" The Hound " is a short story written by H. P. Lovecraft in September 1922 and published in the February 1924 issue of Weird Tales . It contains the first mention of Lovecraft's fictional text the Necronomicon .
109-399: The story opens with the unnamed narrator preparing to commit suicide. Lamenting his fate, he reflects upon the events which led him to this moment. The narrator and his friend, St. John, are a pair of loners who both have a deranged interest in robbing graves . They constantly defile crypts and often keep souvenirs of their nocturnal expeditions. Since they reside in the same house, they have
218-496: A Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990. The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago , Detroit , San Francisco , Washington, D.C. , Baltimore , Philadelphia , Boston , Cincinnati , and Seattle . Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around
327-567: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean . Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum. Brooklyn lies in
436-535: A 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of New Utrecht ). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886; the Towns of Flatbush , Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and
545-447: A Resurrectionist or grave robber to dig up a grave rather than to topple down iron or steel doors guarding the mausoleum. A flaw in the design of the mausoleum was the stained glass or other windows within. Almost every family between the 18th and 19th century had a religious affiliation. Many of these families (usually with a Christian affiliation) would put stained glass within the mausoleums. The grave robbers would then just have to smash
654-553: A broader pattern of colonial violence against Indigenous Australians, which included forced removal from their land, massacres, and the forced assimilation of Indigenous children into white Australian society. One of the most notorious examples of grave robbery in Australia is the case of the Tasmanian Aboriginals (see also: Black War ). After the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal woman died in 1876, her body
763-553: A busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th century. On January 1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during the 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated in and annexed (along with other areas) to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance to the new municipal charter of " Greater New York ". The borough continues to maintain some distinct culture . Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves . With Jews forming around
872-488: A functional role in protection against graverobbing. These feature strongly in French and British layouts. Typically these would be a semi-enclosed stone structure with an ornamental cast iron access gate and usually plainer rails to the roof or sides. Although the protective function of the vaults became redundant by 1840 most mid 19th century cemeteries continue to include vaults as a visual focal point in their layouts. This
981-458: A hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue , was reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!". The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor . While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as
1090-748: A longstanding cultural lineage include Canarsie , Sea Gate , and Crown Heights , home to the Chabad world headquarters. Neighborhoods with largely defunct yet historically notable Jewish populations include central Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, East New York, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay (particularly its Madison subsection). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. According to
1199-568: A major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War . The best-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils" . They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Abraham Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during
SECTION 10
#17327720753331308-401: A mysterious creature, which the narrator claims the amulet had brought unto him. He destroys the macabre museum he and his friend made before fleeing from the house and traveling to London. Still plagued by bizarre occurrences, he decides that he must return the amulet to its rightful owner. He travels to Holland, but the amulet is stolen from him before he can return it. The next day, he reads in
1417-493: A quarter of its population, the borough has been described as "the most Jewish spot on Earth". Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag , is Eendraght Maeckt Maght , which translates from early modern Dutch as ' Unity makes strength '. Educational institutions in Brooklyn include the City University of New York 's Brooklyn College , Medgar Evers College , and College of Technology . In
1526-520: A select number of days, the family would delegate this duty amongst them and close friends. As grave robbing became a lucrative business in the 19th century, a bribe would convince some guards to look the other way. In Scotland, construction of guard towers became common in the late 18th century, usually in a position overlooking most of the burial ground. Within the Great Pyramid of Giza (completed around 2560 BC), an Egyptian deterrent system
1635-540: A separate mayor, elected a Borough President . In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn's ties to the City of New York were strengthened. The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of Richmond and
1744-600: A shipment of 12 bodies of southern African Americans. "They came in barrels labeled [as containing] turpentine and were shipped to a local hardware store that dealt in painting materials". State laws in Mississippi and North Carolina were passed in the 19th century which allowed medical schools to use the remains of those at the bottom of society's hierarchy—the unclaimed bodies of poor persons and residents of almshouses , and those buried in potter's fields for anatomical study. The option to dissect Confederate soldiers
