On This Day in History, March 30: The Bergens Settle in Brooklyn
On March 30, 1647, Hans Hansen Bergen, Brook-lyn’s first Norwegian settler, received a “patent” for a 400-acre farm in the Wallabout Bay area.
The Bergens had landed with the sea breezes at what became Bergen Beach. Hans’ descendants eventually sold the beach property and it became a summer resort that thrived in the 1890s and the early 20th century. It could not compete with Coney Island and Rockaway and by 1926 the last section had been sold for a development of one-family houses. Houses were built and picnic groves were set along the streets, but much of the area remained undeveloped until the later 20th century.
The Norwegians who settled in New Amsterdam in the 17th century became shopkeepers, innkeepers, carpenters, traders and shipbuilders. They also introduced a style of clapboard house that became common in the colony. One immigrant was Anneken Henriksen from Bergen, who in 1650 married Jan Arentzen van der Bilt, forbearers of the Vanderbilt family.