By John B. Manbeck
a Brooklyn historian
Special to The Brooklyn Eagle

Now that we’re into the 401st year of Dutch remembrance and the excitement is behind us, our attention returns to Brooklyn’s venerable old Dutch farm house, the Wyckoff Homestead, the city’s and state’s oldest and only original Dutch residence. The Wyckoff name — and its spelling variations — echoes over hundreds of years, not only throughout Brooklyn, but also in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and points west. But most important to us is the landmarked Pieter Claesen Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum & Education Center on Clarendon and Ralph avenues. It was the Wyckoff family farm until 1901.

Under the leadership of executive directors Sean Sawyer and now, Byron Saunders, interest in the property has grown along with their creative management. Built in 1652, the house celebrates 357 years in Brooklyn this year. In 1969, the Wyckoff family donated the house to the city. Nationally landmarked in 1934 and city landmarked in 1965 and a member of the Historic House Trust, it is owned and maintained by the Parks Department. E. List Wyckoff, a member of the original family, is on the board.

To show that Brooklyn still has its farm roots, ground is scheduled to be broken this fall for the first barn raising in 150 years. Generally, barn raising, a communal act, is associated with the Amish, or Pennsylvania Dutch, or deutsch. Now, in Brooklyn, we have the real thing: the 1810 Durling barn from a Wyckoff farm in Somerset, New Jersey.

It was purchased in 2003, dismantled and stored so money could be raised for this educational center. Over the years, funds have been donated from private sources and supplemented with a New York State grant to buy equipment and furniture for the barn. While Dutch farmhouses have survived in Brooklyn, no Dutch barns exist.

In today’s environment, it’s difficult to believe that Brooklyn was farm country until the 1950s. Seeing cows and goats in Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay was not unusual.

In the nineteenth century, major farms were owned by the Wyckoffs, the Lotts, the Bergens and the Gerritsens, to name a few.

The story of Dutch settlement in New Amsterdam is told in The Island in the Center of the World by Russell Shorto, how Pieter Claesen signed a contract of indenture with Kiliaen van Rensselaer, an absentee landlord or patroon, to work on his farms. Within a few years, he earned his freedom and became a prosperous independent farmer. Now married and with a family, he leaped at an opportunity offered by the Dutch West India Company to own free land. He moved to the farm community of Amersfoort, now Flatlands, and settled there.

Through a connection with the governor-general, Pieter Stuyvesant, Claesen acquired more land. By 1665, he had achieved such prestige that Stuyvesant appointed him magistrate or schepen. He continually added real estate to enlarge his farm, even after the British captured New Amsterdam and changed it to New York. He soon became the richest man in Amersfoort. In 1687, he adopted the surname, Wyckoff, which means “justice� in Dutch.

According to the 1939 edition of The WPA Guide to New York City, “The one-story dwelling, a simple Dutch house, has a sweeping, projecting roof. The rounded shingles of white oak on the exterior walls, as well as the hand-hewn oak rafters in the attic, were fastened with wooden pegs brought over from Holland. The original dwelling was about three-fifths the depth of the present structure.�

Certainly, he would have approved of today’s activity around his original house. In the diverse community of Flatlands, the homestead’s activities for the fall harvest season and holiday celebrations illustrate that everyone enjoys participating in Brooklyn’s historical events. Particularly, barn raising. For further information, call 718-629-5400. Also email: info@ wykoffassociation.org. Website: www.wyckoffassociation.org.

Additional information came from “The Rise of Pieter Claessen [stet] Wyckoff: Social Mobility on the Colonial Frontier� by Morton Wagman.

© 2009 John B. Manbeck manbeck@brooklyneagle.net

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