Assessing an 1848 Clairvoyant's Predictions for Brooklyn's Future

On November 21, 1848, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran an article titled “An Evening with a Clairvoyant '' in which an unnamed woman mesmerically read from a book written 102 years into the future. The topic: “the history of the city of Brooklyn, writen [sic] in the year of our Lord 1950.” The clairvoyant made a number of fascinating (and, shall I say, anti-Manhattan) predictions about the future of Brooklyn, a future that is now seventy-three years behind us. Imbued with the clarity of hindsight (an admittedly unfair upper hand), we can assess the accuracy of these predictions and imagine an alternate future for Brooklyn and its northern island neighbor. 

I’ve broken the article into 6 sections, or 6 predictions, to better dig into the many details, but the full article can be read here. Before we begin, let me set the scene of 1848 Brooklyn: When discussing “New York,” the clairvoyant means either Manhattan or the state. The City of Brooklyn was independent from the City of New York and would remain so for another 50 years, unconnected by the Brooklyn Bridge for an additional 35 years. Brooklyn contained, roughly, what is now Brooklyn Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, and Park Slope, and was more a part of Long Island than Manhattan. 

In 1848, famed abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher was a new pastor at Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church, and poet Walt Whitman was a young editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper. As electricity began illuminating Brooklyn for the first time, the Fox sisters rapped modern Spiritualism into existence in Upstate New York, igniting interest in things-beyond-the-vale throughout the state. It seems our clairvoyant was one of many early adopters of this interest. Her Brooklyn was still in its urban adolescence, but the Brooklyn she envisioned had matured into an “incredible,” dominating metropolis. 1950 was as far from her as 2125 is from us. What could she possibly predict? And was any of it accurate?

Prediction #1: The Largest City in the World

Fallen into her trance, the clairvoyant read from “a large book, superbly bound,” existing only in her visions. In a voice “clear and distinct,” she declared Brooklyn of 1950 to be “the largest city in the world.” 

 

Assessment #1:

By 1850 (and most likely in 1848), London was the Largest City in the World with a population nearing 2,651,000. Manhattan’s population was merely 515,547, while the City of Brooklyn contained just 96,838 people (or 162,244 including the independent towns of Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, New Utrecht, and Williamsburg(h), as we do today). Could Brooklyn possibly catch up over the next century? Thanks to immigration, urban expansion, industrialization, and the 1898 consolidation of the five boroughs, the answer is yes. 1950’s City of New York had the world’s largest population of about 7,891,957, followed closely by London and Tokyo. But could Brooklyn have done it as an independent city? Between 1840 and 1845, Brooklyn's population nearly doubled due to European immigration, and by 1860 it became the third largest city in the country. Brooklyn of 1950 was the highest populated borough with 2,738,175 inhabitants. On the world scale, a population of that size would have ranked it around . . . #20, falling somewhere around Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, and Cairo. While Brooklyn alone would not have qualified as the largest city in the world, it must be concluded that, thanks to consolidation, our clairvoyant was largely right about this prediction. Brooklyn was the most populous borough of the City of New York, which was the largest city in the world. A solid start.

Accuracy reading #1: 4 out of 5

Prediction #2: Manhattan, Suburbia, & Its Wards

Glossing over the clairvoyant’s mention of “a free government in England,” she makes the statement that the name “New York” would be forgotten by 1950, its memory having been lost when Brooklyn boomed and “swallowed it up.” Perhaps it was for her own protection that she predicted a future written by a third party (the envisioned book’s author). Manhattanites (of any era) might not appreciate her suburbanizing its status:  “Some of our octogenarians,” she declared, “can remember…having heard their early ancestors speak of New York, which they think was the name then applied to our extreme northern suburb…now constituting the 98th and 99th wards of this city” [emphasis mine]. So much for the center of the world. 

