SHORT HISTORY OF NEW UTRECHT

 New Utrecht was a Dutch colonial settlement on Long Island, founded in 1657 and named for a Dutch city. It developed as a rural, farming community and was home to a Dutch Reformed church and cemetery. During the Revolutionary War, it served as a base for British forces. Over time, the area avoided the widespread industrialization of other Brooklyn areas but eventually was annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1894, which led to its urbanization and the development of modern neighborhoods. 

Early Settlement and Dutch Colonial Period (1657-1776)

• Founding:

  New Utrecht was established in 1657 by Jacques Cortelyou, a Dutch surveyor, on land purchased earlier. The settlement was named after Utrecht in the Netherlands. 
• Rural Community:

  The town thrived as a rural farming community, a characteristic that persisted due to its relatively isolated location. 
• Religion:

  A Dutch Reformed congregation was organized, leading to the establishment of the New Utrecht Reformed Church and the New Utrecht Cemetery in 1654, the latter being one of the earliest Dutch colonial burial grounds. 

Revolutionary War Era (1776)

• British Base:

  The town played a significant role in the Battle of Long Island (also known as the Battle of Brooklyn) in 1776. 
• Occupied Territory:

  The British army used New Utrecht as its base of operations during the first large-scale battle of the Revolutionary War. 

19th Century: Rural Charm and Annexation (1800-1890)

• Continued Rural Life: New Utrecht largely escaped the industrialization that transformed other parts of Brooklyn, maintaining its quiet, rural character for much of the 19th century. 
• Produce for Brooklyn: The town supplied fresh produce to the growing city of Brooklyn. 
• Annexation: The defining event for New Utrecht in the 19th century was its annexation by the City of Brooklyn in 1894. This marked the beginning of its transformation from a rural village into a major residential area. 

Transition to a Modern Neighborhood 

• Urbanization: Following its annexation, New Utrecht was gradually transformed by urbanization, eventually becoming the home of several distinct neighborhoods, including Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, and Bath Beach.

“Turks Plantaion” in New Utrecht area of Brooklyn—Gretchen 

Reynier and Anthony Turk Jansen setup home in New Utrech after expelled for Al’s vicious behavior of wife—measures privates of sailors in pub using a broomstick causes a brawl..from NA in 1639. See  pg 34 Gotham Burowughs and Wallace

• Page 59 ibid 
• In 1664 Lisabet Antonioset—the daughter of a half freed slave who the DWiC kept in bondage  set her master’s house in Niew Utrecht on fire. The NAsterdam court ordered her chained, to a stake, strangled and burned to death—though it commuted the sentence on the day of execution (houses were valuable and elaborate..owners were wealthy and had political power. 
• 
  
• The Peach War (see pg 68 ibid) dozens of invaders and fifty whited lay dead…600 head of cattle stolen or killed, 12 000 bushels of grain lost or stolen ended Lenape resistance to European colonization abd expansion 
• In 1656 Chief Takapusha signed a treaty with styverant accepting governor of NAm as Indians “protector” and vowed to live in peace with neighbors. 
• 
  
• See pg 69 Iboid
• But the pacification of the Lenape did not improve Styvesant’s authority in the colony. Especially in the Wild West of Niew Utrecht
• Where free thinkers, Protestants, invaders from English settlements and other troublemakers seemed to congregate. 
• 
  
• In 1652 Conrneilieus Van Werkhoven a shareholder of the DWIC and wealthy investor came to Peter Styversant’s aid. On that date van Werkhoven sent agents to persuade the local inhabitants of a vast stretch of Brooklyn from the western headlands overlooking the Narrows to Gravesend BAy and east lands which were the hunting lands of the Nayack tribe of the Lenape Indians. Van Werkhoven’s agent arranged for a sale in which the Nayack sold the entire area of western Brooklyn comprising  a thousand acres or more for “six shirts, two pair of shoes, six pair of socks, six axes, six hatchets, six knives, two scissors, and two combs.” —the Nyacks were happy but  

ON LONG ISLAND—THE LAST DAY OF AUGUST 2025

 It was a mixed day of temperatures…cool enough this morning for my first fire in the breakfast room fireplace…but hot enough in the late afternoon for a swim in the chilly—unheated pool. (Temp = 68F). 

