Made on the Kill Van Kull
The Kill Van Kull was an important waterway going back to the 1700s. Villages soon developed where ferries had begun operating. Nineteenth-century industrial inventions and innovations brought economic changes to Staten Island around 1818 when a dye house and printing works was established in West New Brighton. The New-York Dyeing and Printing Establishment was soon followed by an array of companies from Mariner’s Harbor to New Brighton. Flour, paint, soap, gypsum board, ships, ferries, and more were manufactured along the Kill Van Kull. Even a whaling company-operated! Discover the stories behind these enterprises during “Made on the Kill Van Kull.”
Patricia M. Salmon retired as Curator of History at the Staten Island Museum in 2012. A Staten Island resident for almost fifty years, she was a Naturalist/Historian at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve in that borough for eight years. Ms. Salmon has authored the books Realms of History: The Cemeteries of Staten Island, The Staten Island Ferry: A History, Murder & Mayhem on Staten Island and Staten Island Slayings: Murderers and Mysteries of the Forgotten Borough. A board member of the Tottenville Historical Society, she is a consultant to the Friends of Abandoned Cemeteries of Staten Island and an adjunct professor at Wagner College in Staten Island.