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William Richardson Papers (1853-1896). 5 linear inches.
ArMs 1977.169
William Richardson (1822-1893) was a prominent post-Civil War resident of Brooklyn. He owned the Atlantic Avenue Railroad Company, was active in the Republican Party, was an Alderman for the Twenty-Second Ward, and was involved in many civic causes.
The William Richardson Papers document the personal and business affairs of this Brooklyn businessman. The collection includes correspondence, railroad documents, family items, political and governmental documents, ephemera, and miscellaneous items concerning civic issues.
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Thomas Messenger Family Papers, 1829-1923 (Bulk dates: 1853-1881). 3 Record Cartons (3 Cubic Feet).
ArMs 1978.124
Thomas Messenger (1810-1881) was a prominent landowner and businessman. Born in the county of Surrey in Southeast England, Messenger’s family relocated to America when he was very young and settled in Great Neck, Long Island. As an adult, Messenger would continue to reside in Great Neck with his wife and daughters, eventually coming to own the largest plot of land in Long Island and being elected President of the Queens County Agricultural Society. Along with their Long Island farm, the Messengers also resided at a property in Brooklyn Heights. Messenger and his brother, Harry, founded the tobacco company T. & H. Messenger & Co., which held its headquarters in New York City, and Messenger served as President of the Brooklyn Bank for twenty-five years until his death in 1881. The Messengers were also well known for their generous donations to both All Saints’ Church and St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn.
The collection consists of 3 cubic feet of personal and business papers associated with Thomas Messenger and his family. The materials conveyed in the collection primarily consist of handwritten personal and business correspondences, as well as receipts, ephemera, insurance policies, writings and business transactions. The bulk of the collection comprises of materials written for or by Thomas Messenger. Correspondences to his wife, Ann, and youngest daughter, Marie, are also represented within the papers. The materials are primarily in English, but there are materials also written in French, Italian, and German, reflecting the extensive traveling the Messenger Family did oversees ca. 1874.
Access Points:
Personal Names
Messenger, Ann
Messenger, Harry
Messenger, Marie Gerard
Messenger, Thomas
Corporate Names
Brooklyn Bank (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
St. Ann’s Church (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
T. & H. Messenger & Co.
Geographic Names
Great Neck (N.Y.)
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)
Westchester Co., N.Y.
Subjects
Banking
Tobacco industry New York (State) New York.
Travel
Long Island Railroad
Queens County Agricultural Society (N.Y.)
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Records of the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Company, 1875-1897 (Bulk Dates: 1883-1890). 195 items in 8 folders in 1 legal manuscript box.
ArMs 1977.120
The Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Company was incorporated in 1874 and became an extensive elevated railroad. The first rail was laid in 1883 and the railroad opened to the public in May, 1885. W. Fontaine Bruff was president of the company until c.1883 when Henry W. Putnam became president. Putnam was succeeded by Adolf Ladenburg in 1892.
The collection includes correspondence, financial documents, incorporation documents, and operations reports. About one-third consists of letters to Mr. Putnam and about one-third from Frederick Uhlmann, a New York City hops merchant who was Chairman of the Executive Committee. Documents indicate the financial arrangements and operations of a growing transportation system in the 1880’s, including plans for property use, employment and labor needs, pay rates, construction expenses.
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Brooklyn Ephemera Collection (1814-1998). 19 manuscript boxes and 2 oversize boxes (9.8 cubic feet).
The Brooklyn Ephemera Collection contains materials of mixed provenance accumulated over decades by the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society). It is comprised of 12 series: Businesses, Churches, Civic Organizations and Celebrations, Clubs, Entertainment, Military, Schools, Sports, Transportation, Miscellaneous, Comic Books, and Calendars/Oversized Materials. The materials relate to a variety of Brooklyn-based institutions and events spanning a period of time from 1814 to 1998. Examples of the encompassed materials include correspondence, announcements, pamphlets, special events programs and notices, note papers, tickets, newspaper clippings, trade cards, ads, receipts, invoices, tour maps and information, postcards and certificates.
