Middleton Playground

Lynch St., Middleton St. bet. Lee Ave. and Bedford Ave.

Brooklyn

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

Middleton Playground, along with the adjacent street, honors Arthur Middleton (1742-1787), one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Middleton was born on June 26, 1742, on his family’s plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. At the age of 12, his father sent him to be educated in England at the Hackney School, and at 18 he began study at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Middleton excelled in the classics, and developed a refined taste for painting, music, and literature while traveling through Europe after his graduation. He returned to South Carolina in 1763 and married Mary Izzard. Middleton’s appetite for travel was not satisfied, though, and he returned to Europe with his wife in 1768.