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About the Author
Russell Granger is the founder and CEO of Arch Digitals, a branding and marketing agency specializing in strategy and design for engaging customers online. He began focusing his research and archiving efforts on antebellum Brooklyn when family history pursuits led to the discovery of an association with Walt Whitman. Russell currently lives in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, just a few streets from several ancestral addresses from the 1830s.
The Fleet Mansion
The Fleet Mansion, north side of Fulton between Duffield and Gold, abt. 1850. Brooklyn Museum.
The Fleet name, still seen to mark various locations around the downtown and Fort Greene areas, is not maritime or waterfront related but an old Long Island family (thought to have been shortened from Fleetwood), a wealthy scion of which was one Samuel Fleet, who made a large fortune in the War of 1812 selling grain from his Huntington farm. He multiplied his capital in early Brooklyn real estate, and in 1819 built a stately homestead on Fulton between Duffield and Gold.