Temps ranged from 59-74F today in a bright, clear, cloudless sky.  Though in the sunny locations the sun’s intensity made it seem much warmer than 74F.  

On my two mile walk..I recorded a few observations of the state of bloom or color carnage of the local vegetation and how it has responded to the weather this summer.  Perhaps such observations may be useful next year—on the last day of August.  

The area of observation=vtion is that of the Rail Road Bicycle and walking path in northern Brookhaven Township, Suffolk County LI New York.

Russian Olive Tree ( ) or brushy-trees have all set fruit. Most are fully red colored, but others remain brown. The latter color does remind one of tiny olive fruits…and thus perhaps the name of the tree.

Giant Knotweed ( ) are all in a flower. the flower panicles are all upright but most have not opened. I observed only a few Bumble bees visiting these. When fully in flower many bees and other pollinators will be attending to these many pale creamy white flowers. 

Virginia Creeper Vine (. ) is displaying it bright red leaves..the first bright red colors of the season.

Chicory is in bloom its bright blue flowers seen along uncut margins of the path.

Golden Rod is in full bloom—also common in serval area s where the grass cutters have left clumps of uncut area. 

Butter and Eggs () in full bloom with bright yellow flowers.

Canadian Thistle ( Cirsium Arvense) is in full bloom…though not very common in this area of the path

Pokeweed (. ) Has developed bright red stems and set its fruit. All of the fruit however remain green at this period in late summer.  

Mugwort has grown to its likely maximum height by this point n summer, and has set its terminal green colored flower panicles. None are opened or mature at this date.   

Black Cherry Trees ( ) show the first signs of leaf color changes some trees have as much as 10% (estimated visually) of their leaves in bright yellow color.

Catalpa Tree ( ) has a good crop of elongate brown-colored fruit or seed pods. 

Tree of Heaven (Alianthus  ) resplendent with big masses of yellow to brownish colored seed bundles.

(I did record a big flock of Starlings—well over on hundred birds…and as well a murder of crows.)  

COYOTE ON OUR ISLAND?

My first sight of a coyote (Canis latrans) was on Route 66  in Mohave County, Arizona near what may have been the tiny town of Crozier, Arizona. I was a youngster on a family trip heading to LA.   Dad insisted we travel at night on this stretch of “66” to avoid the intense heat of the Mojave Desert. 

In those days of rare automobile air conditioning (at least on our 1950 Plymouth) to keep cool, everyone drove with the car windows rolled down, and the little “fly window” cocked to catch the flowing air. I sat in the front passenger seat staring out the window at the night-time desert scenery.  To keep the automobile engine cool in the desert cautious drivers often hung a weepy-wet canvas bag of water from the hood mascot. The bag dangled in front of  the radiator grill.   Water evaporating from the bag tended to cool the dry desert air, helping to moderate the temperature of the auto’s radiator water. In the dry desert air the water bag was always cool to the touch. When the car was moving the bag was even cooler. And on a hot Mojave desert day if you had an unfortunate “boil over”—after the immediate engine shut down (and passing of some time to cool the engine down) the bag held the cool water needed to replace that which was lost in the boil over.  

Dad was driving and I was the only wide-awake passenger.  I was a boy with unlimited curiosity.  Gazing out of the opened window I watched as we zipped past the few darkened, lonely buildings that constituted the town of Crozier.  Just outside town the two lane “66” made a sharp turn to the south, as Dad turned the wheel the old Plymouth’s yellowish headlight beams slowly panned across a rocky headland directly in front of us.  I watched as two wide circles illuminated the rocky cliff and the sparse, prickly, desert vegetation. As they panned across the jumbled rocks, I saw a shadowy figure standing on at the edge of an outcrop. It was a thin, scraggly dog-like creature, with a pointed snout and bushy tail. It  seemed be to scanning the nighttime desert landscape below the rocky headland. 

