Gravesend, Kings County, New York From the Internet ... BEGIN The Settlement of Gravesend Gravesend, Kings County, New York was founded by Lady Deborah Moody, who had left New England in search of religious freedom. She found that freedom with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. In June 1643, Lady Moody settled Gravesend; during Indian attack, the town was defended by 40 men, and the Indians retreated. 1643 was "a year of blood." March 1-4 Indians waged an all-out war on the Dutch; 11 tribes participated. In 1642, Ann Hutchinson, who had left Massachusetts for Rhode Island with other families and friends, seeking religious freedom, moved to New Netherlands, where she located at "Annie's Hoeck", now Pelham Neck. John Throckmorton and 35 English families settled nearby, and the Dutch Governor Kieft granted them freedom of worship. On 20 September 1643, Ann and all her family except one granddaughter were murdered by the Indians. The Indians then attacked Throckmorton's settlement and killed every person found at home. Peace was established 30 Aug 1645. On 10 December 1645 Lady Moody, her son Sir Henry Moody, Ensign George Baxter, and Sergeant James Hubbard with their associates were granted a patent by Director Kieft. The settlers entered into an agreement at Amersfoort with Lady Moody and her associates by which the town was to be divided into 28 parts, each to receive a plantation lot and a village lot. The first division at Gravesend 1 Lady Deborah Moody 10 John Tilton 19 John Cooke 2 Sir Henry Moody 11 James Ellis 20 James Grover 3 James Hubbard 12 Cornelius Swellinant 21 John Rinkman 4 George Baxter 13 Edward Browse 22 William Musgram 5 John Morrell 14 Richard Stout 23 Thomas Whitlock 6 Richard Ussell 15 Thomas Cornish 24 Richard Gibbons 7 Nicholas Stillwell 16 Thomas Greedy 25 Randall Huett 8 George Holmes 17 Thomas Spicer 26 Ralph Cardell 9 Thomas Hall 18 Walter Wall 27 Robert Pennoyer 28 William Wilkins The first division was given up owing to the Indian wars, and the settlers took refuge with the Dutch at the fort at New Amersfoort, later known as Flatlands. In 1646 a second division was made, laying out the town into 40 lots. The second division at Gravesend 1 Lady Deborah Moody 14 Thomas Greedy 27 Charles Morgan 2 Sir Henry Moody 15 Thomas Spicer 28 Thomas Morrell 3 James Hubbard 16 Walter Wall 29 John Thomas 4 George Baxter 17 John Cooke 30 Roger Scott 5 John Morrell 18 James Grover 31 Randall Huett 6 Richard Ussell 19 Ambrose London 32 William Compton 7 John Tilton 20 John Rinkman 33 Enium Bennum 8 James Ellis 21 Francis Weeks 34 Samuel Chandler 9 Cornelius Swellinant 22 Ralph Cardell 35 Peter Simpson 10 Edward Browse 23 Robert Pennoyer 36 Thomas Cornwall 11 Richard Stout 24 William Wilkins 37 William Musgrove 12 Thomas Cornish 25 Thomas Applegate 38 Thomas Whitlock 13 George Holmes 26 William Goulding 39 Richard Gibbons 40 Lady Moody 11 May 1647 the "disastrous" administration of Governor Kieft (sent by the Dutch West Indies Company, and landed at Manhattan 28 Mar 1638) ended. It is said that by that time ¼ of New Amsterdam consisted of grog shops, the city was so out of control under his misadministration. Governor Kieft sailed for Holland on the /Princess/, along with the Reverend Everardus Bogardus; the ship was lost, and all aboard perished. Kieft's successor as Governor was Peter Stuyvesant. 20 Oct 1655 Gravesend was surrounded by hostile Indians; the residents sent a letter to the Governor asking for protection, and in response 20 men were sent from New Amsterdam. END from http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/gravesend/gravesend.html BEGIN Gravesend, located in Brooklyn between Bensonhurst and Coney Island, is one of the oldest populated areas on Long Island and in the nation itself. It contains numerous historic homes, and even its street plan is the original one first adopted after the area was first settled in 1643. [Origin of name "Gravesend" ...] Two possible derivations exist: The first, more widely-accepted one, is that Gravesend is named for a British seacoast town 20 miles east of London. Gravesend was the only one of the six original Kings County towns that was a British settlement. In Old English, 'grave' meant 'grove' so the name means 'town at the end of the grove.' The second view was that Gravesend derives from a Dutch name, s'Gravenzande or s'Gravensande, so named by Dutch provincial governor William Kieft, who donated a small tract of land in what became Gravesend to a British immigrant, Lady Deborah Moody, and her son, Sir Henry, in 1643. s'Gravenzande means "The Count's Beach" and may have been named for Henry; perhaps it was named for Kieft's birthplace on the Maas River in Holland. In 