1853-402: A strong resemblance to this Lovecraft story, albeit transplanted to a modern Southern Gothic Louisiana setting. Grave robbing Grave robbery , tomb robbing , or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave , tomb or crypt to steal commodities . It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property . A related act is body snatching ,
1962-481: A term denoting the contested or unlawful taking of a body (usually from a grave), which can be extended to the unlawful taking of organs alone. Grave robbing has caused great difficulty to the studies of archaeology , art history , and history . Countless precious grave sites and tombs have been robbed before scholars were able to examine them. In any way, the archaeological context and the historical and anthropological information are destroyed: Looting obliterates
2071-509: A variation of the place name " Canarsie ". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands ; it was part of New Netherland . The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names): The colony's capital of New Amsterdam , across
2180-592: A variety of Jewish businesses. Adjacent to Borough Park, the Kensington area housed a significant population of Conservative Jews (under the aegis of such nationally prominent midcentury rabbis as Jacob Bosniak and Abraham Heller) when it was still considered to be a subsection of Flatbush; many of their defunct facilities have been repurposed to serve extensions of the Borough Park Hasidic community. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods with
2289-441: A water meter magnate and close friend of President Grover Cleveland ), with nearby Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in
SECTION 20
#17327720753332398-453: A year or two after burial. They are common throughout northern Europe. They usually predate any graverobbing periods and indeed serve no purpose in relation to graverobbing as they stored bones not bodies. Up to 31 recorded mort houses were scattered throughout Scotland and northern England. Usually these structures were built within or near cemeteries to make transportation easier. Prior to grave robbers, they were used to store dead bodies in
2507-453: Is "slavishly Poe-esque in style". But the story has its defenders; Steven J. Mariconda says it is "written in a zestful, almost baroque style which is very entertaining", while Peter Cannon , saying that it must have been written "with tongue at least partly in cheek", credits it with a certain "naive charm". The plot of the Poppy Z. Brite short story "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" bears
2616-677: Is also associated in Lovecraft's writings with Antarctica and his imaginary Dreamlands . Lovecraftian scholar Will Murray, pointing to the "semi-canine face" on the amulet as well as the "corpse-eating cult" of Leng, suggests that the titular creature of "The Hound" "probably represents an early form of the ghoul as Lovecraft would develop it." On September 16, 1922, Lovecraft toured the Flatbush Reformed Church in Brooklyn with his friend Rheinhart Kleiner, writing about
2725-566: Is derived from the original Dutch town of Breukelen . The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands is in a charter of 953 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I as Broecklede . This form is made up of the words broeck , meaning bog or marshland , and lede , meaning small (dug) water stream, specifically in peat areas. Breuckelen on the American continent was established in 1646, and the name first appeared in print in 1663. Over
2834-404: Is often a critical point within overall composition. One of the most simplistic and low-tech methods to prevent grave robbing were to have an individual guard over the newly buried body. This was done until decomposition of the body was brought to a point where they would no longer be desirable for medical use. If families did not have enough money to hire an individual to watch over the grave for
2943-490: Is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), as of 2022. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city, it would now be the fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago . Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens . It has several bridge and tunnel connections to
3052-507: Is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest by land area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area. Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip. Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay ;
3161-519: The Necronomicon . Lovecraft had mentioned its author a year earlier, in " The Nameless City ", but here for the first time named the book. Referring to an amulet found on a grave-robbing expedition, the narrator relates: The reference to "Leng" is one of the first mentions of Lovecraft's imaginary plateau, having only appeared before in 1920s " Celephais ". Here placed in Central Asia, Leng
3270-617: The Atlantic Ocean ; The Narrows , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ; Upper New York Bay , separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey ; and the East River , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ,
3379-617: The Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation. Sports in Brooklyn became a business. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field , beyond Prospect Park. Racetracks, amusement parks , and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach , Coney Island , and elsewhere in
The Hound - Misplaced Pages Continue
3488-682: The Brooklyn Bridge , the Manhattan Bridge , the Williamsburg Bridge , and numerous routes of the New York City Subway . To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. Under the Köppen climate classification , Brooklyn experiences
