42 DECEMBER 16, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
The Onderdonk House remains in Ridgewood as a landmark celebrating the community’s history. File photo
A Ridgewood farmhouse that harvested history
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Driving down Flushing Avenue
through much of Ridgewood
is like passing through a canyon
of industry. Auto junkyards,
garages, exporters and even a snack
food distributor line both sides of
the street from Metropolitan Avenue
to the west, deep into Bushwick
and East Williamsburg.
But the wave of industry is suddenly
interrupted at the corner of
Flushing and Onderdonk avenues by
a little white farmhouse and patch
of green whose history predates the
neighborhood of Ridgewood itself.
Rooted at a time when New York
was still the Dutch colony of New
Netherlands, the Onderdonk House
remains today as the neighborhood’s
cultural and historical epicenter. A
community built around it, and it
would take a community to save,
preserve and restore it for generations
to enjoy.
Let’s examine not only the saga of
the Onderdonk House, but of those
who built, lived and occupied it
through the years.
COMING TO THE NEW
WORLD
Originally, the family came from
Brabant, Holland. Dr. Adrian Onderdonk,
a doctor of law, was the
founder of the family in America. He
arrived in New Amsterdam in 1641
at the age of 45. Eventually, after a
number of disputes with the colony’s
governor, Peter Stuyvesant, Onderdonk
returned home to Holland.
His son, Andreis, however, remained
in present day Jamaica,
where he had a farm. Andreis Onderdonk
acquired land on the north
shore of Long island. He had a son,
also named Andries, who moved to
Cow Neck, now the present-day Nassau
County village of Manhasset. He
and his wife had 10 children.
One of their sons, Adrian, in turn
got married and had 11 children.
Over the years, the prodigious family
came to own farms in and around
Cow Neck.
The Onderdonk family, prior to
and during the American Revolution,
were outspoken patriots for the
American cause. Adrian Onderdonk
was named for his grandfather, a
large landowner in Cow Neck who
was the deputy chairman of the local
Whig Committee.
A sixth-generation Onderdonk,
also named Adrian, was born on
June 20, 1795 to Joseph and Ann (nee
Wyckoff) Onderdonk of Cow Neck.
Adrian’s mother was the daughter
of Peter Wyckoff of Bushwick, who
also owned farms in the area.
On Apr. 27, 1821, Adrian Onderdonk
purchased his own farm in
present-day Ridgewood from the
estate of George Ryerson for $600.
The main farm was 50 acres; using
today’s street grid, the farm was
generally bounded by Flushing
Avenue on the north, Woodward
Avenue on the east, Catalpa Avenue
on the south and Seneca Avenue on
the west.
DISPUTED BORDERS
Although we consider the Onderdonk
farm as part of Ridgewood’s
heritage, when Adrian Onderdonk
bought the farm in 1821, the name
Ridgewood did not exist; thus, the area
was part of Bushwick. There had
been a long-standing land dispute
between Bushwick in Kings County
and Newtown township in Queens
County, dating back to colonial times.
Governor General Richard Nicholls
of the New York colony granted
the township of Newtown a land patent
on Mar. 5, 1667, and on Oct. 5 of
the same year, granted a land patent
to the town of Bushwick. Unfortunately,
the boundaries of each patent
were not described that precisely, so
about 1,200 acres on the Bushwick/
Newtown border were in dispute.
The problem was finally solved in
1769, when an arbitration committee
decided on an exact boundary between
Kings and Queens counties
in what is now Ridgewood. However,
Adrian Onderdonk, though
he lived on his farm in Queens, still
considered himself a Kings County
resident.
Arbitration Rock, a large boulder
in the middle of the Onderdonk
property, served as the demarcation
line between Brooklyn and Queens.
Even though the border shifted in
later years, the rock remains there
to this day as a public reminder of
the famous border dispute that pit
one borough against another.
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