Editing Coney Island (section)

=== Early settlement ===
[[Giovanni da Verrazzano]] was the first European explorer to sight the island of Narrioch during his expeditions to the area in 1527 and 1529. He was subsequently followed by Henry Hudson.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|34}} [[Anthony Janszoon van Salee]] was the first New Netherland settler to acquire land adjacent to Coney Island, in 1639.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Digital Collections : Text : Patent of Anthony Jansen for 100 morgens of land on Long Island [NYSA_A1880-78_VGG_0061]|url=https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/51158|access-date=August 2, 2021|website=digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov}}</ref> The Native American population in the area dwindled as the Dutch settlement grew and the entire southern tier of present-day Brooklyn, from [[Gowanus Creek]] to Coney Island to [[Gerritsen Creek]], was purchased in 1645 from the Native Americans in exchange for goods.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Digital Collections : Text : Indian deed for a tract of land on Long Island [NYSA_A1880-78_VGG_0052]|url=https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/51149|access-date=July 28, 2021|website=digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov}}</ref> The goods were not recorded in the deed, but later accounts mention a gun, a blanket, and a kettle.<ref name=Pritchard2002/>{{Rp|page=106}}<ref>{{cite news|last=Douglass|first=Harvey|date=March 23, 1933|title=Coney Island Scenes Shift, Never Change|url=https://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/59998009/|work=Brooklyn Daily Eagle|via=Brooklyn Public Library; newspapers.com|access-date=March 23, 2016}}</ref>

In 1644, a colonist named Guysbert Op Dyck was given a [[land patent]] for 88 acres of land in what became the town of [[Gravesend, Brooklyn|Gravesend]], on the southwestern shore of Brooklyn.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Digital Collections : Text : Patent of Gysbert Op Dyck for the whole of Coney Island [NYSA_A1880-78_VGG_0095]|url=https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/51192|access-date=July 12, 2021|website=digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov}}</ref> The land patent included Conyne Island, an island just off the southwestern shore of the town of Gravesend, as well as Conyne Hook, a peninsula just east of the island. Both became part of Gravesend when its first town charter was granted a year later, in 1645.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|4}}<ref name="bde19360810">{{cite news|url=http://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/52628845/|title=Passed in Review|last=Currie|first=George|date=August 10, 1936|work=Brooklyn Daily Eagle|access-date=July 21, 2018|page=14|via=Brooklyn Public Library; newspapers.com}}</ref> East of Conyne Hook was the largest section of island called Gysbert's, Guysbert's, or Guisbert's Island (also called Johnson Island), containing most of the arable land and extending east through today's [[Brighton Beach]] and [[Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn|Manhattan Beach]].<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|34}}<ref name="Ierardi">{{cite book|last=Ierardi|first=Eric|title=Gravesend, the home of Coney Island|publisher=Arcadia|location=Charleston, S.C|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7385-2361-3|oclc=51632931|page=46}}</ref><ref name="heartofconeyisland1">{{cite web|url=http://www.heartofconeyisland.com/early-coney-island-history.html|title=Coney Island History – Early History|website=Heart of Coney Island}}</ref> This was officially the first official real estate transaction for the island.<ref name="bde19360810" />
Op Dyck never occupied his land, and in 1661 he sold it off to Dick De Wolf. The land's new owner banned Gravesend residents from using Guisbert's Island and built a salt-works on the land, provoking outrage among Gravesend livestock herders. New Amsterdam was transferred to the English in 1664, and four years later, the English Governor created a new charter for Gravesend that excluded Coney Island. Subsequently, Guisbert's Island was divided into plots meted out to several dozen settlers. However, in 1685, the island became part of Gravesend again as a result of a new charter with the Native Americans.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|36}}

[[File:Coney Island (Detail) Chart of the entrance of Hudson's River, from Sandy Hook to New York - with the banks, depths of water, sailing-marks, &ca (NYPL b14099970-1222740).png|thumb|center|600px|{{center|Detail of a 1776 nautical chart showing the collection of islands and shifting sand that eventually became present-day Coney Island}}]]

At the time of European settlement, the land that makes up the present-day Coney Island was divided across several separate islands. All of these islands were part of the [[outer barrier]] on the southern shore of Long Island, and their land areas and boundaries changed frequently.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|34}} Only the westernmost island was called Coney Island; it currently makes up part of [[Sea Gate, Brooklyn|Sea Gate]]. At the time, it was a 1.25-mile shifting [[Spit (landform)|sandspit]] with a detached island at its western end extending into Lower New York Bay.<ref name="hunter" /> In a 1679–1680 journal, [[Jasper Danckaerts]] and Peter Sluyter noted that "Conijnen Eylandt" was fully separated from the rest of Brooklyn. The explorers observed that "Nobody lives upon it, but it is used in winter for keeping cattle, horses, oxen, hogs and others."<ref name="hunter" /><ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|36}}

By the early 18th century, the town of Gravesend was periodically granting seven-year-long leases to freeholders, who would then have the exclusive use of Coney Hook and Coney Island. In 1734, a road to Coney Hook was laid out.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|37}} Thomas Stillwell, a prominent Gravesend resident who was the freeholder for Coney Island and Coney Hook at the time, proposed to build a ditch through Coney Hook so it would be easier for his cattle to graze. He convinced several friends in the nearby town of [[Jamaica, Queens|Jamaica]] to help him in this effort, telling them that the creation of such a ditch would allow them to ship goods from [[Jamaica Bay]] to [[New York Harbor]] without having to venture out into the ocean.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|37}} In 1750, the "Jamaica Ditch" was dug through Coney Hook from Brown's Creek in the west to Hubbard's Creek in the east.<ref name="autogenerated34">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x9YsAAAAYAAJ|title=A History of the Town of Gravesend, N.Y.|last1=Stockwell|first1=A.P.|last2=Stillwell|first2=W.H.|year=1884|access-date=July 21, 2018}}</ref>{{Rp|34}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/collection/filter/Jamaica-Ditch|title=Jamaica Ditch|website=Coney Island History Project|access-date=July 21, 2018}}</ref> The creation of the canal turned Coney Hook into a detached {{Convert|0.5|mi|km|-long|adj=mid}} island called Pine Island, so named due to the woods on it.<ref name="autogenerated34" />{{Rp|34}}

Each island was separated by an [[inlet]] that could only be crossed at low tide. By the end of the 18th century, the ongoing shifting of sand along the barrier islands had closed up the inlets to the point that residents began filling them in and joining them as one island. Development of Coney Island was slow until the 19th century due to land disputes, the [[American Revolutionary War]], and the [[War of 1812]].<ref name="heartofconeyisland1" /> Coney Island was so remote that [[Herman Melville]] wrote ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' on the island in 1849, and [[Henry Clay]] and [[Daniel Webster]] discussed the [[Missouri Compromise]] at the island the next year.<ref name="bn19570601" />