Volume 17 , Issue 44

Walking With Sweet Silly Sadie (Dawg)

NW Okie has always wanted to spend some time exploring the settlement area of her Couwenhoven (Conover, Kouwenhoven) in the New York area near Flatbush, Manhattan and up towards Tarrytown (Sleepy Hollow). Time has no doubtedly changed the areas from what it was in the 17th century with the settlement of the Dutch West India Company, to the present day status of NYC. Thank goodness for the online media for being able to search for the histories and legacy of that time period.

Flatbush (Flatlands) NY



Flatbush is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Founded in 1651 by Dutch colonists, the neighborhood, which consists of several subsections, had a population of 110,875, as of the 2010 United States Census. The name Flatbush is a calque of the Dutch language "Vlacke bos (vlacke or vlak, meaning "flat"; "Flatbush" meaning "flat woodland" or "wooded plain")," so named from woods that grew on the flat country.

Flatbush was originally chartered as the Dutch Nieuw Nederland colony town of Midwout in 1651. Both names were used in the Dutch era, and Midwood was an alternative name for Flatbush into the early 20th century. In a reversal, Midwood, now the area immediately south of Brooklyn College, is often alternatively called "Flatbush," especially among Orthodox Jews. Midwood's residents predominately feature a mix of the latter and Irish Americans.

Flatbush and the five other towns of what was to become Kings County, were surrendered to the English in 1664. The town was the county seat for Kings County and was a center of life for what we now call Brooklyn. The compact center of the village of Flatbush was at the intersection of what are now Flatbush and Church avenues, where we still might find an old Dutch Reformed Church and Erasmus Hall, the oldest high school in New York City.

Flatbush played a key role in the American Revolution. Flatbush was nearby where significant skirmishes and battles of the Battle of Long Island took place. As Kings County was settled largely by the Dutch, and as the Dutch were prominent in the slave trade, the area was somewhat sympathetic to the British side of the American Revolutionary War at the beginning of the conflict. Kings County at the time had the highest concentration of slaves north of the Mason–Dixon line – almost one-third of the total population for the county were slaves. When a Loyalist Governor of Virginia supported freedom for slaves who supported and fought on the British side, landowners in Brooklyn were concerned that a full conflict between the Colonies and the British would result in loss of their critical source of labor. Loyalist residents of Flatbush included David Mathews, Mayor of New York City, who lived at what is now the intersection of Flatbush and Parkside avenues.

The influence of Dutch merchant and farming families remained strong in the area until after consolidation into the City of Greater New York in 1898, after which the development of Flatbush as a suburb, and then an integral part of the larger city, proceeded apace.

Flatbush Public Library in 1915

Before it was incorporated into the City of Brooklyn in 1894, Flatbush described both the Town of Flatbush, incorporating a large swath of central Kings County extending east to the Queens County border, and the Village of Flatbush, formerly the heart of the current community. Many of the remaining early Dutch structures are in the Flatlands and Marine Park neighborhoods.

Woof! Woof! Happy Holidays!
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