Flushing, Queens, New York, USA

The Alley, Alley Creek, and the mill landscape

The Alley belongs in the Flushing place file as a working waterfront/creek settlement, not merely as a label in William Gurney’s apprenticeship context. Munsell’s 1882 Flushing history says a woolen mill was built at “the Alley” by John Bird, who operated it until the mill was destroyed by fire in 1850, causing a reported $10,000 loss and ending the place’s manufacturing interests.^[1]

The Little Neck Bay history report gives a broader landscape for the same place. Because Little Neck Bay and Alley Creek were navigable, the Alley supported small businesses: two mills, a tavern, a blacksmith and wheelwright, a general store, the first Flushing post office, and about a dozen homes. In 1826 Wyant Van Zandt built a causeway across the creek and salt marshes between Bayside and Douglaston and donated Zion Episcopal Church, which he had built, to local residents.^[2]

The two secondary accounts conflict on the woolen-mill fire. Munsell names John Bird and dates the fire to 1850; the Little Neck Bay report names John Baird and dates the loss of the Alley’s large industry to 1827, saying the woolen mill was later replaced by a grist mill. Keep both forms, Bird/Baird and 1850/1827, until a primary local record resolves the discrepancy.^[1:1][2:1]

The Little Neck Bay report also carries the Alley forward after the mill era. In 1858 William Buhrmann and his wife Mary Loweree bought the general store, which included the post office and an adjoining mill. The store could be reached by boat and by road, carried dry goods, grain, groceries, hardware, and small goods, and the Buhrmann Homestead stood on the west side of Alley Pond.^[2:2]