Collection Highlights

Brooklyn Past and Present

Col. Joshua Sands, candidate for New York State Senator, March 10, 1791

Col. Joshua Sands stood for the post of New York State Senator in the 1791 election as a supporter of the strong central "Federalist" government of President George Washington and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Southern District, one of only four state senatorial districts of six senators each per the 1777 New York State Constitution, elected officers chosen by men with a freehold worth 100 English pounds sterling over and above indebtedness, that is, men who owned property. Col. Sands, one of the Long Island Sands Point family, had served as a supplier to the army during the Revolutionary War.

He married Ann Ayscough (1761-1851) in 1777 and they purchased in 1784, with his brother Comfort Sands, about 160 acres of land that constituted much of downtown Brooklyn between the ferry landing, Concord Street , and the present-day Navy Yard, all of which was called " Olympia ." The estate had been owned by the Rapalje family and with other Loyalist properties was forfeited and sold off at the end of the Revolutionary War. Col. Joshua and Ann Sands built a grand house on the north side of Front Street , the gardens of which sloped down to the East River . The house is just visible in Francis Guy's 1817-1819 paintings, and half of the house was still standing as late as 1940.

Shown: 1940 photo of the first floor hallway; a 1923 photo showing the surviving half of the house at 31 Front Street on the north side of Front, just east of Dock Street.

Col. Sands won the election in which fewer than 500 votes were cast, and served in the State Senate from 1792 through 1799. He also received from President John Adams the appointment of collector of the Port of New York in 1797, a critical post in an important port city, since the new nation's sole income derived from customs duties. Col. Sands afterward served one term in the U.S. Congress, 1803-1805, and a second term, 1825-1827. He also served as President of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Brooklyn in 1824, and he and his fellow Federalists named the early village streets after the Federalist leaders: Washington, (John) Adams, and (John) Jay.

1940 photo of the exterior

Col. Sands and his wife were founders of St. Ann 's Episcopal Church and Ann Sands was the impetus behind the first school for "poor" girls, the " Loisian School ," which became part of the first district or common school in 1817. She is credited as a principal founder of the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum, which endured until 2004. She lived to her 91 st year, and both are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery . Their son, Admiral Joshua Rattoon Sands (1795-1883), served in the US Navy with distinction and participated in the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable in 1857.

Col Joshua Sands (1757-1835), undated, artist unknown.

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