Boiler Installation in Williamsburg, NY

In 1638, the Dutch West India Company purchased the area’s land from the Lenape Native Americans who occupied the area. In 1661, the company chartered the Town of Boswijck, including land that would later become Williamsburg. After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664, the town’s name was anglicized to Bushwick. During colonial times, villagers called the area “Bushwick Shore”, a name that lasted for about 140 years. Bushwick Shore was cut off from the other villages in Bushwick by Bushwick Creek to the north and by Cripplebush, a region of thick, boggy shrub land that extended from Wallabout Creek in the south to Newtown Creek in the east. Bushwick residents called Bushwick Shore “the Strand”.

Farmers and gardeners from the other Bushwick villages sent their goods to Bushwick Shore to be ferried across the East River to Manhattan for sale via a market at present day Grand Street. Bushwick Shore’s favorable location close to New York City led to the creation of several farming developments. In 1802, real estate speculator Richard M. Woodhull acquired 13 acres (53,000 m²) near what would become Metropolitan Avenue, then North 2nd Street. He had Colonel Jonathan Williams, a U.S. Engineer, survey the property, and named it Williamsburgh (with an h at the end) in his honor. Originally a 13-acre (53,000 m²) development within Bushwick Shore, Williamsburg rapidly expanded during the first half of the nineteenth century and eventually seceded from Bushwick and formed its own independent city. Abraham J. Berry was the first mayor of the independent city of Williamsburgh; the “h” at the end of the name was dropped in 1855.

Williamsburg was incorporated as the Village of Williamsburgh within the Town of Bushwick on April 14, 1827. In two years, it had a fire company, a post office, and a population of over 1,000. The deep drafts along the East River encouraged industrialists, many from Germany, to build shipyards around Williamsburg. Raw material was shipped in, and finished products were sent out of factories straight to the docks. Several sugar barons built processing refineries, all of which are now gone, except the refinery of the now-defunct Domino Sugar (formerly Havemeyer & Elder). Other important industries included shipbuilding and brewing.