By Dr. Raymond A. Hoeffner, Jr.
Vegetables that were cultivated in this area included radishes, carrots, potatoes, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, horseradish and turnips. Families of farmers named Alsheimer, Fish, Hoeffner, Lowden, Klein, Reimel, Steck and Seilof, along with local hired help, would work the land. The population of this area wasn¹t such that all the crops could be sold locally. Many of these farmers not only supplied their own families and community with food, but crops were also brought to the Wallabout Market in Brooklyn, where they were sold.
Prior to the development of motor vehicles, the produce was transported to the market by horse and wagon. Farmers would leave home the evening before and travel through the night to arrive in time to sell at the market by morning.
Almost all farmers within the horse and wagon distance of Brooklyn sold their produce at the Wallabout Market. The name Wallabout comes from a small group of Dutch Huguenots who settled in western Long Island in 1623. The Wallabout Market was started in 1884 and was located at the site that was later the Brooklyn Naval Yard.
Often during the years of the Depression (1930s) the farmer would return home with his wagon or truck full of produce and would have to dispose of his crops in the open fields, since the produce just couldn¹t be sold at the market. The farmers were fortunate enough that they could store potatoes, often in the cellar of their homes, in an attempt to sell them at a later date.
In the 1920s the Fulton Truck was manufactured by the Fulton Motor Company in Farmingdale, N.Y. It was then that farmers converted from the horse and wagon and started to travel to Brooklyn with their trucks.
The accompanying photos show trucks packed with produce to be brought to the Wallabout Market ‹ the first two are cousins of an East Meadow farmer, Andrew Hoeffner.
