The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1898-12-29
FORTUNE ON WRECKS.
HINMAN'S DEATH RECALLS OLD
TRAFFIC.
Father and Uncle In It-They Purchase
Textile Goods Recovered by Wreckers
ON the South Shore of Long Island
and Grow Wealthy. .

In speaking of the death recently
Journal says:
When he was born, forty.six years
ago, Brooklyn was little more than a
struggling and struggling settlement.
The water needed for household pur-
poses all came from wells: what are
now high-priced residential and bust
mess thoroughfares were then cow
paths or neglected wastes, and the site
of the Long Island railroad station at
Flatbush and Atlantic was so
far out of town that only few people
went there except OF mastering day.
when the local militia were put
through an exhibition drill there. That
very place is now considered too far
down town for an .armory site, and
the old armory Of the Thirteenth regl-
ment stands there vacant and neglect
ed. His father, also q William Hin
man, was born in the country pace
where his oldest o Is to be buried. A
country village was too small for him
and he settled in Brooklyn about sixty
years ago.. With his brother he start
ed in a unique business which made
them both wealthy in a comparatively
few years, and when. at about the
breaking out of the civil war. each
found himself the possessor Of what in
those times was considered a burden
some amount of wealth, they retired
from active work, although each was
in the suntime of life. Almost all or
the silk, cotton and wooden fabrics used
in this country then were imported
from Europe in sailing vessels, the
number Of steamships t%raficking tbs
Atlantic being inconsiderable. The
sparsely settled south side Of Long Is
land had among its denizens many dss-
perately bad and bold men, whose CHEF
source of monetary supply was the
profits which came from saving thu
cargoes of incoming vessels wrecked
on the beach. Life saving crews were
unknown in those days; pilots were
few in number, and an exhausted and
half-frozen crew approaching the coast
in a binding snow storm or On an un-
usually dark night would hail as a
friendly beacon a light which had been
set aflame to lure them to shipwreck.
Wrecks were numerous between the
Shinnecock Hills and Rockaway Inlet,
and the prizes cast up by the sea were
varied and valuable. From these The
elder Humans selected carefully and
purchased those which women would
buy. Dress goods, linens, cottons, fan
nels, napkins, table cloths, bed cover
ings, bolts of cloth-anything, in fact,
in the line of textiles were what they
readily bought. With the men who &C
quired this stuff they had no relations
except as buyers and sellers, and their
interests terminated with each trans
action. AS the city grew their trade
| grew with it, and they removed their
business place to Fulton and Sands
streets, where the Bridge plaza is now.
When the demand exceeded the sup
ply Of salable goods from wrecked YES
sells recourse was had to articles which
had been damaged by a fire in a store.
Such a business now would probably
not prosper. 1t was originated by the
Humans, so far as relates to Brooklyn,
and when they retired there was no
n to continue it. Love of the free
dom of country life was a strong char
acteristic of the senior William Hin
man, and he established his home in
the old-fashioned mansion on the west
| side of Vanderbilt venue