On June 16, 1636, Dutch officials purchased land from the Indians in what is now southeastern Brooklyn. They named it Flatlands.

The purchase was made by Jacob van Corlear, Andries Hudde, Wolfert Gerritsen van Couwenhoven, and Wouter van Twiller, the governor of New Netherland. It was under their auspices that settlements were built near what became Beverly Road and Utica Avenue and near Kings Highway and Flatlands Ave. Jointly the settlements were called New Amersfoort in 1647, named after a city on the River Eem in the province of Utrecht. Cowenhoven owned a plantation near the site on Kings Highway where the Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church was built at a later date. Around 1651 Governor Peter Stuyvesant acquired a large plot in the town. He granted residents local rule in 1661.

The primary occupation of the colonists was farming. They grew corn, squash, beans, and tobacco and fed their cattle salt hay. Clams were harvested in Jamaica Bay by the fishermen of the settlement. Slaves accounted for about 20 percent of the population and were an important part of the economy until New York State abolished slavery in 1827. In the 1830s the population was about seven hundred, making Flatlands one of the two smallest towns in the county.

The town remained rural through the end of the 19th century. In a 1872-73 town directory, 87 people were listed: 49 of them were farmers and the others were listed as boatmen, fishermen, oystermen, blacksmiths and wheelwrights.

In 1896 Flatlands became a part of the city of Brooklyn. The present Flatlands neighborhood is bounded to the north by Flatlands Avenue, to the east by Paedergat Basin, to the south by Avenue U, and to the west by Flatbush Avenue.

— Vernon Parker

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