Access Points:
Personal and Corporate Names
Pierrepont, John Jay, 1849-1911
Grant, Ulysses S. [Ulysses Simpson], 1822-1885
Adelphi College
Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.). Commissioners of Prospect Park
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.). Park Commissioners
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Athenaeum
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn Club (New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn Dodgers (Baseball team)
Brooklyn Dodgers (Football team)
Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company
Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra
Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn Tabernacle (New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn Union Gas Company
Erasmus Hall High School
First Presbyterian Church (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
Historic Districts Council (New York, N.Y.)
National Railway Historical Society
New York City Transit Authority
New York Naval Ship Yard
New York Transit Museum
St. Francis College (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
Visiting Nurse Service of New York
Subject Headings
African Americans
American Revolution Bicentennial, 1976
Baseball - New York (State) - New York
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - religious life and customs
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - social life and customs
Brooklyn Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
Brownstone - New York (State) - New York
Prospect Park (New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn Trust Company Building (New York, N.Y.)
Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) - Songs and music.
Armed Forces - New York (State) - New York
Clubs - New York (State) - New York
Entertainment events - New York (State) - New York
Racing - New York (State) - New York
Railroads - New York (State) - New York
Sports - New York (State) - New York
Theater - New York (State) - New York
Williamsburg Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
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Washington Roebling-Brooklyn Bridge Collection 1873-1879. 1 manuscript box (0.5 cubic feet). ArMs 1977.259
This collection consists of notes, letters, engineering computations, reports, specifications, inventories and technical newspaper clippings, dated 1873-1879, all relating to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, and includes notes to “Col. Roebling” and some items in his hand.
This is a fragmentary collection consisting of items rescued from a rubbish heap at a city-owned building being demolished in April, 1966.
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Shellens Family Collection, including Papers of Captain Michael Shellens, 1873-1984 (Bulk dates: 1880-1927). 6 Boxes (4 legal-sized document boxes and 2 oversize boxes), 3.6 cubic ft.
ArMs 1988.001
This collection contains personal and business correspondence, business and financial records, books, photographs, and ephemera related to Captain Michael Shellens (1854-1944) and his family. The materials are dated 1873-1984 and are principally about Shellens’ life and career as a mariner who advanced in rank to captain, afterward becoming a successful real estate businessman in Brooklyn.
The bulk of the collection dates from 1880 to 1927 and consists of family papers, chiefly those of Captain Shellens, with some from others of the immediate family and also from Shellens’s family in Antwerp. The materials collected from voyages consist of discharge papers received at destination ports, business and financial records, and correspondence compiled during Shellens’ various sailing trips.
Shellens’s business records comprise an assortment of materials relating to Shellens’ sailing and real estate career, including inventory of properties of interest to Shellens, professional certifications, survey reports from Shellens’ career as a Surveyor, and log books. Financial records include bank accounts, ledger books, and real estate transactions. Correspondence contains both business and personal materials, including employment applications, letters received and written to colleagues, tenants, and family members.
Materials relating to the Shellens family include correspondence between Shellens and his brother, M. Henry Shellens, and his Antwerp cousins, 1890-1940. Also included are obituaries of family members and materials relating to Shellens’ and his wife’s deaths such as funeral memoirs, legal and financial documents including wills, bank balances, an inventory of Shellens’s real estate holdings, certificates and birth records for Shellens’ daughter Ruth.
The last portion of the collection consists of books on sailing and ships and on religion.
Access Points:
- Shellens, Michael
- Shellens, Ruth
- Shellens, Marshall
- Shellens, Hazel
- Real estate
- Sailing
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
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Pierrepont Family Papers, 1761-1918 (bulk, 1838-1888). 39.6 cubic feet (7 document boxes, 1 oversize box, 84 ledger boxes).
