Notes Geographical and Historical, Relating to the Town of Brooklyn in Kings…

Written in 1824 when Brooklyn was still a small town of roughly 7,000 people, Gabriel Furman's document stands as a rare time capsule. This is not history as we know it today, it is history happening in real time, one man's urgent attempt to record what he saw disappearing around him. Furman documents the old Dutch land grants, the families who settled there, the geography of marshes and hills that would soon be leveled for development, and the社区 of early Americans building something new on old ground. The book captures Brooklyn at its inflection point, just before the Brooklyn Bridge and industrialization would transform it forever. For anyone curious about how cities remember (and forget) their pasts, this is a glimpse into the very first layer of New York's layered history.