|
a.
|
Note: Cornelius V. B. was given the name of his grandfather Van Keuren. His father early apprenticed him to a rope-maker who first set him to work in his rope-walk picking hemp, then advanced him through all the stages. When twenty-one he was taken into the business to which he succeeded as sole owner when he was twenty-five years of age. In time he carried on a very large and successful business, manufacturing rope for the navy as well as for shipping in general. Some of the navy cables were so large that they could not be coiled and they used to be taken to the navy-yard on the old-fashioned cannon carts-strung out on fifteen or twenty of them all in a row, an unusual sight that always attracted a good deal of attention. This rope-walk was on First St. near First Ave., and gave employment to many hands.
Cornelius was a large, heavy man. He served as alderman two or three terms when it was an honor to be an alderman and meant money out of pocket instead of in; was a member of the Tammany Society when it was a credit to belong to it; was also at one time a tax-collector for the Eleventh Ward, and too, a Volunteer Fireman, member of Company Thirty-two or "Bunker Hill." He lived on First Avenue near Stuyvesant Square.
A grandson has told me that he was a man who always wore a pleasant smile; also that he had the habit of sitting quiet and snapping the fingers of one hand on the fist of the other.
The rope-works burned down in 1846. Cornelius thereupon retired from business, purchased a farm at New Rochelle and lived there till his death which occurred suddenly on Aug. 29, 1855, the result of a sun-stroke received while working in his garden. Mary out-lived him, dying at New Rochelle Dec. 20 1863.
|
