Brooklyn - History and Antique Images

This land on Long Island we call Brooklyn was inhabited by the Lenape people in the early 17th century. The first European settlement in the area was established by Dutch farmers in 1636, followed by other settlements in Flatlands, Wallabout, the Ferry and Gravesend. Regular and unregulated ferry service between Brooklyn and New York began by 1642. It was regulated in 1654.

In 1646, the first Dutch settlement on Long Island was incorporated as Breuckelen, after a town in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. Breuckelen was located directly across the East River at what is now Brooklyn Heights. It was one of six towns settled under Dutch rule within the area of the borough today. The others were Amersfoort, New Utrecht, Boswyck, Midwout and Gravesend.

A tavern existed in the ferry facilities in 1650 or earlier. In 1654, Governor Pieter Stuyvesant established three Dutch Reformed churches in the towns of Breukelen, Flatbush and Flatlands, now in Brooklyn.

In the early 19th century, Robert Fulton established the first fast and reliable steam ferry between this Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. In 1834, Brooklyn was officially incorporated as a city. The neighboring areas of Bushwick, Gravesend, Flatbush, New Utrecht, Williamsburg and New Lots, were annexed. In 1853, the Wall Street Ferry connected Brooklyn Heights, the first commuter suburb in the country. By the Civil War, Brooklyn was already the third largest city in the United States of America.

Construction of Brooklyn Bridge began in 1870 and opened to traffic in 1883. Designed by John Augustus Roebling, it was then considered the world's greatest achievement in bridge construction.

In 1898, Brooklyn merged with New York, the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island into the City of New York.