HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 393

and Front streets;1 and the mails passed through Long Island only once a week. The publication of the Long Island Star was relinquished by Mr. Kirk, on June 1st, to Alden Spooner.

In July, 1811, the census of Long Island estimates the population of Brooklyn as being 4,402.

Proposals were issued, during the fall of this year, by Messrs. B. F. Cowdrey & Co., job printers, for the publication of a new weekly paper, to be entitled The Long Island Journal and American Freeman. The design, however, was never carried into effect.2

1812, June 11. News was received in Brooklyn of the Declaration of War between the United States and Great Britain.

One of the most remarkable characters in Brooklyn, at this time (1811-’12), was “the Rain-Water Doctor.” He was a German who landed in Philadelphia, in the early part of the year 1811, and came, shortly after, to Brooklyn, where he remained for about a year, occupying a small house above the “Black-Horse Tavern.” In 1812, he removed to Providence, Rhode Island, where he had a large practice; then went, in 1813, to East Hartford, Connecticut, where he enjoyed an extraordinary success, but again returned to Providence, and died there in 1814-15. He was an educated physician, honest, skilful, extremely eccentric, and noted for his many deeds of charity. While he resided in the village of Brooklyn, he was consulted by thousands from the city of New York, and from Long Island, seeking relief from all the ills that flesh is heir to. The medicines which he prescribed were mostly herbs and simples, and his recommendation, to all his patients, to use rain-water as a drink, won for him the cognomen of “the Rain-Water Doctor.” Although he gave himself no distinct name, he sometimes signed himself, “Sylvan, Enemy of human diseases.”3 He pretended to sell his remedies at

1 Remsen occupied a brick store and dwelling, which he had erected on the site of, and partly with the stone of the old Rapalje house. After his failure (ante, 82) it was replaced with the present building.

2 The more particular history of these early newspapers will be found in that portion of the second volume devoted to the record of the Brooklyn Press.

3 He must not be confounded with his evident imitators, the “Rain-Water Doctor,” alias Sylvan Gardener, who flourished awhile, about 1817, at Roxbury, Massachusetts, and elsewhere (see Hist. Mag., Feb., 1862); or Octavius Plinth, the Rain-Water Doctor;