THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
RECORD 

VoL VII October, 1918 No. 4 
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN IDEA 
IN BROOKLYN 
From all available information it appears that the proposition 
to establish a botanic garden in Brooklyn first took definite form 
in an act of the Legislature, passed April 9, 1855. That act reads 
as follows: 
“ AN ACT to incorporate the Brooklyn Hunt Botanical and Hor- 
ticultural Garden of the county of Kings. 
Passed April 9, 1855, three-fifths being present. 
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate 
and Assembly do enact as follows: 
1. John W. Degrauw, John Maxwell, Smith I. Eastman, John 
W. Towt, Stephen Knowlton, William S. Dunham, Milton Ar- 
rowsmith, Martin L. Schaefer, Abraham J. S. Degrauw, Thomas 
Hunt, Peter B. Mead, Michael McGrath, Henry A. Kent, Wil- 
liam C, Langley, Edward H. R. Lyman, John H. Prentice, Rollin 
Sanford, Fisher Howe, William W. Crane, A. Cook Hull, Emer- 
son S. Howard, Wilson G. Hunt, George S. Coe, William S. 
Hemman, John Halsey, George Halsey, George Ingram, Lewis B. 
Loder, William Lawton, Cornelius Bennet, Edward W. Fiske, 
James S. T. Stranahan, Chandler I. Starr, James Cruikshank, 
James Haslehurst, John B. King, Theodore Polhemus, Jr., John 
Vanderbilt, Horace B. Claflin, John N. Taylor, Ethelbert S. 
ehY) 
