Lot 489: MAJOR DAVID BATE DOUGLASS (1789-1849)

SCALE ARCHITECT'S DRAWING AND ELEVATION FOR TUNNEL SECTION CRANBERRY STREET; POPLAR STREET; FULTON STREET BROOKLYN TO JOHN STREET; ROOSEVELT STREET, NEW YORK CITY

13 by 26 1/2 in. (33 by 67.3cm)

NOTE

painted 1836-1838

Born and raised in New Jersey,David Bates Douglass studied engineering at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, graduation in 1813. Since the United States was then in the midst of the War of 1812, he went into the Army and was immediately sent to the United States Military Academy at West Point for further engineering studies. He was assigned combat duty and commanded the Company of Bombadiers, Sappers, and Miners in the defense of Fort Erie on the northern frontier, for which he was promoted to the rank of Brevet Captain in 1814. That same year he also fought in the Battle of Niagara. After the war he returned to West Point and became a Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and of Engineering. He resigned from teh military in 1831 with the rank of Major.

This drawing shows Douglass's plans for two proposed tunnels at different locations under the East River and a proposed suspension bridge over it which would link the cities of New York and Brooklyn. (The drawing predates by more than thirty years plans for the Brooklyn Bridge, the first East River crossing to actually be constructed.) Two other related sketches by Douglass showing projected tunnels under the East River are in the Brooklyn Historical Society, New York.