author
Gabriel Furman
1800–1854
A Brooklyn lawyer and public figure with a historian’s eye, he is best remembered for preserving early local history in one of the earliest book-length studies of Brooklyn. His writing offers a rare window into Long Island and New York life in the early 1800s.
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About the author
Born in Brooklyn on January 23, 1800, Gabriel Furman was an American lawyer, historian, and politician. He studied at Columbia Academy in Bergen Square as a teenager and later built a public career in New York while also developing a deep interest in the history of Brooklyn and Long Island.
He is especially known for Notes, Geographical and Historical, Relating to the Town of Brooklyn, on Long-Island, published in 1824. That work helped document the early character of Brooklyn at a time when the area was rapidly changing, and it remains the achievement most closely associated with his name.
Furman also served in public office, including as a New York state senator, and archival collections describe him as a careful observer of Brooklyn life through journals and papers he kept over many years. He died in Brooklyn on November 11, 1854.