Captain John Aspinwall built this house in 1760. John Aspinwall was of the most renowned captains of the New York merchant mariners in pre-Revolutionary times. The Captain owned a large amount of real estate in the city, including this house in Flushing. A famous and bizarre anecdote: a law in 1761 was passed to disallow buildings south of Duane street (then Fresh Water) to be constructed out of wood. This was a preventative measure in case of fires. The legislation was met with absolute disagreement and a petition was created to reverse this law. The document claimed stone and brick would be a financial burden, and "useful members of society will be unable to pay their just debts, the wives and families of many will become burdensome to the city, and jails will be filled with objects of the greatest compassion." Whose name was at the top of the petition? None other than Captain John Aspinwall himself. The law was successfully reversed. As fate would have it, the area would see its first fire two years later. Trinity Church, which Aspinwall had been a vestryman of, and 500 other buildings were ravaged. The Captain settled in this house in the 1770s. He assisted in the construction of a church in the neighborhood. His home was later owned by his son-in-law, Colonel Richard Platt.