3597-481: The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as
3706-549: The Middle Colonies of nascent British America . On November 1, 1683, Kings County was partitioned from the West Riding of York Shire, containing the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island, as one of the "original twelve counties" . This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of a Brooklyn identity. Lacking
3815-646: The New Netherland colony in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War . New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the English renamed the new capture for their naval commander, James, Duke of York , brother of the then monarch King Charles II and future king himself as King James II . Brooklyn became a part of the West Riding of York Shire in the Province of New York , one of
3924-512: The State of New York . Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County , one of twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then Province of New York . As of the 2020 United States census , the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, the most populous county in the state. Brooklyn, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km ),
4033-451: The USDA plant hardiness zone 7b . Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish , then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming
4142-510: The automobile and commuter rail -driven vogue for more remote prewar suburban communities, such as Garden City, New York and Montclair, New Jersey . The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the City built centralized waterworks, including the Ridgewood Reservoir . The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865
4251-522: The patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley , this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slaves among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America . On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn') was fought,
4360-608: The 'h' from its name. By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper. It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842, and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846. On May 14, 1849,
4469-480: The 1820s. Mausolea do not play a major role in the history of graverobbing and are largely built as a display of wealth rather than security. Historically mausoleums have been used as a sign of a family's wealth and a symbol of gentry and nobility in many countries. In the mid and late 19th century in North America, more and more families began to buy mausoleums. The belief was that it would be easier for
The Hound - Misplaced Pages Continue
4578-842: The 1883 poem, " The New Colossus " by Emma Lazarus , which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty . The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival. During this period, the affluent, contiguous districts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (then characterized collectively as The Hill) were home to such notable figures as Astral Oil Works founder Charles Pratt and his children, including local civic leader Charles Millard Pratt ; Theosophical Society co-founder William Quan Judge ; and Pfizer co-founders Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart . Brooklyn Heights remained one of
4687-536: The 1980s, as the development and construction boom following the Chinese economic reform led to many archaeological sites being revealed. Other peaks of tomb robbing occurred in the early 2000s and in the 2010s, when the plunder of graves was on the upswing due to an increase in global and domestic demand (and prices) for Chinese antiquities. The provinces of Henan , Shaanxi , and Shanxi were particularly affected by tomb robbing. Ancient Egyptian tombs are one of
4796-536: The 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century. The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan , which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1816. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street . Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York . Town and Village were combined to form
4905-630: The 19th century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx ), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island , to form the modern City of New York. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape , an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in European documents by
5014-652: The 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek . USS Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War , trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement upon
5123-593: The American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs , a light infantry used for quick assaults. As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in
5232-570: The American Jewish Population Project in 2020, Brooklyn was home to over 480,000 Jews. In 2023, the UJA-Federation of New York estimated that Brooklyn is home to 462,000 Jews, a large decrease compared to the 561,000 estimated in 2011. The predominantly Jewish, Crown Heights (and later East Flatbush)-based Madison Democratic Club served as the borough's primary "clubhouse" political venue for decades until
5341-840: The Ancient World outside of Egypt. The Romans ( Byzantium ) also suffered decades of theft and destruction of tombs, crypts, and graves. In parts of Europe, graves are robbed on an accelerating and alarming scale. Many grave robbers work with metal detectors and some of the groups are organised criminals , feeding the black market with highly prized archaeological artifacts. Merovingian graves in France and Germany and Anglo-Saxon graves in England contain many metal grave goods, mostly of iron. Grave robbers often leave them, being only interested in gold and silver. Grave contexts, ceramics, iron weapons and skeletons are typically destroyed in