“Dad,Dad,” I called out excitedly. “I think that was a coyote..right there on that cliff.”

My father was a practical man…”Coyote?  I didn’t see anything.” 

“On that cliff…the lights passed right over it.”

“Naw…those jumbled rocks might look like anything.  Anyway what would it be doing out here in this heat and empty desert?” 

But, I was certain of what it was.  The image of that coyote was to remain in my memory permanently.  

Many years had to pass before I would see anything of that species of canid again.  

As a young university lecturer in Geology 101, I had my SUNY students out on a class field trip. There on an East End, rock rock strewn deserted  beach I saw the same scraggly dog like critter, with pointed ears, sharp snout, and brushy tail fliting among piles of the glacially deposited erratic boulders my students were there to identify. 

Inquiries among the locals about this sighting revealed that others had reported seeing this canid, scavaging along the beach strand line.   Some claimed it had ice-rafted across the Sound from Connecticut and others that it was a coydog that belonged to a local resident. Further visits to the site revealed no tracks scat or other observations. I

In the Green Mountains of Vermont coyotes are relatively common, but rarely seen. The evidence of their secretive presence is however, much more visible: their nighttime howling calls, fur and bone filled scat,  regularly left as territory markers on roads and foot trails, depredations on wildlife, and the killing of an occasional farm animal are enough to positively document their presence. In the “Greens” I often saw these evidences of coyotes on the unsurfaced road in front of my house, but had never seen the elusive animal itself. 

Once, on a mid-winter snowshoe-hiking trip in northern Vermont, our group came upon a  winter “deer yard” —an area of packed-down snow where deer congregated.  This one was located under a huge wind fall cedar tree surrounded by deep, two-foot snow cover.  The yard’s packed down snow was full of deer tracks, droppings and evidence of browsing on the fallen cedar which partly covered the “yard”.  But here too, there were signs of coyotes in the snow.  Their more oval or elongate dog-like tracks, and the blood stained snow, patches of hair and deer pelt, where all clear evidences of a coyote pack which found several deer “yarded up”, and attacked and killed a whitetail. 

So today’s sighting of a deer scat..on the Brookhaven Rail Path, between Miller Place Road and Wedgewood Lane is for me—a cardinal date to remember. The scat, gray and dry and about 2 -2.5 cm in diameter and 3 cm long, was deposited on one side of the asphalt path.  Visual observation revealed that it was comprised of animal fur, of small animals perhaps mole, deer mouse, rabbit. There were no large pieces of bone visible to the naked eye. The scat was almost certainly that of a coyote.

Shall we tie up our small pets? Feel anxiety for the many Wild Turkey poults we see so commonly these days? What about the deer herd?

Well perhaps not yet!  Is this the scat of a young coyote migrating through the area or is it that of ann adult resident attempting to mark out its territory. 

I’ll be on the look out for more signs of scat markings.  So far there have been no additional droppings.

 

 

GEOLOGY AND HAWAIIAN PETROGLYPHS—-INTERESTING STORY!

 INTERPLAY OF GEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY ON HAWAII 

In 2016 a treasure trove of ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs carved into solid rock emerged from the sand on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian chain ( See “Centuries old Hawaiian Petroglyphs Emerge….”, by S. Kuta, in: Smithsonian Magazine August 1, 2025). 

 

Oahu is the “fourth” island north of the “big island” or Hawaii, in the archipelago of that name. Hawaii archipelago (or the state of Hawaii) is comprised six major islands. It was on Oahu in 2016 that  a tourist visiting the western shore of the island near Waianae Beach, Pokai Bay,  and the Pilila’au Army Recreation Center noticed a series partly exposed petroglyphs carved into what is the island’s underlying hard volcanic rock (probably extrusive igneous rock: basalt). The timing of the visit, after a relatively strong storm, was fortunate since the unusually powerful storm waves had washed away beach sand which had previously covered the feature. 

