The Williamsburg section of Brooklyn has taken some strange and convoluted turns during its journey from farm village to urban neighborhood.
In the 17th century it was part of the Dutch town of Boswijck, which became the anglicized Bushwick when the British captured New Amsterdam in 1664.
But it wasn’t until 1802 when real-estate developer Richard M. Woodhull purchased 13 acres in Bushwick near the East River, intending to develop what had been farmland into an urban enclave. Woodhull hired an engineer, Jonathan Williams, to survey the land—then named the new development after Williams.
He called it Williamsburgh, with an h.
Williamsburgh grew rapidly. It became its own village in the town of Bushwick in 1827 and an affluent suburb of New York, according to Victor Lederer’s book Williamsburg. Riverfront industry such as shipbuilding and sugar refining attracted even more residents, and Williamsburgh incorporated itself into a town in 1840.
In 1852, the booming town—now home to 35,000 people—declared itself a separate city in Kings County. In the process, city officials dropped the h and called it the city of Williamsburg.
Williamsburg’s time as a city didn’t last long. By 1855, Williamsburg was annexed by the city of Brooklyn. And in 1898, the city of Brooklyn bit the dust, becoming the borough of Brooklyn of Greater New York City.
So it’s been 171 years since Williamsburgh became Williamsburg. What I’d like to know is why government officials decided to do away with the h in the first place.
Newspaper archives and other records aren’t giving me an answer. But my guess involves the ethnic background of Williamsburg’s newest residents in the mid-1850s. During the first half of the 19th century, thousands of Irish and German immigrants came to New York City, and a sizable number ended up in Williamsburg, laboring in the refineries and shipyards.
Perhaps “Williamsburgh” sounded a little too English. By ditching the h, Williamsburg may have been more appealing to new arrivals from nations that didn’t always have good relations with Britain.
Tags: Why Williamsburg Brooklyn has no H at the end, Why Williamsburg Used to Be Williamsburgh, Williamsburg Brooklyn, Williamsburg Maps Brooklyn, Williamsburg vs Williamsburgh, Williamsburgh 19th century
Ephemeral New York 
January 9, 2023 at 5:22 am |
I’m guessing the h drop was an attempt to ‘American-ize’ the place
January 9, 2023 at 12:08 pm |
Good point, similar to the way Boswijck became Bushwick when the British took over, and so many other Dutch names were anglicized across the city.
January 9, 2023 at 2:56 pm
Right
January 20, 2023 at 7:30 am |
Losing the “H” is an American tradition “Pittsburgh PA” became Pittsburg for a time, after objections it got it’s “H” back.
January 9, 2023 at 8:21 am |
Edinburgh didn’t become Edinburg. The Irish and the Germans had truck with the English, not the Scots. So why would they have a problem with Williamsburgh and lobby to change its spelling? Most of those immigrants were illiterate anyhow, so how something was spelled wouldn’t matter.
January 9, 2023 at 9:05 am |
It just might be case of dropping an unnecessary letter that people were already not using. Especially since most of the new residents first language was not English.
January 9, 2023 at 3:45 pm |
Actually, the “h” at the end gave it a different sound–more like “burg-uh,” as opposed to “burg.” You can still here an echo of it in the way Scots pronounce the name of one of their cities: “Eddin-burrah,” which is a sort of rounded-off version of “Eddin-burgah.”
January 9, 2023 at 3:55 pm |
I don’t think the matter was settled by those City of Williamsburg officials. They had only three years of authority. Once the city ceased to exist as such there was no official name, because neighborhoods don’t really have those.
That is why, for instance, you had the Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh (founded 1864) opting for the older spelling.
January 9, 2023 at 9:43 pm |
It seems to me that Williamsburgh, Kings County lost the “h” through the widespread process of the evolution, harmonization, and simplification of American English spelling during the 19th century as education, literacy, communication, and media matured and spread in the United States. There were probably two dozen “Williamsburg”s and no other “Williamsburgh”s in the United States in the 1850s.
The state of New York passed “An Act to incorporate the city of Williamsburgh (sic) on April 7, 1851. Two days later the state passed “An Act to incorporate the Williamsburgh (sic) Savings Bank.” The state of New York then passed “An Act to consolidate the cities of Brooklyn and Williamsburgh (sic) and the town of Bushwick into one municipal government, and to incorporate the same” on April 17, 1854. Google Books has digitized the contemporaneously printed law books.
That said, there were some state laws in the late 1840s that already refer to the town and village of “Williamsburg (sic).”
January 11, 2023 at 1:17 am |
I think your explanation—the simplification of American English through the 19th century—is likely correct. And both spellings appear throughout the 1800s…particularly in Dime Savings Bank of Williamsburgh, as Greg points out above.
January 9, 2023 at 11:22 pm |
My question is why was the “H” there in the first place. The German businessmen must have noticed the misspelling.
January 11, 2023 at 1:21 am |
I’m assuming it derives from middle English, but I need an etymologist to confirm and explain!
January 20, 2023 at 7:34 am |
Losing the “H” is an American tradition “Pittsburgh PA” became Pittsburg for a time, after objections it got it’s “H” back.
February 6, 2023 at 3:30 am |
[…] to 35,000, the riverfront was bustling with industry, and this Kings County town ambitiously incorporated itself into a city (before changing course and becoming part of the neighboring city of Brooklyn three years […]
January 29, 2024 at 2:32 am |
[…] part of Bushwick until the end of the 18th century. In 1802, real-estate developer Richard Woodhull bought 13 acres here along the East River and asked engineer Jonathan Williams to survey the land and lay out […]