5450-524: The East River, obtained its charter in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill . It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman 's 1824 compilation. Present-day Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured
5559-459: The Heights, the less exclusive South Brooklyn was home to longtime civic leader James S. T. Stranahan , who became known (often derisively) as the " Baron Haussmann of Brooklyn" for championing Prospect Park and other public works. Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization , and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of
SECTION 50
#17327720753335668-819: The New York metropolitan area's most august patrician redoubts into the early 20th century under the aegis of such figures as abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , Congregationalist theologians Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight Hillis (who followed Beecher as the second and third pastors of Plymouth Church , respectively), financier John Jay Pierrepont (a grandson of founding Heights resident Hezekiah Pierrepont ), banker/art collector David Leavitt , educator/politician Seth Low , merchant/banker Horace Brigham Claflin , attorney William Cary Sanger (who served for two years as United States Assistant Secretary of War under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt ) and publisher Alfred Smith Barnes . Contiguous to
5777-490: The Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County. Low's time in office from 1882 to 1885 was marked by a number of reforms: Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until 1898, after which it was consolidated into the City of Greater New York , whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of
5886-521: The accessibility of the automobile (in the early 19th century), the transportation of bodies was difficult. An example of this is Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge Massachusetts. It was the first rural cemetery inside the United States. The rural location of the cemetery created transportation issues. In addition, the terrain of and around the area was formidable, as the designer, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn , wanted to leave
5995-410: The amulet at all costs. They remove it from the skeleton and flee into the night. As they do, they notice once again the continuous sound of a baying hound in the distance. After they return home to England, strange events begin to occur. Odd sounds can be heard within and around their house, including the distant howling they heard in the cemetery. One night, St. John is violently attacked and killed by
6104-559: The area, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful— Patriot intelligence network , headed by Washington himself. The British set up a system of prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay . More American patriots died there than in combat on all
6213-479: The area. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and originally it was a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers being the main Chinese population during the late 1980s and 1990s, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area dramatically shifted to majority Fuzhounese Americans , which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown, and bestowing the nicknames " Fuzhou Town ( 福州埠 ), Brooklyn" or
6322-1017: The ascendancy of Meade Esposito 's rival, Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in the 1960s and 1970s, playing an integral role in the rise of such figures as Speaker of the New York State Assembly Irwin Steingut ; his son, fellow Speaker Stanley Steingut ; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame ; real estate developer Fred Trump ; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum. Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope , with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout
6431-690: The battlefield engagements of the American Revolutionary War combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City , which was celebrated by New Yorkers into the 20th century. The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Fort Greene and Williamsburg) during
6540-431: The borough of Manhattan, across the East River , and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km ) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km ), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. Brooklyn was founded by the Dutch in the 17th century and grew into
6649-458: The casket, they see that several places on the skeletal remains appear torn and shattered, as if attacked by a wild animal, yet the whole of the skeleton is still completely distinguishable. At that moment, they notice a jade amulet hanging from the skeleton's neck. They examine it and, after some observation, they recognize the amulet as one mentioned in "the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." They immediately know they must have
SECTION 60
#17327720753336758-524: The commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs. The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or were cleared from
6867-409: The consent of Indigenous communities but were used to advance racist and pseudoscientific theories about their supposed inferiority. It was a common practice carried out by medical students who needed corpses for dissection and research. This practice continued until the late nineteenth century when laws were introduced to regulate the supply of cadavers for medical research. This was all part of
6976-417: The day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City. Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played