It is theorized that perhaps 500 or more years ago the indigenous Polynesian peoples of Hawaii who settled on the islands about 1000 AD must have carved the geometric patterns, and stick figures of humans into the ancient volcanic basalt flows of the island of Oahu. After the 2016 discovery and report the carvings were soon recovered by beach sand and have remained lost since then. Only to reappear again in 2025 as a result of larger than usual storm waves.  

Ocean waves can both deposit  and erode beach sand.  There is a seasonality to beach dynamics and processes. Powerful waves (often generated in the winter months) erode beach sand and tend to carry it offshore where it is deposited as features called “sand bars” which grow larger and higher during these periods.  Seasonal changes, smaller lower summer waves, alter the energy of the waves and these weaker less erosive  waves tend to erode sand from the bars off-shore and redeposit deposit them onto the beach. Waianae Beach was affected by these processes.      

The entire carved stone panel (according to Smithsonian Magazine 2025) is about 115 feet long, and eight feet wide. It includes 26 distinct petroglyphs, 18 of which are human figures (some which include hands and fingers).  Some figures cover the full width of the panel.  Native Hawaiians suggest that the panel may symbolize the rising and setting of the sun. The location where the glyphs occur, on the western shore of the island, would have provided ancient observers (as well as those today) with an excellent view of the setting sun.    

What is left out about this interesting story is the question of why has this 500 year old panel of carved glyphs appeared only now? Its location on a beach seems an unlikely place for such a feature which no doubt its creators wished for it to be seen and perhaps venerated. 

 It is unlikely that the ancients would have waited for storm waves to expose the formerly covered rock to give them opportunity to laboriously carve patterns into hard stone.  The suggestion that global warming is the cause of rising sea levels of course is on the tips of everyone’s tongue..but this story is more interesting than the old, rising sea level as a result of global warming —now becoming a shibboleth. Though sea level is rising as a result of global warming—it is not the most interesting part of this Hawaii exposition

Except for the big island of Hawaii, all the other islands of the archipelago are all sinking. 

The reason for this that the massive plume of magma which had been rising from the deep earth within the mantle for millions of years pushes up the sea floor or “swells” the sea floor upward ( this is termed “hotspot uplift”). The flow of this hot dense material upward causing the so-called “Hawaiian Swell” to rise almost a mile (actually 0.9 miles or 1.5 km) upward. The swelling occurs over an 800 mile wide elongate area which  trends to the NW and which extends about (2,700 km) @1,700 miles in that direction. The Hawaiian chain of islands form over the hotspot, rise upward over the Hawaiian Swell,  then continue on their northwesterly course as they sink back down eventually sinking to below sea level becoming under water sea mounts rather than above sea level islands.   

The hot magma reaching the Earth’s crust exits as fluid lava, spreads to form volcanoes such as Mona Loa and Mona Kea on Hawaii.  Mona Kea rises on the big island of Hawaii to almost 14,000 feet above sea level. But from its actual base on the ocean floor Mona Kea rises to @33,500 feet. If the sea were to evaporate Mona Kea would stand as a massive shield-cone volcano higher than Mt Everest at 29,000 ft. 

This swelling of the Earth crust as it rides over the Hawaiian magma hot spot plume produces the volcanic flows which formed the Hawaiian islands.  But, while the magma plume is stationary— the Earth’s crust is not. The crust is moving in a generally northwest (actually more NNW) direction at a rate of about 9.7cm per year toward the Aleutian Islands.  

As the crust rides over the Hawaiian Swell it rises up almost a mile (see above) and then slowly sinks down to its original level over a distance of about 1,700 miles.

Since Oahu is about 200 miles from the high point of the Swell below Hawaii (Big Island) or @ 200/1700 or about 12% of the distance away from the maximum 1 mile uplift. Oahu is sinking and was much higher above sea level than it is now. The petroglyph site must have been located on the slope of a hill overlooking the sea…not at sea level when it was created.   