Assessment #2:

New York, of course, had not been forgotten by 1950. While Brooklyn did become the most populous borough, it did not swallow up its East River neighbor. If anything, the name New York grew more pervasive, both geographically (I am referring to the consolidation) and iconically, over the decades. That said, our clairvoyant correctly predicted a future in which Manhattan and Brooklyn merged into one city, as alluded to in her mention of the 98th and 99th wards of Brooklyn. Before NYC had city council districts, the unconsolidated boroughs were divided into a number of wards, a practice begun in 1686.  In our clairvoyant’s time, Manhattan was divided into about 19 wards, and Brooklyn into 11. While both boroughs continued to add wards as they grew, Brooklyn had only 32 wards at the time of its consolidation in 1898, while Manhattan had 24, bringing the grand total to 56 wards. It was around this time that wards, corrupted by such forces as Tammany Hall, were “rendered politically insignificant,” although they were not officially abolished until 1938. Our clairvoyant envisioned a Brooklyn that continued the division of wards and had embraced Manhattan Island as its 98th and 99th wards. By 1950, wards no longer existed, but the predicted consolidation was largely accurate, albeit in reverse. 

Accuracy reading #2: 2/5

Prediction #3: The State of Long Island

The final nail in the coffin of New York’s memory would be the dissolution of “the old state of New York” and the “organization of the state of Long Island.” This new state would include Manhattan, “Long Island, Staten Island, and the various other islands in Brooklyn bay and in the sound.” As for the rest of the old State of New York, “the territory lying north of Spiten Devil Creek” (Spuyten Duyvil Creek), being the Bronx and beyond, was to be renamed Mohawk during an era that embraced “the many euphonious and beautiful” local names of indigenous tribes. 

Assessment #3:

Due to Brooklyn’s expanding urbanization and its geographic connection to Long Island, the City of Brooklyn in the State of Long Island seems…not implausible from 1848’s vantage point. Of course, that future did not come to pass, not by 1950 nor today, nor has the memory of New York been erased.

While the clairvoyant’s support for retaining indigenous names was well-intentioned, she, like the founders of Brooklyn’s own Montauk Club, and those of Manhattan’s Algonquin and Iroquois hotels, selected a name for a tribe that lived elsewhere in the state (or beyond). The Mohawk Indians' lands are further north, straddling the New York - Canadian border. 

Accuracy reading #3: 0/5

Prediction #4: The Filthy Manufacturing Suburb

Here the clairvoyant takes us on a detailed journey through the Brooklyn Institute, to “the antiquarian room, No. 50, in the eighth story of the western wing of that time-honored edifice.” It was in this room that the author of the book from which she read found “some ancient magazines and old registers” containing the forthcoming information. Perhaps she wished to remind New Yorkers that these weren’t her predictions, she was merely the psychic messenger. The sources stated that mid-1800s Manhattan contained some 350,000 souls and had been “the chief commercial city of the country,” but little else was known about it after this time. By 1950, it existed merely as “a manufacturing suburb” of Brooklyn and as “a home for that class of our population which must live somewhere, and by which, cleanliness, morality, quietude and comfort, are greatly promoted in all the other parts of the city” [again, emphasis mine]! 

Assessment #4:

What a coincidence that this historian referenced sources contemporary to our clairvoyant! Manhattan’s population in 1840 was 312,710 and 515,547 in 1850, suggesting that her  numbers were a lightly educated guess based on a slight increase from the 1840 census. In 1848, the Brooklyn Institute was housed in the Brooklyn Lyceum at 182-184 Washington Street where, perhaps, one might find antiquarian room No. 50. However, by 1950 the Brooklyn Institute had evolved into the monolithic Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway, where it has lived since 1897. While the museum maintains a collection of antiquarian books, there is no eighth floor on which to find them. I will grant our clairvoyant that the museum remains “a time-honored edifice.” 

As for the filthy manufacturing suburb, 1950’s Manhattan’s morals and quietude could certainly be debated, but it was nonetheless a coveted real estate market and metropolitan hub of the world. In the 1840s, Brooklyn, rich in farmland and home of “America’s first suburb” (Brooklyn Heights), was ranked the fifth manufacturing center in the country and already had a long history of supplying Manhattan’s various needs. To our clairvoyant’s credit, Manhattan (specifically, the garment industry) was experiencing a manufacturing boom that perhaps inspired her prediction. Of course, no such role reversal or diminution of Manhattan would come to pass. 

