. We see Flatlands (formerly New Amsersfort) to the Southeast. The (original) “Brooklyn Village” (now downtown Brooklyn) and Bushwick are off the map to the North. But where is New Utrecht, the subject of our previous essay?
NEW UTRECHT
If we zoom in more (Map 2) towards the Southwest corner near Bensonhurst we New Utrecht pop up along with a “New Utrecht Avenue”, both circled in RED. Here’s where things get interesting. Graham Robb, in his analysis of ancient Celtic sites in France utilized a technique that draws on cartography to help locate them. He notes that,
“Once a route has been created, it almost never disappears completely: thousands of years after it was first tramped out, it might survive as a track, a field boundary or the edge of a wood. It follows that a large-scale modern map is not just a snapshot of the network at a given moment, but a multi-dimensional scan that reveals al the successive strata which make up the present road scape.”
Robb goes on to note that if we count the branches at an identified junction, we can identify important and/or more ancient places by the fact of their being MORE branches. This will help us locate the village of New Utrecht more precisely. In purple I have circled the junctions with the most branches near to where “New Utrecht” has been identified (and includes New Utrecht Avenue). I have also indicated where a road with a pre-Republican name and bent (not following the more recent grid), the King’s Highway, ends. The purple arrow shows its former trajectory, which sure enough arrives (almost) in the center of the circle.
Zooming in again, we that the arrow however does arrive exactly at a key monument for our ley line (at the corner of 84th street and 18th Avenue), the New Utrecht Dutch Reformed Church (Map 3). After each of these villages were established in the 1640s and ‘50s and the first farm houses and first taverns were built, they would seek permission from Governor Stuyvesant to found a church. Indeed, here we have the center of our village, complete with a pretty country church (Illustration 1)
FLATLANDS
If we move east (Map 4) to Flatlands (New Amserfoort), we find the many branches converging in an auspicious way, we find the Kings Highway (circled in purple) and Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church (circled in red - see also Illustration 2). Red arrows also indicate the roads to New Utrecht (follow the Kings Highway west) and to Flatbush (north).
FLATBUSH
Flatbush (Map 5) was originally established as Midwout (“the mid-wood”), but the name Flatbush is an anglicazation of another Dutch name for the area meaning the wooded plain, so both names became interchangeable. Here our “branch” method isn’t as reliable, but we have the junctions of two major roads (with more ancient bends), Church Avenue and Flatbush avenue. And even more assuredly we have the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church, yet another charming country church (Illustration 3).
GRAVESEND
Gravesend Village (Map 6) was the result of Lady Moody, a dissenting English protestant, and her loyal band seeking Governor Stuyvesant’s protection. He gave them permission to found a village. Here are branches don’t merely converge, but reveal a properly laid out village square. There is no church, but along the Village Road we find an ancient graveyard (Illustration 4).
BROOKLYN VILLAGE
Brooklyn Village (Map 7) has been the most throughly erased. There is something of the convergence of branches here, and perhaps more significantly it is also the dead center of today’s “Downtown Brooklyn.” This is also the reason it is mostly gone—it’s had a good century and half rebuild after rebuild since the Brooklyn Bridge opened. The urban blight of the 1980s hit it especially hard. If you do go to Fulton Street (circled in red nearer to the top of Map 7) the city has put a sign there with a description and an illustration of the Dutch Reformed Church. The congregation rebuilt their church, The Old First Reformed Church, in Park Slope and as you can see they transformed it into a proper City Church (circled in red at the bottom—and see also Illustration 5).
BUSHWICK
Last we come to Bushwick. Where Google Maps locates today’s Bushwick (circled in purple on Map 8) is some distance from the old village’s center (red circle). If we zoom in on the old village we find a set of bend branches converging (Map 9). The red “X” on this map marks where the old Bushwich Dutch Reformed Church once stood. It wasn’t able to hold its ground, quite literally.
The bodies of old Bushwick families were dug up and removed to Cypress Hill cemetery (Map 10 - circled in red on the far right). Part of the congregation re-established themselves as the South Bushwick. Dutch Reformed Church in the early 19th century and which we can still find along Bushwick Avenue — another pretty country church to end our journey Illustration 5).
….one starts to daydream of taking a pilgrimage of sorts…. An early summer’s day walk following the old paths to each of the villages and their charming churches (and graveyards)… a bag full of apples, dutch farmstead cheese… many stops at taverns along the way for cider and other refreshments… we can make this real!
Interesting how much the Dutch played in Brooklyn’s beginning. I especially enjoyed the story of the Quakers asking permission from the Dutch to settle there.