HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 385

intendence of trustees. There are about sixty scholars, who are taught the common rudiments of education, with English grammar, geography, and astronomy. Two preceptors have the immediate direction. A beautiful eminence to the cast of Brooklyn Ferry will afford an eligible situation for an academy.” Thomas Kirk’s newspaper, The Courier, then in its first year, is favorably mentioned, and the fact is furthermore stated that there are “no libraries, or places for the sale of books in the town.” “There is but one society, property speaking, in this township, and that is the Masonic. This, which is the first and only Lodge in the county, was erected in 1798 in Olympia, at the corner of Main and James streets.”

A brief outline of some of the main points of early Brooklyn history is given, and reference is made to two volunteer companies, “whose uniform is as handsome as their conduct is patriotic.”1 A powder-house and arsenal are said to be Òalready established.Ó In the Appendix to this compilation, General Johnson strongly advocates the establishment of a village corporation, concerning the advantages of which he discusses fully and eloquently, considering it it now proper time that a corporation for Olympia should commence its operations, and particular appropriations be made for extensive market-places, a square for an academy, another for a promenade, others for public buildings of different sorts, as churches, courthouses, alms-houses, etc., and not to sleep on an ideal prospect.” And long before the venerable author was gathered to his fathers, he had seen the more than realization of his “ideal prospect.”

he spirit of speculation, as will be seen from the above glowing account of “Olympia,” had begun to agitate the minds of the Brooklynites, and it received no inconsiderable impulse, in 1801, from Mr. John JacksonÕs sale to the United States (through Francis Child, a middle-man) of forty acres of the Wallabout, including the old millpond, for the handsome sum of $40,000. Shortly after this, a portion of the estate of Comfort Sands, contiguous to the lands of Mr.

1 These were the “Washington Fusileers,” a very handsome uniformed company, commanded by Mr. William Furman, father of the historian of Brooklyn, Hon. Gabriel Furman, and the “Republican Rifles,” dressed in green hunting-shirts and pants, and commanded by Captain Burdett Stryker. These latter, from the color of their uniform, were sometimes called “The Katydids.”