George:

May I suggest that the "North First St., Williams Burgh, N. Y." reference in
your great grandfather's old journal is a street that still exists on what
residents of the Greenpoint and Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn call the
"Northside?"  Get a good street map of the five boroughs.

I suspect the "Greenwich St." location for Charter Bro.  Silver Works refers
to a still existing street on the West side of lower Manhattan.  It begins at
the intersection of Broadway and Vesey St., two blocks west of the southern
tip of City Hall Park.  The street runs north all the way into the Greenwich
Village section.  It ends at Ganesvoort St. (the vicinity of 12th St.).

Since both the Northside in Williamsburgh and the Greenwich Street area in
lower Manhattan were close to the docks of, respectively, the Hudson and East
Rivers, perhaps the crafts at which your great grandparents worked was
directly tied to the shipping trade then in high gear.  Could the Mantilling
mentioned in "my wife worked at Mantilling" not be a company name for the
place where she worked but instead be a reference to a type of lace work as
in "mantilla?"

There were no bridges connecting the city of Brooklyn and the city of New
York back in 1855.  So they would have gone by some kind of ferry service for
the daily commute.  At least a half-dozen ferries transported commuters every
five to two minutes between Brooklyn's Williamsburgh section and Manhattan''s
East Side in those days.

Thomas McCarthy
general secretary
New York Correction History Society
http://www.correctionhistory.org
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NYC Dept. of Correction
director of editorial/communication services
[log in to unmask]

212 266 1016 voice
212 266 1597 fax



In a message dated 11/18/99 5:11:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> Hello from a Newbie,
>      I just found an old journal that tells me our great grandfather went
> from England to New York in 1855.
>  It states that their "first home was in North First St., Williams Burgh, N.
> Y.  I worked at my trade in the firm of Charter Bro. Silver Works,
Greenwich
> St., New York, and my wife worked at Mantilling"
>       I would like to find any available information about this location,
and
> about the employers....   ... pictures, text , etc.    This is my first
> venture into the New York research area and so would appreciate clues from
> the old timers in this area.
>
>     Thanks,
>      George