7085-518: The discovery of a previously unknown family cemetery by a new landowner. One notable historical incident occurred during the evening of November 7, 1876, when a group of counterfeiters attempted to steal Abraham Lincoln 's body from his grave in Springfield, Illinois , in an attempt to secure the release of their imprisoned leader, counterfeit engraver Benjamin Boyd. However, a Secret Service agent
7194-535: The earlier Central Park ) into the center of the county, as evinced by gradual settlement in the comparatively rustic villages of Windsor Terrace and Kensington in the Town of Flatbush. By century's end, Dean Alvord 's Prospect Park South development (adjacent to the village of Flatbush) would serve as the template for contemporaneous " Victorian Flatbush " micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park . Along with Oak Park, Illinois , it also presaged
7303-457: The early days of British colonisation, when Aboriginal burial sites were viewed merely as sites of scientific curiosity and anthropological study, and sought to collect and study their remains before they disappeared altogether. This belief was reflected in the work of anthropologists and scientists who travelled to Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to collect Aboriginal remains for study. These remains were not only taken without
7412-420: The fact that the body had been buried several centuries before, drives them to travel such long distances to reach the site. Upon reaching the old cemetery, they notice the distant baying of a giant hound . They ignore it and begin their excavation. After some time, they hit a solid object in the ground. Clearing the last of the dirt from it, the two men unearth a strange and elaborately-made casket. Upon opening
7521-467: The first decades of the 21st century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters , with concomitant gentrification , dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms , postmodern art , and design. The name Brooklyn
7630-575: The first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared , and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery , Prospect Park , and Grand Army Plaza . Washington , viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek and Old Stone House from atop
7739-412: The first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to
7848-399: The generations. Efforts to repatriate stolen Indigenous remains and protect Indigenous burial sites have been ongoing in Australia for many years. In recent years, there has been a growing movement to return stolen remains to their traditional owners for proper burial and commemoration. The geography and placement of burial grounds became a deterrent within itself. This is because without
7957-418: The glass to break in and to retrieve the body. Making it even easier, around the 1830s families began to fear burying family members. To remedy this, families would put a spare key somewhere within the mausoleum and create doors with two way locks. Grave robbers could break a window, recover the body, find the key, and walk straight out the front door of the mausoleum. Unlike mausolea, cemetery vaults did play
8066-574: The grave. These deterrents, used commonly in Scotland, would be rented from the sexton until the body decomposed and were used on a circulating basis. At the passage of the Dissections Act the purpose became redundant and they were left where last used, sometimes being incorporated into the grave marker by addition of inscription. A mort house, ossuaries or dead house was used to store bones (usually skulls and femurs) gleaned from graves
8175-526: The graveyard, succumbing to madness and despair. He states that he intends to kill himself with a revolver , believing death to be his only refuge from the crawling horror which grows within him. "The Hound" contains several references to the body of lore known as the Cthulhu Mythos that Lovecraft shared with other horror writers. Most notably, it marks the first appearance of one of Lovecraft's most famous literary creations—the forbidden book known as
8284-460: The heavy debt the story owes to Edgar Allan Poe , an influence acknowledged by several borrowed phrases: Though Lovecraft chose "The Hound" as one of the five stories he initially submitted to Weird Tales , his main professional outlet, he later dismissed it as "a dead dog" and "a piece of junk". Some critics have shared Lovecraft's deprecation; Lin Carter called it "a minor little tale" that
8393-399: The loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still elicits Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites. Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km ) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km )
8502-645: The majority end up in private collections. Grave robbing in China is a practice stretching back to antiquity; the classic Chinese text Lüshi Chunqiu , dating to the 2nd century BCE, advised readers to plan simple burials to discourage looting. The presence of jade burial suits and other valuables in tombs were powerful temptations to rob graves. In modern China, grave robbing has been perpetrated by both amateurs (such as farmers and migrant laborers) and by professional thieves associated with transnational criminal networks . The practice reached epidemic proportions in
8611-446: The memory of the ancient world and turns its highest artistic creations into decorations, adornments on a shelf, divorced from historical context and ultimately from all meaning. Grave robbers who are not caught usually sell relatively modern items anonymously and artifacts on the black market . Those intercepted, in a public justice domain, are inclined to deny their guilt. Though some artifacts may make their way to museums or scholars,
8720-612: The most common examples of tomb or grave robbery. Most of the tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings were robbed within one hundred years of their sealing (including the tomb of the famous King Tutankhamen , which was raided at least twice before it was discovered in 1922). As most of the artifacts in these ancient burial sites have been discovered, it is through the conditions of the tombs and presumed articles that are missing in which historians and archaeologists are able to determine whether
