HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 59

bill was a ditch which drained the morass and swamp on the east into the cove, and this ditch was crossed by the road by means of a small wooden bridge. It is mainly memorable as the place where the British column, advancing by the Gowanus road, on the morning of August 27, 1776, received its first check, from an American picket-guard, on which occasion several lives were lost, being the first blood shed in that battle. Near it, on the northeast corner of Twenty-third street and Third Avenue, was the old Weynant Bennet house, which yet stands, retaining its ancient appearance, and yet bearing upon its venerable walls the marks of shot and ball received on that disastrous day.

The farms of Cornelius Bennet and Joseph Dean, between Twenty-fifth and Twenty-eighth streets, were originally one farm.1

Along the bay, between Twenty-fourth and Twenty-eighth streets, was the hamlet of Gowanus. It was originally laid out in village lots, and the old stone “Bennet house,” which stood in the middle of Third avenue, near Twenty-seventh street, and was taken down when the avenue was opened, was probably a remnant of the original settlement.

III.

RED HOOK.

The “Roode Hoek,” or Red Hook, so called from the color of its soil, has almost entirely lost its identity, in consequence of the construction of the Atlantic Docks, and the other extensive and important improvements in that part of the modern city of Brooklyn. Its original form and topographical appearance, however, has been faithfully preserved and delineated in Ratzer’s map; and it may be described, in general terms, as extending from Luqueer’s Mill Creek (about Hicks and Huntingdon streets), following the indentations of the shore around the cape and headland, to about the western boundary of the Atlantic Docks, on the East River; or, in general terms, as having comprised all the land west of the present Sullivan-street. Its history commences with the year

1 Deeds of Bennett family.