1640, Kieft had prosecuted a war upon the indigenous Native Americans that resulted in more than 1,000 Indian fatalities in Manhattan and western Long Island. It was called the Kieft War and in it Kieft was particularly brutal, with beheadings, dismemberings and burnings. This was too much even for the Dutch, who recalled him; Kieft died at sea. Into this volatile region arrived Lady Moody in 1643, a London widow in her mid-50s. She was granted a town patent by Kieft that permitted adherence to any church, a novelty in an age of religious fervor. Lady Moody, an Anabaptist (a sect that rejected infant baptism in favor of adult baptism) found the climate in England oppressive and sailed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639; finding the Puritans there hardly accommodating, she founded Gravesend in 1643. The Native Americans destroyed the new settlement before it got a permanent foothold in 1645. From the 1600s to the late 1800s the only real roads through Gravesend were in the village itself (Village Roads East, North and South) and what became Van Sicklen Street and McDonald Avenue, as well as Kings Highway to the north, a road that followed an Indian trail, and another road leading west toward Gravesend Bay. Amazingly, that road survives as today's Lake Place . Tensions between the English, Dutch and Native Americans continued until 1674, when the Dutch finally relinquished all their North American claims to the British, and New Amsterdam became New York for good. Ever the diplomat, Lady Moody held the first-ever Quaker conference in the area in 1657, She died in 1659, before she could see the British take over all of New York. Citations: Long Island: Our Story, Newsday Staff, 1998 Newsday. Brooklyn The Way It Was, Brian Merlis, 1995 Israelowitz Publishing. The Curious New Yorker, 1999 New York Times. Old Dutch Houses of Brooklyn, Maud Esther Dilliard, 1945 Richard Smith. END from http://www.forgotten-ny.com/Alleys/LAKE/lake.html BEGIN Lake Place, a little alley running a few blocks between 86th Street and Van Sicklen Street in Gravesend, Brooklyn, wasn't named for a nearby lake, and it wasn't always an alley. In fact, it was once a main artery in the town of Gravesend ... back when it was a town. This unpaved back alley was once one of the main roads of the village of Gravesend. One of the oldest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Gravesend was settled in 1643 by Lady Deborah Moody, who was seeking a religious haven after falling out of favor with the Puritans of Lynn, Massachusetts. Few remnants of the original village remain after 350+ years, as you may expect, but amazingly, the original square town plan as devised by Lady Moody is still reflected in the configuration of Village Roads North, South and East as well as Van Sicklen Street. Gravesend Neck Road trails off northeast from the original town, and Lake Place winds off to the west. Lake Place has gone by a large number of names over the past 300 years. It has been known as the Gravesend Common Highway, Road To The Barrens To The Bay, Highway Of West Meadows, and many more. Since the 1800s it has carried the name of an early settler, W.B. Lake. One of the Lake family homes still stands on Avenue V near Van Sicklen Street. Originally, the road we now call Lake Place was the only road that connected the village with the town mill and Gravesend Bay. There have really been two Lake Places since the 1910s when the BMT subway was built in the area; the western half, running between 86th Street and Wset 9th Street, was paved aabout 1970 and given street lighting by the Department Of Transportation, while the eastern half, between West 7th and Van Sicklen Street, has pretty much been kept as a dirt track used by local residents as a driveway or back alley. Not many of them know it's been there for over 300 years! 2003: The eastern half of Lake Place has now been fenced off. Information provided by Joseph Ditta Jr. and also from the Guide Map to Historical Sites in Gravesend, Brooklyn, by the Gravesend Historical Society. END from https://wams.nyhistory.org/early-encounters/dutch-colonies/lady-deborah-moody/# BEGIN Life Story: Lady Deborah Moody (1586-1659) Religious Freedom in the Dutch Colonies The story of an English noblewoman who moved to the North American colonies to practice her religion. Deborah Dunch was born in London, England in 1586. She was the daughter of Walter Dunch, the auditor of the Royal Mint, and his wife, Deborah. Her ancestors were loyal supporters of the British monarchy and the Church of England. She married Sir Henry Moody in 1606, becoming Lady Deborah Moody. After the death of her husband in 1629, Deborah became an Anabaptist. The Anabaptists