8829-410: The name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land". The current name, however, is the one that best reflects its meaning. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island , grew to be a sizeable city in
8938-470: The name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ; on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle . The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers , also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s:
9047-454: The nation. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below: Over 600,000 Jews , particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews , have become concentrated in such historically Jewish areas as Borough Park , Williamsburg , and Midwood , where there are many yeshivas , synagogues , and kosher restaurants, as well as
9156-1015: The natural terrain (including ponds and hills) within the cemetery. If someone wanted to rob a grave, they would have to maneuver around these obstacles and navigate large stretches of land in the dark. Note that Mount Auburn Cemetery is over 175 acres. Other cemeteries, of the time, that were originally built away from populated areas for similar reasons, include: Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor, Maine (1834); Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1836); Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton, Massachusetts (1836); Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York (1838); Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York (1838); and, Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland (1838). A mortsafe or mort safe
9265-410: The newspaper about a band of thieves savagely killed by an unknown creature. Slowly going insane, he returns to the churchyard and exhumes the coffin once more, only to find the skeleton within covered in caked blood and bits of flesh and hair, holding the lost amulet in its hand. Suddenly, the skeleton begins howling, the same howl that had tormented him since he first stole the amulet. The narrator flees
9374-433: The northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems. However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburg; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1855, subsequently dropping
9483-411: The opportunity to set up a sort of morbid museum in their basement. Using the objects collected from the various graves they have robbed, the two men organize a private exhibition. The collection consists of headstones, preserved bodies, skulls, and several heads in different phases of decomposition. It also includes statues, frightful paintings, and a locked portfolio bound in tanned human skin. One day,
9592-498: The paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of Major League Baseball in 1957. Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York, and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War . After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument
9701-511: The past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola , Broccke , Brocckede , Broiclede , Brocklandia , Broekclen , Broikelen , Breuckelen, and finally Breukelen . The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn , Breuckland , Brucklyn , Broucklyn , Brookland , Brockland , Brocklin , and Brookline/Brook-line . There have been so many variations of
9810-441: The poor were frequently the target of grave robbing. African Americans would often be compelled to bury their dead in a potter's field , not having the access or money for a proper funeral. When buried in potter's fields, the dead were not normally buried very deeply. A grave robber could wait discreetly in the distance until nobody else was in sight, then quickly and easily disinter the body from its shallow resting place. Once
9919-764: The process. In Eastern Europe , including Southeast Europe and the European part of Russia , grave robbers target all kinds of historically important graves, from prehistoric tombs to World War II graves. Modern grave robbing in North America also involves long-abandoned or forgotten private Antebellum Period to pre- Great Depression era grave sites. These sites are often desecrated by grave robbers in search of old and valuable jewellery. Affected sites are typically in rural, forested areas where once-prominent, wealthy landowners and their families were interred. The remote and often undocumented locations of defunct private cemeteries make them particularly susceptible to grave robbery. The practice may be encouraged by default upon
10028-467: The railroad was invented and tracks laid, the sale of the bodies of African American slaves from the South for dissection began in earnest. The bodies were robbed from graves by night doctors and shipped to medical schools in the northern part of the United States. One New England anatomy professor reported that, in the 1880s and 1890s, he entered into an arrangement in which he received, twice each semester,
10137-457: The repercussions of being in possession of stolen goods; the blame (and charges) were placed upon the lower-class grave robbers. Today's antiquities trade has become a streamlined industry, the speed at which these artifacts enter the market has grown exponentially. Laws to prevent grave robbing have been enacted in these regions, but due to extreme poverty, these grave robberies continue to grow each year. Enslaved and free blacks, immigrants, and
10246-638: The southern part of the county. Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley,
