XX.
 

bOTHING is a greater reproach to the reasoning intellect
I of any age than a splenetic censoriousness on the manners
ad characters of our ancestors. It is but common justice
for us to bear in mind that in those times we should have
been as they were, as they in ours would have resembled ourselves.
Both are but the same men acting under different circumstances,
wearing different dresses, and pursuing different objects, but neither
inferior to the other in talent, industry, or intellectual worth. The
more we study biography, the more shall we perceive evidence of
this truth.
 

Israel D. Velsor first saw light in Cold Spring, L. I., where he
was born in the year 1818, being now about sixty-seven years old.
He came to Brooklyn when a boy of sixteen, and has resided here
since that time. In 1838, when he was twenty years old, he joined
Franklin Engine Company No. 3, and was soon thereafter elected
to the office of assistant foreman of that well-known organization,
and, after serving in that capacity for a few years, he was promoted
to the office of foreman of the company, which position he held for
about five years. In 1854 he was nominated for chief engineer of
the Department, and was elected, his opponent being John Roach,
of Engine 13, then located in Court Street, near the City Hall. The
assistant engineers who served under Velsor at that time were
Wifliam Vanderveer, George Staley, Joseph Reeve, and George
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