History buff defends McKean's name (Deleware)
An ailing World War II veteran from New York wants to fix a government goof in Brooklyn's Williamsburg area that has slighted a Founding Father from Delaware since the 1800s.
As streets were named for Declaration of Independence signers, officials erred on the last to sign -- Thomas McKean of Delaware. They mistook the start of his last name as an initial and the N with a final flourish as a P.
The result? Keap Street.
Despite the error's age, John Slagg, a retired court worker from Flushing, N.Y., said, "Isn't now the time to fix it? If not now, when?"
Slagg, now in his 80s, says he gave its name no thought when he lived there. "I moved to Keap Street when I was 2 years old and moved out when I got married 32 years later."
But he recently got into history, starting in that area of the city.
He saw streets named for other signers, such as Rodney Street, next to Keap, for Caesar Rodney, who rode to Philadelphia to break Delaware delegates' tie to favor independence. "But I kept wondering, who the heck is this guy Keap?" he said.
In "Brooklyn by Name," by Leonard Bernardo and Jennifer Weiss, he read of the error blamed on McKean's "scrawled signature." Slagg didn't mind the book's error that McKean signed for Pennsylvania but wants his old street to honor the man it aimed to honor.
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As streets were named for Declaration of Independence signers, officials erred on the last to sign -- Thomas McKean of Delaware. They mistook the start of his last name as an initial and the N with a final flourish as a P.
The result? Keap Street.
Despite the error's age, John Slagg, a retired court worker from Flushing, N.Y., said, "Isn't now the time to fix it? If not now, when?"
Slagg, now in his 80s, says he gave its name no thought when he lived there. "I moved to Keap Street when I was 2 years old and moved out when I got married 32 years later."
But he recently got into history, starting in that area of the city.
He saw streets named for other signers, such as Rodney Street, next to Keap, for Caesar Rodney, who rode to Philadelphia to break Delaware delegates' tie to favor independence. "But I kept wondering, who the heck is this guy Keap?" he said.
In "Brooklyn by Name," by Leonard Bernardo and Jennifer Weiss, he read of the error blamed on McKean's "scrawled signature." Slagg didn't mind the book's error that McKean signed for Pennsylvania but wants his old street to honor the man it aimed to honor.