HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 371
BUSHWICK AND WILLIAMSBURGH, FROM THE CLOSE OF THE
REVOLUTION, UNTIL 1854.
There were in Bushwick, at the close of the Revolution, three distinct settlements, or centres of population, as they may be called, each of which retained the old Dutch names, and very much of their old Dutch quaintness of appearance. These were het dorp, the town plot, first laid out by Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, in 1661) at the junction of North Second street and Bushwick avenue; het Kivis padt, since known as the Cross roads, at the junction of New Bushwick lane and the Kreupelbush1 and Maspeth (crossing of the present Bushwick avenue and the Flushing) road; and het strand, or the strand, along the East river shore.
Het Dorp, or the town plot of Bushwick,2 is perhaps, the most interesting locality to the antiquarian, on account of its intimate connection with all the earliest history of the town; and indeed, as Mr. T. W. Field justly remarks, There is no portion of our city which still affords a scene so primitive as the junction of North Second street and Bushwick avenue. It was towards this centre of town life, that the principal roads of the settlement verged, and in every direction, as the citizen receded from it, he receded from civilization.3 The view of the old Bushwick church, (given on page 355), will perhaps, convey to our readers a better idea of the spot, than any description can do. The ancient Octagonal church, standing on the site of, and facing the same way as the present one; the wrinkled and homely old one-story
1 The name of a settlement, or of the farms on the road from Bedford to the Cross roads, in the vicinity of Nostrand and Flushing avenues.
2 Named Bushwick Green, on T. W. Fields map of 1852.
3 Brooklyn Corporation Manual for 1868, page 452.