From the Brooklyn Aerie: September 11, 2012

September 11, 2012 By David Ansel Weiss For Brooklyn Daily Eagle

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• When the Dutch briefly regained control of the area from the British in the 1670s, they didn’t call New York by its old name of New Amsterdam, but rather by the name of New Orange, and the fort at the foot of the Battery they called Fort Hendrick.

• The latest annual bird count at Green-Wood Cemetery found 38 species including several such as a snow goose which had never been seen before.

• For the record — when Fort Hamilton was completed in 1831, its first garrison consisted of 52 men and two officers of Battery F of the Fourth U.S. Artillery Regiment.

• Although several important heavyweight championship boxing bouts were held at the Coney Island Athletic Club in the 1890s and early 1900s, the fight scheduled there between James J. Corbett and Charley Mitchell never took place because of the pressure from anti-prizefighting groups in Brooklyn.

• Brooklyn could not be accused of not taking care of its less fortunate in the mid-19th century. Among other institutions the city operated then were an almshouse (poor house), hospital, nursery, and lunatic asylum. The lunatic asylum had a capacity of 400 people.

• Did you know there is a company called Ebbets Field Flannels in Seattle, Washington, where you can buy authentic copies of baseball uniforms, caps, shirts and jackets with not only the Brooklyn Dodger logo but even the logo of the Brooklyn Tip Tops in the Federal League? It was started in 1997 by Jerry Cohen, a Brooklyn native, and can be reached via the Internet.

• Since there were more Tories than Loyalists in Brooklyn during the America Revolution, it follows that many of the slaves owned by Tories ended up in the British Army. Before hostilities even started, there was a labor regiment of 600 slaves.

• The authorities in Brooklyn who gave out licenses for ferries in the 18th century laid down strict requirements. Boats of prospective licensees had to have sails and masts that passed inspection as well as” four good oars and two boat hooks.” As for the pilots, they had to be “two sober discreet and able-bodied watermen.”

• The reason it is so difficult to line up the buildings at the end of Old Fulton St. as painted by Francis Guy in the early 1800s with the buildings there today is that so many of the earlier houses were destroyed during the construction of the approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge.

• According to Stephen Ostrander’s 1874 history of Brooklyn there was a Baptist church on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights at the time of the Civil War.

• George Washington was so physically exhausted after the Battle of Brooklyn he apologized to the president of the Continental Congress for the delay in telling him about the battle. “The extreme fatigue which myself and my family have undergone rendered me entirely unfit to take pen in hand,” he wrote.