The publication of the Williamsburgh "Times" was begun in 1848 by Aaron Smith and George C. Bennett. Bennett, who previously had been associated with Levi Darbee and Isaac A. Smith in printing the Williamsburgh "Morning Post,"[27] acquired control of the "Times," and made it a pronounced Whig organ. In 1859 an interest in the paper was secured by Bernard Peters, and under this favoring partnership the paper rapidly advanced in circulation and influence. Bernard Peters, who subsequently became sole proprietor of the paper, had made an important journalistic record at Hartford, Conn., and was already well known in Brooklyn as a Universalist clergyman, whose ringing Union sermons and addresses had aroused public interest during the war period. The later history of the "Times," under Peters' energetic editorship, has been one of consistent progress in public confidence. In politics the "Times" has been Republican, while its policy, to avoid any partisanship that might impair its value as a newspaper, has been strongly worked out with the notable business management of William C. Bryant. By the act of the Legislature passed in April, 1854, all that part of the county of Kings known as the cities of Brooklyn and Williamsburgh and the town of Bushwick, and bounded easterly by the town of Newtown, Queens County, south by the towns of New Lots, Flatbush, and New Utrecht, west by the town of New Utrecht and the Bay of New York, and north by the East River, was consolidated into one municipal corporation called the city of Brooklyn, and divided into eighteen wards, therein described, and into the eastern and western districts. A year later all local distinctions in relation to the eastern and western districts were abolished, except as to the Fire Department. George Hall, who had been first Mayor of Brooklyn upon its incorporation as a city, became the first Mayor of the consolidated cities of Brooklyn and Williamsburgh. In his inaugural address the Mayor said:--