WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES APRIL 19, 2018 29
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
A Ridgewood family’s historic link
to the American Revolution
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Editor’s note: This is the fi rst in a twopart
series. Wyckoff Avenue, which acts
as the borderline between
Ridgewood and Bushwick,
is named aft er one of the fi rst infl uential
families in Brooklyn and Queens.
In 1765, Nicholas Wyckoff , who was
born in 1743 at the Wyckoff Homestead
in Canarsie, Brooklyn, purchased the
Schenck Farm in colonial Newtown
(present-day Ridgewood). The farm
spanned nearly 200 acres in an area
bounded today on the north by Flushing
Avenue; on the west by Ridge Road
(later renamed Wyckoff Avenue), on
the east by Cypress Avenue and on the
south by Cooper Avenue.
A farmhouse constructed in 1721 by
Johannis Schenck, from whom Wyckoff
purchased the farm, was located at
what is now 1325 Flushing Ave., along
with several barns. The farmhouse
was torn down in about 1970 to make
way for a factory.
The Wyckoff family came to
America in 1636, when New York was
known as the Dutch colony of New
Netherlands. Pieter Claesen Wyckoff
constructed a wood farmhouse on
Canarsie Avenue in 1637, at what is
now the Clarendon Road and Ralph
Avenue intersection in Brooklyn.
Still standing, the house is the oldest
in New York state and possibly the
oldest wood-frame home in the United
States.
Great Britain, of course, took control
of New Netherlands from the Dutch
in 1664 and renamed it New York. The
Wyckoff s, no less, remained in the
colony. Nicholas Wyckoff was the fi ft h
generation of the family in America.
Besides owning the Schenck Farm,
Nicholas Wyckoff also owned 140
acres near what is today Fresh Pond
Road, also in Ridgewood.
New York had been under English
control for more than a century when
Wyckoff had purchased the Schenck
farm. However, tensions were simmering
between the colonies and the
British. Americans were becoming
more and more disenchanted by the
taxes imposed by the English government.
The English insisted the taxes
were necessary to cover the costs of
the French and Indian War, and for
the stationing of troops in America to
protect the colonies from attack by the
French.
On Dec. 29, 1774, a group of Whigs
(patriots) from the township of
Newtown (which covered much
of Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth,
Middle Village, Forest Hills and Elmhurst)
met and formed a committee
of 15. They reaffi rmed their loyalty
to King George III but protested the
taxes without representation as the
colonies had no members in English
Parliament. The committee also
formally approved the proceedings
of the First Continental Congress, a
group of delegates from the 13 American
colonies who met in Philadelphia
to discuss, debate and resolve common
issues.
Two weeks later, on Jan. 12, 1775, the
Tories (loyalists) of Newtown township
held a meeting and disavowed
the Whig committee's meeting. Among
the 57 Tories were Charles and John
Debevoise, John Van Alst Sr., John
Morrell, Dow Van Duyn, Jeremiah
Remsen and John Suydam. It was obvious
that the township was divided
on this important issue.
John Morrell's farm was one of those
the British would occupy aft er the Battle
of Long Island through the end of
the war. He was a grandson of Thomas
Morrell, who built Middle Village's
Morrell House a decade before George
Washington was born.
The problems with England worsened
and, as a result, in April 1775,
skirmishes broke out between the
British and colonists in the Massachusetts
towns of Lexington and Concord.
The American Revolutionary War
had begun. In May, the Continental
Congress met in Philadelphia and
assumed supervision of the militias
in the various colonies, appointing
George Washington as commander
in chief of the Continental Army.
On Nov. 7, 1775, the various townships
in Queens County (which also
included present-day Nassau County)
voted as to whether to send deputies
to represent the county at the next
meeting of the Continental Congress.
The Whigs of Newtown outvoted the
Tories 100 to 55, but the fi nal tally of
the entire county went the Tories' way,
with 788 against sending deputies and
221 for sending them.
The failure of Queens County to
send deputies angered the Congress,
which sent a militia force of 900
men to Queens in January 1776. The
militia arrived in Newtown, went
to the farmhouses owned by Tories
and sought to disarm them and take
an oath of allegiance to support the
Continental Congress. Many of the
Tories, however, fled before the
militia arrived at their homes. The
troops wound up seizing almost 1,000
muskets along with lead pellets and
gun powder.
Editor’s note: Next week, The Old
Timer will continue his story about
the Wyckoff family and their ties to the
Battle of Long Island, one of the pivotal
moments in the American Revolution.
* * *
Share your history with us by
emailing editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com (subject: Our Neighborhood: The
Way it Was) or write to The Old Timer,
℅ Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell Blvd.,
Bayside, NY 11361. Any mailed pictures
will be carefully returned to you upon
request.
This 1926 photo shows the old Wyckoff homestead on Flushing Avenue.
Photos from the Ridgewood Times archives/courtesy of the Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
The Wyckoff homestead on Flushing Avenue in present-day Ridgewood
link