Greater Astoria
Historial Society
35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor | L.I.C., NY 11106
718.278.0700 | www.astorialic.org
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32 JULY 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
Legends
FINDING
EDEN
BY GREATER ASTORIA
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Joshua: 1:4: From the wilderness ...
unto the great sea toward the going down
of the sun, shall be yours
Our community’s earliest recorded
history starts with a small group,
led by a preacher Francis Dough-ty,
who lived at the head of Newtown Creek,
a place they undoubtedly selected for
both its convenience to the waterborne
highway leading to the seacoast, as well
as its seclusion from the prying eyes of
authority. They had good reason to select
this place, for this tough, hardy group was
extreme in both the sacred and the profane.
Their time was an age when religious
upheaval permanently changed both moral
orthodoxy and civic authority.
As with other groups dotting the coast
up to New England, they sought Eden in
the New World. Although shrouded in
mystery and destined to failure, this legacy
helped shape the bedrock for our nation.
Swept off their land by indigenous up-risings,
they bravely returned. Denied their
land grant by angering the authorities, they
doggedly fought back with lawsuits – and
when their neighbors encroached on their
boundaries they used stronger methods
only hinted in the historic record.
When virulent religious revivals swept
New England and Long Island Sound, their
settlement was home to the most radical. A
Quaker sect called Case’s Crew filled local
jails with ecstatic cult members charged
with, among other things, seducing house-wives
from husbands and children.
Yet, within the settlement were others,
like Thomas Wandell and Humphrey Clay,
whom were among the most successful
– and notorious – merchants within the
colony of New York.
Wandell’s tobacco plantation, now the
expansive gentle acres of Calvary Cem-etery,
gives us a hint of wealth accumulated
by uncertain means, and Clay, whose family
resume included expulsion from Con-necticut
and testimony in London Chancery
leading to the conviction and hanging of
pirate Captain Kidd, owned an unusually
large group of slaves perhaps hinting at a
major factor business involving smuggled
goods on Newtown Creek. Constant traffic
between their two operations led to the
first bridge over Newtown Creek - called,
for its toll, Penny Bridge.
When the edgy, chaotic frontier
spirit of New York began to wind down,
around the turn of the 18th Century, the
colony at Maspeth Landing suddenly
disbursed to new opportunities along
the ever shifting frontier. Some settled
in upstate New York, others to New
Jersey’s Hopewell Valley, while a few
disappeared into history.
They left behind an abandoned Quak-er
Meeting house, a handful of dwellings,
and perhaps, a lingering spirit in the air
– that of a burning vision of a Manifest
Destiny, that of a dream whose roots
they found in their fervid interpretation
of Scriptures.
Enter DeWitt Clinton, who inherited
one of those dwellings, a mansion at
the head of Newtown Creek, from his
father-in-law, Walter Franklin, a Quaker
related to the Bowne family in Flushing.
Clinton was undoubtedly familiar with
the dreams of his now semi-mythical
predecessors. Unlike them, he had the
resources to finally access the "American
Eden" – that vast pristine interior of the
American continent.
A scion of one of the leading families in
New York State, his resume of accomplish-ment
and a list of entry to those powerful
and connected, was second to none. He
was about to focus his attention on what
was to be his life’s work: access to the
"Inland Empire."
Perhaps led by the dreams of those
who once lived in our community, he was
about to write another chapter in of our
legacy. It was Clinton who was to make
New York City the "Empire City."
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Unique & Creative Content
This image adapted from an invitation to the
Long Island City Athletics 33rd Annual Masque Ball, 1909.
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