9. Bushwick’s Farms Were Home to a Large Slave Population

Photograph by Sofia Andrade A. Cirino

At the close of the 18th century, pre-Williamsburg was comprised mostly of large farms. (Though there was still a substantial wooded area covering much of today’s “Northside.”) The farms were named for the families that developed them, and many names are familiar to people who have strolled around the area: Berry, Boerum, Meserole, Powers, Skillman, and Devoe. Other prominent farmers like Titus, Miller, Waterbury and General Jeremiah Johnson did not have streets named for them, and live on only through their stories. Like the rest of Kings County, Bushwick’s big farms were home to a large slave population. From the 17th century until the last days of New York slavery in the 1820s, slaves accounted for roughly 20%-30% of the local population, with only a small free black population remaining after 1827. (Coincidentally, both the year of Williamsburg’s incorporation and the year New York completely outlawed slavery.)