After about two years went to work in a weekly newspaper and printing
office, to learn the trade. The paper was the "Long Island Patriot,"
owned by S. E. Clements, who was also postmaster. An old printer in
the office, William Hartshorne, a revolutionary character, who had seen
Washington, was a special friend of mine, and I had many a talk with him
about long past times. The apprentices, including myself, boarded with
his grand-daughter. I used occasionally to go out riding with the boss,
who was very kind to us boys; Sundays he took us all to a great old
rough, fortress-looking stone church, on Joralemon street, near where
the Brooklyn city hall now is--(at that time broad fields and country
roads everywhere around.[5]) Afterward I work'd on the "Long Island
Star," Alden Spooner's paper. My father all these years pursuing his
trade as carpenter and builder, with varying fortune. There was a
growing family of children--eight of us--my brother Jesse the oldest,
myself the second, my dear sisters Mary and Hannah Louisa, my brothers
Andrew, George, Thomas Jefferson, and then my youngest brother, Edward,
born 1835, and always badly crippled, as I am myself of late years.
Note:
[5] Of the Brooklyn of that time (1830-40) hardly anything remains,
except the lines of the old streets. The population was then between ten
and twelve thousand. For a mile Fulton street was lined with magnificent
elm trees. The character of the place was thoroughly rural. As a sample
of comparative values, it may be mention'd that twenty-five acres in
what is now the most costly part of the city, bounded by Flatbush and
Fulton avenues, were then bought by Mr Parmentier, a French _emigré_,
for $4000. Who remembers the old places as they were? Who remembers the
old citizens of that time? Among the former were Smith & Wood's, Coe
Downing's, and other public houses at the ferry, the old Ferry itself,
Love lane, the Heights as then, the Wallabout with the wooden bridge,
and the road out beyond Fulton street to the old toll-gate. Among the
latter were the majestic and genial General Jeremiah Johnson, with
others, Gabriel Furman, Rev. E. M. Johnson, Alden Spooner, Mr.
Pierrepont, Mr. Joralemon, Samuel Willoughby, Jonathan Trotter, George
Hall, Cyrus P. Smith, N. B. Morse, John Dikeman, Adrian Hegeman, William
Udall, and old Mr. Duflon, with his military garden.