My Moment Living In History!

Another history blog!!! This story is about a grand ole house, the Jan Martense Schenck House, built in 1670 time frame, in good old Brooklyn. I was born in Brooklyn and lived in one of the oldest houses in New York State for the first four years of my life, and then visited. My grandparents rented the house in 1920 and live in this home until 1954. Thirty four years in a rented house, but to us it was always Pop and Nana's house. My grandfather put in the plumbing, steam heat, electricity, and white washed the house. Every holiday was spent with the entire family coming home to "the old homestead." One year the turkey was so big the oven door would not close, so the men "jerry-rigged" a broom handle and some wooden blocks and forced the oven door closed against the cabinet across the way.

This is the Old Homestead in Brooklyn in about 1890, amazing to think that Brooklyn still was sooo open!

The house had five bedrooms, two main large living rooms, no TV, we all sat and listened to the radio. In the back was a root cellar, and a scary area under the house which was said to be the "dungeon." Under the floor boards in the kitchen there was an old passageway that led to the bay. Was this used to hide taxable items back in the 1700's or as part of the underground railway? No one knows for sure. Only the ghosts of the dwelling can answer that!!

Among the varied stories I grew up with was, that a British officer was captured in the house hiding in the attic in his underwear during the Revolution. Another held that pirates gold was buried on the grounds, my grandparents would wake up to folks digging in their yard during the depression. The house was also featured in some of the old "Our Gang" movies! Mom tells me she would be sitting reading alone in the house and she could hear the creaking of floorboards, as if someone were walking upstairs. Ahhhhh Peg they would say, it is just the house settling (after 300 years??)!!

This Picture was about 1909. When my grandfather moved in he removed all the ivy all over the side of the building due to bugs and mold.

This home had hundreds of years of history! And I am thankful I was able to live in such a house of history! The original two rooms of the house now stand in the Brooklyn Museum. It is amazing for me to go and stand and look at this model and think, I lived in this house!! SOOOOOOO I have decided to do more research and tell you about the history if you so choose to read on!! (OR you can google Jan Martense Schenck House there is all sorts of stuff on the net.)

Circa 1900

In 1675 or so, a Dutch settler named Jan Martense Schenck built a house on the south shore of Long Island, in an area that in those days consisted mainly of sweeping meadows, tidal wetlands, and sand dunes, the two-room structure originally stood on Mill Island, which today is part of the Mill Basin neighborhood of Flatlands, in Brooklyn. The house is one of the oldest in the United States. It was built on land granted to Schenck by Peter Stuyvesant and the Council of the New Netherlands.

Here is my dad on his TRIKE (love the caps) in appox. 1925 ...take a look at that huge building behind in the distance ... I would love to know what that was!!

In the early nineteen-hundreds, the house was turned over to the Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Company, as payment for filling in some nearby streams and salt marshes. The house survived through the first half of the 20th century in its original Flatlands location. In 1952 the house was at risk of demolition because of development in the area. The Brooklyn Museum arranged to have it dismantled. The pieces were numbered with bright-orange paint and stored, for a decade, under what was then the Interborough Parkway waiting almost a decade until preparations for installation of the house could be made in the museum. On April 26, 1964, the house was opened to the public inside the museum’s fourth floor.

1800
A three-bedroom wing was added to the north-east wall. When this happened, what was once the front of the house (the eastern wall) became the back of the house. The west wall with the porch became the new front of the house.

1830-50
A porch with Greek Revival columns is added to the west wall where the animal shelter had once been. The columns were probably added primarily for aesthetic reasons. The fireplaces that were in the center of the house were probably removed to make an entrance hall.

The house will now be preserved in the museum and plays a part of a moment in history.

Here is Nana in back of the old house in about 1935


My mom and brother, mom was prego for me in this! The old house in the background, 1947.

This is a painting of the old house on a Brooklyn Calendar from 1951. There use to be all sorts of folks who would just come and sit on the lawn and draw the house.


OK the picture you have all been waiting for!! A picture of me in the old house!!

DEED to the House:
In his will dated 26 January 1688-1689, Jan MARTENSE SCHENCK left "the old land with ye small Island and mill and dependencies thereon" to his son Marten Jansen who was born in 1675. Marten married Cornelia WESSELEN, widow of Domine LUPARDUS, 2 December 1703and on 13 December 1705, their son John was born. John, who was called Captain John in his later life, married Femmetie HEGEMAN. 15 November 1728. He was the next owner of the property. On 15 April 1784, his heirs sold it for £2300 to Joris MARTENSE of Flatbush, who evidently bought it as an investment for he neither lived in the house nor ran the mill but rented both.

On 20 June 1791, a pot of gold was found buried near the mill. On 13 August 1799, John SCHENCK, who was the miller at the time, died of yellow fever. Joris MARTENSE'S daughter Susan, wife of Patrick CATON, inherited the property. She left it to her daughter Margaret who married General Philip S. CROOKE. For years, the property was known as Crooke's Mill and Crooke's Island. Finally the mill was swept out of existence. The house with a small piece of land descended to Franklin CROOKE who owned it in 1909. Later it was sold to the Atlantic,Gulf and Pacific Company.

HOPE I did not bore you toooo much!!