The Toll Gate Of Flatbush Avenue

Imagine having to stop at a toll booth as you advanced down Flatbush Avenue. Well, if you wanted to travel from the village of Flatbush to the city of Brooklyn in the 19th century, you needed to pay.

In honor of the fact that our Borough President announced today that he wants to install traffic-calming infrastructure on the stretch of Flatbush Avenue next to Prospect Park, I decided to dive back into Gertrude Lefferts-Vanderbilt’s very fun book, The Social History of Flatbush, and manners and customs of the Dutch settlers in Kings County.

Lefferts-Vanderbilt (1824-1902) was born and raised on the Lefferts family homestead in what is now Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Here’s what she had to say in 1887 about the toll gate on Flatbush Avenue, which had long been a rural road:

When the road to Brooklyn was a turnpike, the care of the road was paid for from the money collected at the toll gate. This, in or about 1842, stood near where Flatbush Avenue forms the terminus of Hanson Place, or between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue.

Afterward it was removed to what is now called Atlantic Street, somewhat easterly of the present intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Flatbush Avenue. Next it was placed near the Battle Pass [in Prospect Park], south of the Valley Grove Hotel, on the old road.

After this it was placed opposite the WILLINK property. Finally, it was removed within the limits of the village [Flatbush], and at present stands on the avenue between Fenimore and Winthrop Streets.

Just for fun, I’m including more of Lefferts-Vanderbilt’s writing below about what traveling between Flatbush and the city of Brooklyn was like in the early and mid-19th century.

When Lefferts-Vanderbilt wrote this in 1887, she sounded pretty ambivalent about the transformation of Flatbush — from country village to urban neighborhood — that was happening before her eyes.

Some thirty years there were two or three miles of country road between Flatbush and Brooklyn, with farms, meadows and woodland upon the roadside. Through all these years, however, Brooklyn has been throwing out vigorous branches in all directions, like the spreading boughs of trees that have rapid growth, and at last it has reached our very borders.

Unlike the budding of tree and shrub, however, this mingling of urban and suburban presents an unsightly growth. The sunken city lot, with its encampment of shanties, its hummocks of refuse, its open, treeless commons, the resort of goats and geese, its rocks flaunting placards for advertising quacks and speculators — all these are the ugly pioneers of the advancing city.

On one side of the village these have been held in abeyance by the intervening green slopes and shrubbery of Prospect Park and their protecting barrier of hickory, oak and elm trees.

Traveling between Flatbush and Brooklyn in the early 19th century involved some effort, Lefferts-Vanderbilt writes.

The distance between Flatbush and Brooklyn was rendered more noticeable by the limited means of intercourse in public conveyance between the two places. Most of the village residents kept their own carriages and horses.

The old-fashioned gig, the red farm-wagon, the family barouche, and the time-honored stage-coach, each held undisturbed possession of the dusty turnpike. The old stage-coach, pleasantly associated with roads winding between green hills and shady woods, was the only means of public conveyance within the limits of Kings County.

Privately run stage coach lines operated daily between Flatbush and Brooklyn.

Until the year 1838 or ’39 there were two regular stage-coach lines running between Flatbush and Brooklyn. The oldest inhabitant well remembers SMITH BIRDSALL, the proprietor of one line, leaving his house, which stood on what is now the corner of Flatbush and Vernon Avenues, at eight o’clock in the morning, and returning about four in the afternoon.

A loud blast from a horn announced the coming of the coach. We can readily recall the picture, which now we only see in the most secluded country towns, of the stopping of the stage coach, the door help open by friends to “speed the parting guest.” The last words are spoken as the passenger leans over the half door; the driver shouts “All ready!” and mounts his high seat; there is the waving of the handkerchiefs, and the journey is begun; the children are frolicking in the gateway to enjoy the excitement of the prancing horses, the cracking of the long whip-lash, and the prolonged blast of the driver’s horn.

Soon after this stage had gone its way toward the distant city, but scarcely before the whirl of dust had altogether subsided, another opportunity was afforded the traveler to reach town that morning.

There was also a stage coach that delivered the mail.

The mail-stage came in at nine o’clock from Fort Hamilton. This was more pretentious, if not more comfortable, than the rest. It was drawn by four horses, and owned by COLONEL CHURCH, of New Utrecht. With a still louder blast upon a bugle, its arrival was announced as it turned the corner by the church from the post road to New Utrecht, and drew up before the little inn of the WIDOW SCHOONMAKER, opposite Erasmus Hall.

The mail-bag, not a very bulky one in those days, was taken over to the post office, nearly opposite the Dutch church, and assorted by Mr MICHAEL SCHOONMAKER, and then it was flung back to the driver, and deposited under the boot at the foot of the driver’s high seat….

Then the village sunk into quiet, and the lookers-on proceeded to their

At four o’clock in the afternoon the first stage returned, and at five the mail coach. Then the same bustle was repeated; the friends who were expected from the city to visit in the country were looked for by these returning coaches, and the members of the family who had been to New York or Brooklyn for the day returned home, tired and hungry, and were met at the gate by the children who had been stationed there to await and announce the approach of the stage-coach. Father had brought, perhaps, the weekly paper at least; he had the latest news; and mother had been shopping in Maiden Lane or William Street.

Then, horse-drawn buses began to appear on the scene. But note what Lefferts-Vanderbilt says below about a railroad between Flatbush and the city of Brooklyn. I’m trying to figure out which railroad she is describing.

Until the year 1842 or ’43 these stages were the only modes of public conveyance. They then gave place to an omnibus line.

These omnibuses ran every hour, and as to convenience, in this respect they were certainly an improvement upon the stage coaches.

Flatbush Avenue was opened from Fulton Avenue, Brooklyn, to the entrance of the village in 1856. At first the [train?] cars ran to the city [Brooklyn] limits, and were there met by the omnibus, but when the whole line of railroad was completed, the old omnibus line passed into disuse.

Lefferts-Vanderbilt describes what must be horse-drawn cars below, driven by city residents who wanted to get out to the Flatbush countryside.

It was a strange sight for us to see the cars from the city, associated as they then were with shops and city life, passing to and fro upon the country turnpike, to catch a glimpse of them through the shrubbery, and to hear the unmusical tinkling of the bells upon the car-horses amid suburban sounds.

Before the railway tracks somewhat incumbered the country turnpike, the old road to Flatbush was a favorite summer drive for the citizens of Brooklyn and New York.

As there were then no city parks for carriage-driving, and the country had not been so widely opened up for extended travel, the pleasant rural aspect of the village made it an attraction toward which the large majority of the people who lived downtown in New York turned for an excursion on a summer afternoon. The shore road along the Narrows could be included, making a long and pleasant drive in the country suburbs.

Thank you for traveling a bit in time with me. What history topics do you want to see explored more on Ditmas Park Corner?