![]() On July 5, General Nathanael Greene called it "a post of vast importance" and, three days later, Col. In May, George Washington described it as "small but exceedingly strong". The cannons were to be fired over the tops of the fort's walls. On April 10, one thousand Continentals took possession of both points and began constructing Fort Defiance which mounted one three pounder cannon and four eighteen pounders. Among the works initiated were forts on Governor's Island and Red Hook, facing the bay. General Israel Putnam came to New York on April 4, 1776, to assess the state of its defenses and strengthen them. Maps from Sproule and Bernard Ratzer show that Red Hook was a low-lying area full of tidal mill ponds created by the Dutch. The two principal earthworks were about 150 feet (46 m) by 175 feet (53 m), and the tertiary one was about 75 feet (23 m) by 100 feet (30 m). The three redoubts covered an area about 400 feet (120 m) by 800 feet (240 m). The entire earthwork was about 1,600 feet (490 m) long and covered the entire island. The Sproule map shows that the Fort Defiance complex consisted of three redoubts on a small island connected by trenches, with an earthwork on the island's south side to defend against a landing. It is shown on a map called "a Map of the Environs of Brooklyn" drawn in 1780 by Loyalist engineer George S. American Revolution ĭuring the Battle of Brooklyn (also known as the Battle of Long Island), Fort Defiance was constructed on the hoek. Rapelye Street in Red Hook is named for Rapelje and his descendants, who lived in Brooklyn for centuries. ![]() A couple of decades after the birth of his daughter Sarah, Joris Jansen Rapelje removed to Brooklyn, where he was one of the Council of twelve men, and where he was soon joined by son-in-law Hans Hansen Bergen. She was born near Wallabout Bay, which later became the site of the New York (Brooklyn) Naval Shipyard. Rapelye Street in Red Hook commemorates the beginnings of one of New Amsterdam's earliest families, the Rapelje clan, descended from the first European child born in the new Dutch settlement in the New World, Sarah Rapelje. In 1657, Roode Hoek became part of the Town of Brooklyn. : 4 The actual hoek of Red Hook was a point on an island that stuck out into Upper New York Bay at today's Dikeman Street west of Ferris Street. In Dutch, Hoek means "point" or "corner," and not the English hook ( i.e., something curved or bent). The village was settled by Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam in 1636, and named Roode Hoek, after the red clay soil and the point of land projecting into the Upper New York Bay. The native Lenape referred to the region as Ihepetonga, meaning a high point of sandy soil. Holland-style factory building in Red Hook
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