Gravesend Brooklyn

Early history

The island and its surroundings were initially inhabited by bands of Lenape, an Algonquian-speaking tribe occupying territory along both sides of Long Island Sound, as well as coastal areas from present-day New Jersey down to Delaware. The first known European to set foot in the area that would later become Gravesend was Henry Hudson, whose ship, the Half Moon, landed at Coney Island in the fall of 1609. The Dutch laid claim to this land as part of their New Netherland Colony.

Gravesend stands out as the only colonial town founded by a woman, Lady Deborah Moody. In 1643, Governor General Willem Kieft granted her and a group of English settlers a land patent on December 19, 1645. Moody, along with John Tilton and his wife Mary Pearsall Tilton, arrived in Gravesend after choosing excommunication following religious persecution in Lynn, Massachusetts. Moody and Mary Tilton had faced trial due to their Anabaptist beliefs, accused of spreading religious dissent in the Puritan colony. Kieft aimed to recruit settlers to secure this land taken from the Lenape. Although clashes continued, the town organization was not finalized until 1645. The signed town charter and grant were among the first awarded to a woman in the New World. John Tilton became the first town clerk of Gravesend and owned part of what later became Coney Island. Moody, the Tiltons, and other early English settlers were known to have paid the Lenape for their land. Another notable early settler was Anthony Janszoon van Salee.

The Town of Gravesend comprised 7,000 acres (2,800 ha) in southern Kings County, including the entire island of Coney Island, initially serving as the town’s common lands on the Atlantic Ocean. It was divided, like the town itself, into 41 parcels for the original patentees. Upon its initial layout, almost half of the area comprised salt marsh wetlands and sandhill dunes along the shore of Gravesend Bay. It was among the earliest planned communities in America, consisting of a 16-acre (6.5 ha) square enclosed by a 20-foot-high wooden palisade. The town was intersected by two main roads, Gravesend Road (now McDonald Avenue) running from north to south, and Gravesend Neck Road, running from east to west. These roads divided the town into four quadrants, each further subdivided into ten plots of land. This original town grid can still be observed on maps and aerial photographs of the area. At the town’s center, where the two main roads met, a town hall was constructed where monthly town meetings were held.