Accuracy reading #4: 1/5 (A bit of credit for predicting the then-young Brooklyn Institute would withstand the test of time)

Prediction #5: New York’s Final Great Moment 

Ever focused on Manhattan’s decline, our clairvoyant predicted that the last great thing New York would do would be “the introduction of the Croton Water.” That is the Croton Aqueduct, which officially began delivering water from Westchester to Manhattan on July 4th, 1842. She declared that Brooklynites of 1950 would be appalled to know that their 19th-century predecessors had drunk from this water, originating from “swamps and stagnant pools” and filled with all the “refuse of tanneries, dye houses, and farmers yards.” New York’s final achievement was, by our clairvoyant’s account, disgusting, though it was still “far preferable” to Manhattan’s own water. By 1950, she predicted that the Croton Aqueduct water would be used only for “manufacturing purposes, and for washing streets,” as “fine spring water” would be available to the City of Brooklyn via the reservoir on Prospect Hill, considered “the chief pride of the city.” 

Assessment #5:

While there was certainly hullabaloo around the opening of the Croton Aqueduct, it was not Manhattan’s last great achievement. Fortunately, for the sake of the clairvoyant’s profession, none of her followers would know how inaccurate this prediction would prove to be. In 1950, the Croton Aqueduct continued to operate as one of Manhattan’s major water sources. The reservoir on Prospect Hill opened in 1858 as the Mount Prospect Reservoir, along with the Ridgewood Reservoir, both of which supplied Brooklynites with drinking water. However, following the consolidation of NYC in 1898, Brooklyn joined Manhattan’s water systems and linked up to the Croton Aqueduct. In 1940, Mount Prospect’s superfluous reservoir was dismantled and the land would become home to Mount Prospect Park and the Central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. In short, nothing about this prediction proved true.

Accuracy reading #5: 0/5

Prediction #6: A Floating Thoroughfare 

For her final prediction, our clairvoyant took a break from stamping out Manhattan’s memory but remained focused on the topic of water supply: toward the end of the 1800s, “two huge dikes” would be thrown “across the East River, through each of which are laid iron pipes, passing under the docks, of sufficient caliber to supply the inhabitants of [Manhattan’s] two wards with pure and wholesome Brooklyn water” [emphasis hers]. Additionally, upon the backs of the dikes would be built “ware-houses and stores…two large thoroughfares between parts of the city previously separated by water.” 

Assessment #6:

While warehouses sprang up along Brooklyn’s northern shores throughout the 19th century, they never ventured into the river itself. 1950s Brooklyn knew no American Dock or floating thoroughfare, nor did it route its water to Manhattan. 

The East River would instead be straddled not by two dikes but by two bridges: the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 and the Manhattan Bridge in 1909. While they are not floating, Brooklyn Bridge’s ramps do contain stores (vaults) that once served as private wine cellars. Although the details are largely incorrect, our clairvoyant did predict a double crossing of the East River that would serve a dual purpose, including the storage of goods. Had the floating thoroughfare come to be, it is not hard to imagine their incorporation into Brooklyn Bridge Park’s transformation of the waterfront, perhaps as Instagramable floating restaurants. 

Accuracy reading #6: 1/5

Final Assessment

“Evincing symptoms of weariness,” our clairvoyant ended her reading with the promise to “read another leaf from the same history at some future evening.” Unfortunately, I have yet to discover a second reading.

While our clairvoyant’s many predictions did not all come to pass (fortunately, for Manhattan’s sake), some very interesting details did prove true: New York became the largest city in the world, Brooklyn and Manhattan consolidated, the Brooklyn Institute / Brooklyn Museum endured the test of time, and the East River was spanned twice (with storage!). In the end, our clairvoyant’s average accuracy reading comes to. . . 30%. Not great, but admittedly the assessment system is not without flaws. 

Given our clairvoyant’s great hopes for Brooklyn (and her apparent antagonism for Manhattan), it seems that, if she saw the consolidation of the five boroughs at the stroke of midnight, 1898, she would not have been among the faction celebrating with fireworks. More likely, she would have attended Brooklyn’s wake with the likes of poet Will Carleton. Perhaps together, with many like-minded locals, they lamented the independence of the City of Brooklyn, anthropomorphized as “a maiden of sweetness,” as captured in Carleton’s poem, “The Passing of Brooklyn,” read aloud on New Year’s Eve. An excerpt:

…We are grieved that a maiden of sweetness,

Full of life’s vigor and joy and completeness,

With the rich charms of young womanhood laden,

We are aggrieved that this fair, comely maiden 

At midnight must die.

It was a dramatic reading, no doubt, but one can never be faulted too greatly for their Brooklyn pride. 

Predictions for the next 102 years are welcome in the comments below!