Modern measurements indicate Oahu is sinking at a rate of about an inch a year (2.54 cm/yr)  in some places. Over 500 years it may have subsided about 500 inches, (or 500/12=42) or about  42 feet! 

If it was indeed 500 years ago that the glyphs were carved,  based on the rate of known subsidence and movement of the crust, Oahu’s sea level has risen considerably over the half a millennium the glyphs are claimed to be in existence. 

Based on the slope of the sea bottom (unknown at this writing) at Pokai Bay beach such a change would engender very significant alterations in environment and in terrane. An earlier Oahu’s sea shore and high tide line was much father off shore.  As subsidence occurred rising surf and storm surges could have eroded headlands to produce large amounts of sand and weathered rock. These would be transported by long shore currents and would tend to cover the glyphs that were in more recent times close to sea level.  

The ancient Hawaiians who created these features were acting nor on a surface of rock that was alternately covered and exposed by wave action, not on a sandy beach, but on high ground well inland.  It is the fact that the island of Oahu is subsiding, and sea waves are encroaching on land which was in the past well above sea level.

The Oahu Petroglyphs are an interesting case in which geology and archaeology interact. 

AUGUST’S INTIMATIONS OF CHANGE—IN THE OUTDOOR WORLD

 Its only early August (8-6-2025) but signs of seasonal changes are occurring in the outdoor world. Most of our trees have reached full foliage. Wild fruit trees have set their fruit—all still green. Tangled tendrils of Fox Grape have hanging bunches of green grapes. Browsing deer have consumed the low hanging ones, but others remain intact above deer browse height.

The night cacophony of crickets and katydids has begun in earnest. And I observed the first fallen acorns. Then too the top branches of our White Pines are loaded with elongate pine cones. Gray squirrels are active up there..peeling the cones like we might eat an artichoke (oh well, some of us might). 

Then too in the insect world…our new invasive species the Spotted Lantern Fly…has been seen only as as jumping colorful, red and black sotted immature instars all summer…but now..I have observed very few of these and many more larger spotted winged adults. So now is the time to begin looking for SLF egg masses to “neutralize”.  

  

And especially indicative of change: on my daily walk today, I came across two young buck deer both with velvety eight point racks. These two “boys” had very attractive symmetrical full grown antlers. Then to top that, on the way home I had to stop to let two more eight pointers cross the wooded road ahead. Deer respond to physical clues related to the intensity and duration of daylight. (Something we are insulated from in our air conditioned and light control homes and business venues.) It is a sure sign of a changing season— when the “rut” comes on. Generally the pre-rut season—starts in late October (in the northeast).but…bucks converging and snooping around during day light hours are very suggestive of inevitable and welcomed changes to come.  So we must take notice. 

We welcome the changing seasons…it stimulates our brains and bodies.

ON SYNERGY, URBANIZATION, TREES AND GLOBAL WARMING

 

Recent Global-Rural Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) data reveals that about 3% of the world’s  surface is “urbanized” (although the actual definition of  “urban” as well as “rural” is questioned and argued over). Most of the nearly 9 billion humans who reside on this planet live in these urbanized areas.  Recent data indicates that the figure today is about 56%live in “urbanized” regions and that by 2050 the urban population is expected to grow to as much as 75%. 

One has only to look at images of the Earth available on Google Earth to see the sprawling, coalescing urban desolation spreading across our planet.  But there is no disagreement about the fact that it is in these “urbanized” areas where most of the world’s population resides and which are responsible for 3/4 of the global warming that we are experiencing.

Sitting in front of a window on a sunny but cold winter’s day, the sun’s rays pass through glass almost unaltered. Placing your hand on the glass one can feel it remains cool. But that same radiant energy that does not heat the glass strikes your face or hands and warms them. Like a pane of window glass the atmosphere does not heat as solar radiation passes through it.  But—like your face or hands— it does heat the Earth surface it strikes. It is the warmed earth surface that heats the gases above it. 