ARC 002
The Pierrepont Papers document the business activities of three generations of the Pierrepont family, one of the most prominent and influential families of nineteenth century Brooklyn. Covering a span of one hundred and fifty seven years, the collection begins in 1761 with the papers of Hezekiah Beers Pierpont and continues to 1918 with the papers of his grandsons, John Jay Pierrepont and Henry Evelyn Pierrepont II. The bulk of the collection concerns Hezekiah Beers Pierpont’s son, Henry Evelyn. Father and son played an influential role in the history and development of the city of Brooklyn. The Pierrepont family involved itself in the conception and development of Green-Wood Cemetery, The Long Island Historical Society, and plans for a public promenade along the bluffs overlooking the East River. Their business ventures included the development of the ferries between Brooklyn and New York City and the expansion of the Brooklyn shipping industry. The material found in this collection provides insight into the life of a prominent and socially elite nineteenth century Brooklyn family and into the development of the Brooklyn waterfront, nineteenth century business dealings, and trends in overseas trade during the period.
Subjects:
- Bonded warehouses and goods- New York (State)- New York
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)- History- 19th century
- Brooklyn Heights (New York, N.Y.)- History
- Business enterprises- New York (State)- New York
- Industry- History- 19th century
- Brooklyn Academy of Music
- Union Ferry Company (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Constable Family
- Ferries- New York (State)- New York
- Green-Wood Cemetery (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Imports- New York (State)- New York
- Jay Family
- Long Island Historical Society (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Pierrepont, Anna Maria Constable, 1783-1859
- Pierrepont, Anna Maria Jay, 1819-1902
- Pierrepont, Elise de Rham, 1850-1879
- Pierrepont, Ellen Almira Low, 1846-1884
- Pierpont, Hezekiah Beers, 1768-1838
- Pierrepont, Henry Evelyn, 1808-1888
- Pierrepont, Henry Evelyn, Jr.
- Pierrepont, John Jay
- Pierrepont Family
- Pierrepont Stores
- Shipping- New York (State)- New York
- Real Estate Development- New York (State)- New York
- Warehouse- Management
- Waterfronts- New York (State)- New York
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Downtown Brooklyn Development Association, Inc., Records, 1929-1971. 9 document boxes (3.75 linear feet)
ArMs 1979.21
This collection comprises the subject files of the Downtown Brooklyn Development Association. The association was founded in 1929 as a civic group concerned with the problems of the business and shopping center in downtown Brooklyn. The papers are news clippings, correspondence, brochures, newsletters, pamphlets, legislative documents, photographs, city plans and maps, and other items relating to organizations and causes with which the association was involved. The majority of the documents were produced by external bodies or individuals but were integral the association’s activities. The three subjects most comprehensively addressed are the development of the Brooklyn Civic Center (Cadman Plaza), the redevelopment of Fulton Street, and traffic and transportation.
Subjects
- Abraham & Straus
- American Red Cross
- Better Business Bureau of New York City
- Blum, Robert E.
- Bourke-White, Margaret, 1904-1971
- Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)–Transit systems
- Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn Borough Hall (New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)
- Brooklyn daily eagle
- Brooklyn Law School
- Brooklyn Public Library
- Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company
- Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (New York, N.Y.)
- Central business districts
- Citizens Budget Commission (New York, N.Y.)
- Citizens Union Foundation (New York, N.Y.)
- Citizens’ Zoning Committee, Inc.
- City planning
- Community centers–New York (State)–New York
- Courthouses New York (State)
- Davenport, Henry J.
- Downtown Brooklyn Development Association, Inc.
- Ebbets Field (New York, N.Y.)
- George Washington Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
- Holland Tunnel (New York, N.Y.)
- Independent Subway System
- Interborough Rapid Transit Company
- Lincoln Tunnel (New York, N. Y.)
- Local transit–New York (State)–New York
- Moses, Robert, 1888-1981
- New York (N.Y.). City Planning Commission
- New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Commerce and Industrial Development
- New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Correction
- New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Parks
- New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Public Works
- New York (N.Y.). Dept. of Traffic
- New York (N.Y.). Landmarks Preservation Commission
- New York Naval Shipyard
- Parks–New York (N.Y.)
- Post office buildings–New York (State)–New York
- Pratt Institute
- Railroads, Elevated
- Regional Plan Association (New York, N.Y.)
- Roscoe, Andrew S.
- Stamm, Godfrey A.
- Swift, Thomas A.
- Throgs Neck Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
- Transportation
- Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority
- Urban renewal–New York, N.Y.
- Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
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