Reformed Dutch Church

Reformed Dutch Church. , In 1776, at the time of the Battle of Brooklyn in the Revolutionary War, the present Fulton Mall was known as the Road to Jamaica, a onetime Native American trail that had evolve into a major roadway connecting to farms of Kings County to the East River, whence agricultural goods would be ferried to New York City. According to A History of the City of Brooklyn (1867) by Henry R. Stiles, "Nearly a mile and a half from the ferry, and in the middle of the road to Jamaica, stood the ancient church, around which was gathered the village proper of Brooklyn. Another mile and a quarter beyond, on the same road, a few farmhouses formed the neighborhood known then and now as Bedford." The church, built in 1766, served the oldest congregation in Brooklyn., In this illustration (from a drawing by Miss Elizabeth Sleight, 1808), we view the church from a point near Elm Place, looking along the present Fulton Mall toward Borough Hall. The house on the right is that of Mrs. Duffield, who in 1828 resisted efforts to survey present-day Duffield Street by not allowing surveyors access to her property. One day, when she was across the river in New York City, surveyors slipped onto her property. The resulting Duffield Street truncated her "Dutch kitchen." By that date, the village of Brooklyn had been incorporated (1816) within the town of Brooklyn.