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Brooklyn

In 1609 when Henry Hudson first dropped anchor off what is now Gravesend Bay the Canarsees, a friendly branch of the famed Algonquinn tribe of Indians, were there to meet him. They called the land they lived on Meryckawick, which meant "sandy place". 

About twenty years later when the Dutch West India Company had already staked out their claim for Manhattan, the Dutch settlers were attracted by the flat marshy land to the east as much being more like that of their native Holland. Brooklyn did not however, come as cheap as the $24.00 worth of goods Peter Minuit paid for what was to be called New Amsterdam. Many separate deals had to be cut with the now wiser Canarsee tribe before the Dutch could claim ownership of the much vaster piece of land that was to be renamed Breukelen. About $4,800 and almost sixty years had to pass before the Indians left their land and Breukelen was firmly in the hands of Europeans.

King Charles II of England decided to include the entire territory of Brooklyn when he ordered his brother the Duke of York to take claim over all colonial land from the Connecticut to the Delaware rivers. The King sent an entire fleet of British ships in 1664 to back up his claim. The Dutch finally cut a deal in 1674 and pulled out of "New Netherlands" in trade for British concessions elsewhere in the world. Breukelen was renamed Kings County in 1683 when its current boundaries were set. 

Miss the old neighborhood? 
Wish you could sit out on thestoop with all your friends and neighbors and talk about who did what when and where? Well you can.  Find out what's going on (and what went on) in your old neighborhood:

Have we left out your neighborhood?No offense intended! Let us know about our oversight and we'll correct it faster than a Sabrett hot-dog man can smother a frank in onions and kraut.