Some of those earth surfaces absorb and reradiate solar radiation better than others.  Dry, barren earth and rock, beach sand, and black asphalt are all powerful absorber and “re-radiators” of solar heat, as is concrete, steel, most metals, roofing materials, etcetera, all are in this category.  Recall how on a hot summer day, you can not walk barefoot across an asphalt coated parking lot…or even on the hot sand of a beach. These materials have absorbed solar radiation. 

These areas heat up and then release that heat as “earth radiation” which passes upward through the air. This earth radiation is the energy that is absorbed by certain “heat trapping” gases in the atmosphere to warm it.

Some of the natural “heat trap” gases are better than others in absorbing  earth radiation…these are the so-called “greenhouse” gases: nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor (H2O).  (Other pollutant gases polyflourinated compounds used as refrigerants in air conditioners may be many times more effective)

Both carbon dioxide and water vapor are natural common constituents in the air. Nitrous oxide is a product of combustion, production of chemical fertilizers and agriculture, as well as bacterial decay. Methane is produced by decay of landfill wastes, wetlands, rice fields, animal wastes, fossil fuel extraction (i.e. natural gas).

So it is clear that urban areas constructed of materials such as concrete, asphalt and metal are much better absorbers of heat. They absorb solar heat and the radiate it away. They are most effective in heating the atmosphere. Urban areas are hotter than rural areas!

But there is another reason too. Trees!  And their demise in our landscape!  

My grandfather’s farmstead had a tin roofed car port—open on all sides. On a summer day the car port was just as shady below this roof, as it was under the near-by eighty-year-old Mulberry tree. The temperature difference between the two shady areas was enormous. No one would dream of sitting in the shade of the car port on a hot day. But the deep cool shade of the old Mulberry tree beckoned us all. I was curious about the reason for this discrepancy.  Grandpa when asked, explained that the tin roof absorbed heat and the tree didn’t.  

I tested that explanation out. On the next sunny day I conducted an experiment. Standing on a chair, I was just about tall enough to touch the metal of the tin roof. — it was very hot!  Hot enough to burn my fingers and (I guessed)  to cook eggs on too. But the green Mulberry tree leaves—exposed to the exact same sun intensity were cool to the touch.  That summer observation remained a puzzle to me—well until my last year in High School. Finally, in Mr. Snow’s biology class I finally learned that Grandpa’s explanation was correct—but incomplete. 

In Dr Snow’s class, I learned about photosynthesis and that green plants use the energy of sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide gas into sugars. The carbon bonds of the these carbohydrates require energy sources to form and then store that energy—converting H2O and CO2 to carbohydrates so that energy which heated up the surface of the tin roof was used to create substances like sugar, starches and cellulose in the green plants where that energy was stored. (Years later, Grandpa had to cut that Mulberry down and cut it into firewood..The energy that was stored in the wood all those hot summers was released as heat and radiant energy in the old cast iron fireplace in Grandpa’s big kitchen).

The tree leaves remain cool for that reason—they are storing solar energy, not as heat, but as cool chemical bonds. Trees absorb solar radiation and store it. Some explain this by claiming that trees and forests are “heat sinks” were solar radiation is stored as leaves, and wood.

As a consequence forests and wooded areas are generally cooler than urban areas. Urban areas are comprised of substances such as asphalt, concrete, metal, glass, plastic and other man-made substances that simply absorb heat and then reradiate that back out into the surrounding air.

A large portion of global warming is the result of greenhouse gas emissions. But a good part of the problem has to come from the fact that we are creating a synergistic effect by cutting down forests as we expand urban areas.  The sum of our denuding the earth of forests and expanding urban areas are greater than their individual effects. Forests absorb and save the carbon, they also keep the Earth cooler so there is less earth radiation to be trapped by green house gases. 

There is more to this story…..but this is a start. Think about saving that beautiful tree…