John Jeremy Crooke was born January 22, 1824, in the town of Stuyvesant on the Hudson. A year later, he moved to New York City with his parents. Crooke entered Yale at 20, but only remained two years, as he had become interested in the smelting.of gold and silver. In 1845, he founded the John J. Crooke Company in NYC, with a second factory established later in Chicago, IL. Crooke soon produced the first tin foil, including designing and building most of the machinery used in that process. The company obtained a contract with the U.S. Treasury Department for imprinting internal revenue stamps used on tobacco foil wrappers.
In the 1860's, he went to Colorado, where he became one of the most extensive miners if there, with several gold and silver mines. Crooke also built several smelters for refining those ores into bullion. He forged an empire out of the gold and silver his mines and smelters produced, along with numerous patents for the processes and equipment he created.
At the same time, Crooke was purchasing land in the Great Kills area of Staten Island, eventually acquiring some 320 acres. This included the famous point that bears his name, located at the end of Greeat Kills Park. Included in that property was a plot of 146 acres, on the north side of the harbor, where he built his mansion, known as Liberty Hall. The home featured a library with an excellent collection of natural history books and collections of flora and fauna.As a noted metallurgist, Crooke consulted with Thomas Edison in an attempt to produce a recording material for Edison's phonograph. He produced several thicknesses of his tin foil for Edison, but none worked properly. Crooke became associated with many others in Staten Island, including William Davis and Nathaniel Lord Britton. Along with them, he helped establish the organization that would evolve into the Staten Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Crooke was also responsible for saving many of James Audubon's copper plates, depicting his famous birds, from being scrapped, and also obtained the gun Audubon used to collect his avian specimens. These were later donated to the American Museum of Natural History. On April 22, 1911, John J. Crooke died at his home in Great Kills. Some time later, Liberty Hall burned down. He is buried in the family plot near Poughkeepsie, NY .
