HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 307

came the owner of nearly, if not quite, all the Seabring estates in that vicinity. He, also, realized a handsome fortune by contracting to supply the British fleet on this station with meat; the final settlement for which was effected after the war by his son John, who visited England for that purpose. The social and personal standing of the family, however, was in nowise affected by their loyalty to King and Church; and their neighbors showed no disposition to molest them, after the close of the war. Whitehead Cornell divided his estate between his three sons—John,1 Isaac, and William. The former received sixty acres, including the old Seabring, or “Red Mills,” where he pursued the milling business; the flour of his make enjoying a high reputation even in the English market. He was a high-toned, enterprising gentleman, and for many years a vestryman and influential member of St. Anne“s Episcopal Church. His brother, William, received a tract of a hundred and fifty acres along the river, which he afterwards sold to Ralph Patchen, while Isaac received ninety acres, adjoining John's farm, upon which he erected a distillery.

The fine old house known as the “Four Chimnies,” and afterwards as the Pierrepont mansion, and which has been described (page 284, note 3), was erected, as is supposed, by a John Cornell, who may have been a brother of Whitehead.2 On the wharf, at foot of present Joralemon street, was situated a brewery, belonging to Livingston, and which, during the war, was employed by the British as a “King’s Brewery,” where they made spruce-beer for the use of the hospitals and fleet on this station.3 The old people used to

ture of, the American troops in August, 1776. The Cornelius Seabring house and mill were burned, or partially destroyed, by the British, and owing to this and the length of the war, they found themselves, on their return, much impoverished, and were obliged to dispose of their property, which was purchased, as we have stated, by their neighbors and relatives, the Cornells.

1 Not, as near as we can ascertain, the John who kept the “St. George's Tavern,” on the Heights, mentioned on We 220; and who was probably of another Queens County family.

2 For genealogy of the Cornell family, see Bolton’s Hist. of Westchester County, New York,ii., pp. 552-557.

3 This Distillery Dock, and a molasses distillery on the same, was bunt about 1766, by a Mr. Jones, a relative of the Livingstons; and the distillery, together with the ferry-house, was burned in 1787. Here, subsequently, was located Mr. Hez. B. Pierre. pont's celebrated “Anchor-Gin” distillery.