The Indians called the region around Wallabout Bay, and Gowanus Mercychawick, meaning "the sandy place." When the Walloons came along, they began settling on the shores of the bay, which they called Waal-bogt, afterwards gradually changed to its present name of Wallabout. In 1646 the town was organized by Governor Kieft as Breuckelen, he appointing Jan Eversen Bout and Huyck Aertsen as "schepens" or superintendents to preserve the peace and regulate the community. During the Revolution the British prison-ships were moored in the Wallabout, and it is estimated that eleven thousand five hundred Americans, chiefly seamen, died upon them, the shores of the bay being full of dead men's bones, which the tides for many years washed out from the sand. In 1808 these bones were finally collected and put in a vault near the Navy Yard, which had been established on the bay. This is the chief naval station of the United States, covering about eighty-eight acres, including all the available space. There is attached a large naval hospital, while between the two is the immense Wallabout Market, covering forty-five acres, the largest in Brooklyn, its buildings being brick structures in the old Dutch style. Fulton Street is the chief highway of Brooklyn, beginning almost under the shadow of the great Bridge. It is a broad and attractive street, stretching six miles to the eastern edge of the city, and about one mile from the river it passes the various city buildings, including the Post-office, Court-house and Borough Hall, all handsome structures. In front of the Borough Hall is a fine statue of Brooklyn's most famous clergyman, Henry Ward Beecher. From Fulton Street radiate several of the highways leading into the fashionable residential quarter,--Brooklyn or Columbia Heights,--overlooking East River, where the tree-bordered streets are lined with costly and attractive dwellings. Here in Orange Street, in a very quiet spot, is Brooklyn's most noted edifice, a plain, wide, unornamented brick building, with the inscription, "Plymouth Church, 1849." Here preached for nearly forty years, until he died in 1887, Beecher, the great Puritan, whose family was so noted. His father, Lyman Beecher, like the son, fought slavery and intemperance in Boston, Litchfield and Cincinnati, and was an impressive pulpit orator. The old man was eccentric, however, and after being wrought up by the excitement of preaching, is said to have gone home and let himself down by playing on the fiddle and dancing a double-shuffle in the parlor. He had thirteen children, nearly all famous, and has been described as "the father of more brains than any other man in America." Four sons were clergymen and two daughters noted authoresses. Henry Ward, who ruled Brooklyn, and Harriet, who wrote _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, were among the great leaders of the anti-slavery movement.