10355-537: The southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park , Bensonhurst , Gravesend , and Homecrest . Brooklyn is the borough that is home to the highest number of Chinatowns in New York City . The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which has become known for its Chinese culture since the opening of the now-defunct Winley Supermarket in 1986 spurred widespread settlement in
10464-556: The story is a tribute to the Decadent literary movement in general and in particular Joris-Karl Huysmans ' A rebours , an 1884 novel that Lovecraft greatly admired. (Huysmans is mentioned by name in the story, along with Baudelaire .) Like "The Hound"'s protagonists, victims of a "devastating ennui", the main character of A rebours suffers from an "overpowering tedium" that leads him to "imagine and then indulge in unnatural love-affairs and perverse pleasures." Mariconda also points to
10573-456: The tomb has been robbed. Egyptian pharaohs often kept records of the precious items in their tombs, so an inventory check is presumed for archaeologists. Oftentimes, warnings would be left by the Pharaohs in the tombs of calamities and curses that would be laid upon any who touched the treasure, or the bodies, which did little to deter grave robbers. There are many examples of grave robbing in
10682-450: The twentieth century, with some cases reported as recently as the 1970s. The theft and desecration of Aboriginal burial sites and remains has had profound and ongoing impacts on Indigenous communities in Australia. For many Indigenous Australians, the loss of their ancestors' remains has denied them the opportunity to mourn and grieve their loved ones. It has also perpetuated a legacy of trauma and dispossession that has been passed down through
10791-425: The two learn of a particular grave, which sparks a profound interest in them: an old grave in a Holland cemetery which holds a legendary tomb raider within, one who is said to have stolen, many years ago, a "potent thing from a mighty sepulchre." They travel to the old cemetery where the man was buried. The thought of exhuming the final resting place of a former grave robber is irresistibly appealing to them. That, and
10900-591: The visit in a letter: Lovecraft wrote "The Hound" shortly afterwards, using as the name of one of the main characters his nickname for his companion Kleinhart, "St. John". The grave that is fatefully robbed in the story is in a "terrible Holland churchyard"—perhaps a reference to Flatbush church being part of the Dutch Reformed Church (although the story is actually set in the Netherlands, as well as in England). Critic Steven J. Mariconda suggests that
11009-560: The western portion of Queens County , and the county of New York , which by then already included the Bronx , to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haswell Green and other progressives said yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898. Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but
11118-495: The winter, being that the ground was too cold and in some cases impossible to dig into. An example is the Udny Mort House built in 1832, Aberdeenshire, north-east Scotland and still standing today. The coffin collar was an iron collar often fixed to a piece of wood. It was fixed around the neck of a corpse and then bolted to the bottom of a coffin. Most common reports of these collars being used came from Scotland around
11227-421: The world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership . In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations. In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in
11336-533: Was also available, as Mississippi and North Carolina legally released those bodies to the families of the deceased. The North Carolina law also provided that the bodies of whites never be sent to an African American medical college (such as the Leonard Medical School ). These African American medical schools typically obtained unclaimed Black ‘‘potter’s field bodies’’. The practice of grave robbery against Aboriginal Australians can be traced back to
11445-415: Was an iron coffin or framework which helped to protect a grave by preventing the body from being dug up and taken away. Mortsafes were specific for the task of preventing bodies from being stolen for purposes of medical dissections. Other variants included movable stone slabs capable of being hoisted over the fresh grave. All work on the principle of greatly increasing the required time for criminals to access
11554-440: Was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist . A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza . The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1820 and 15,396 by 1830. The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on
11663-484: Was built to guard the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu . This system consists of blocks and grooves to protect the King's Chamber from tomb robbers. Some experts believe that Pharaoh Khufu's tomb has actually not been found because of the deterrent system; instead, what had been found by grave robbers were fake chambers. Brooklyn Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in
11772-581: Was exhumed and her skeleton sent to the Royal College of Surgeons in London for study. It was not until 1976, a century later, that her remains were finally returned to Australia for a proper burial. Probably the most prolific documented individual pillager of Indigenous burial sites was George Murray Black , who ransacked around 1,800 graves around Victoria , eastern South Australia and southern New South Wales . The practice continued well into
11881-437: Was present and had notified the police beforehand, so the grave robbers only succeeded in dislodging the lid of his coffin. As a consequence, when Lincoln was reburied, additional security measures were implemented to prevent further grave robbery attempts. Grave robbers often sold stolen Aztec or Mayan goods on the black market for an extremely high price. The buyers (museum curators, historians, etc.) didn't often suffer
#332667