were a Protestant sect of Christianity who believed that baptism should not occur until a person was old enough to consent. In England, where the Church of England was headed by the king, Anabaptists were considered a danger to the stability of the nation. Women in particular were vilified for following this religion. When word of her new beliefs got out, Deborah was summoned to appear in court. Rather than face whatever punishment the government had in mind, Deborah gathered her wealth and set sail for the English colonies in North America. She was fifty-four when she arrived in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. The colony was run by Puritans, another Protestant sect that had been forced to flee England. Deborah probably chose it thinking it would be a place where she could practice her beliefs in peace. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was not the haven of tolerance that Deborah hoped for. Deborah originally settled in the town of Saugus, Massachusetts, before moving to a large farm in Swampscott, just outside of Salem. She conducted a lively correspondence with other people in the area who were not Puritans. This drew the attention of her closest neighbor, Reverend Hugh Peter. Hugh believed that the Massachusetts colony should have religious unity. He had already expelled another Anabaptist woman, Anne Hutchinson, two years prior to Deborah’s arrival. In 1643 Deborah was brought before the court for spreading religious dissent. During her trial, Puritan leader John Endecott described her as a “dangerous woman.” She was given the choice to change her beliefs or be excommunicated from the colony. Deborah chose excommunication, gathered her fellow Anabaptists, and set out once again to find a place where they could practice their religion in peace. At the same time that Deborah was standing trial in Massachusetts, Director Willem Kieft of the Dutch West India Company was looking to recruit new settlers to the New Netherland colony. Willem had recently started a war with local Mohawk communities and wanted to increase the colony’s population to make it harder for the Mohawk to take back their land. Deborah was a woman with money who already had followers willing to help settle a new community. The Netherlands and its colonies practiced a greater degree of religious tolerance than England and Massachusetts, so Anabaptist beliefs were less worrisome there. Willem granted Deborah the southwestern tip of Long Island, territory that now encompasses parts of Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. Deborah drew up the plans for her new community and named it Gravesend. It was one of the first settlements in the American colonies founded by a woman. She allowed the inhabitants of Gravesend to follow whatever religious practices they chose, so long as they abided by the laws of the colony. Gravesend was targeted by local Native American communities who were angry with the Dutch colonists settling their land. This was no minor threat—in 1643 another outlying settlement in New Netherland was destroyed because of the ongoing conflict. In spite of these very real dangers, Deborah and her followers chose to stay. As Deborah's community grew, so did her influence in the government of New Netherland. In 1647 she was among the colony’s elite who greeted the new Director-General Peter Stuyvesant. In 1654 Peter called on her to mediate a tax dispute, and in 1655 she was called upon to nominate magistrates for Gravesend. Deborah lived in Gravesend until her death in 1659. Vocabulary Anabaptist: A Protestant Christian sect that believed that only adults should be baptized. Christianity: Religion that believes in and follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. Church of England: Also called the Anglican Church. A Protestant Christian church that is led by the king or queen of England. Dutch West India Company: The company that owned and ran New Netherland. excommunication: The act of formally removing a person from a religious community. magistrate: An official who enforces laws. Mohawk: An Indigenous community that originally inhabited the area now known as New Jersey, New York, and southeastern Canada. One of the five founding nations of the Haudenosaunee. Today the Mohawk live in upstate New York and Quebec and Ontario, Canada. Pelham Bay: An area in modern day Bronx, NY. Protestant: The Christian communities that separated from the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation. Puritans: A group of English Protestants who left England for the New World to start their own settlements where religion would govern daily life. Royal Mint: The place where coins are made for the English government. END