Gravestone of Teunis Bergen, early Flatlands settler. Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery, Kings Highway © Frank H. Jump
“Heir legt het lichaem van Folkert Sprung overleden den 25 October 1807, in het 90 yaer siyns levens – Here lies the body of Folkert Sprung, died on 25 October 1807 in the 90th year since living.” Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery, Kings Highway © Frank H. Jump
Historic Homesteads of Kings County – Charles A. Ditmas, 1909 © Google Books
Historic Homesteads of Kings County – Charles A. Ditmas, 1909 © Google Books
Bergen and Mill Islands
Among the numerous islands on the western side of Jamaica Bay and within the jurisdiction of Flatlands, three were inhabited or utilized by Europeans during the colonial period. One of these was Barren Island, the other two being Bergen and Mill Islands. All three of these islands at one time or another belonged to Elbert Elbertse, an early settler at Flatlands. Sixty acres of upland and ample meadows constituted the attraction of Bergen Island, and a mill site and a small parcel of arable land were the chief assets of Mill Island.
Bergen Island remained known into the eighteenth century by its Indian name of Winnipague. Europeans took title to the island in 1646, when Governor Keift granted “Meuters” or Bergen Island to John Underhill. Underhill shortly relinquished the property to others, and in 1665 Elbert Elbertse purchased the island. Probably Elbertse made actual use of the island; however, seventeenth-century records make no mention of a house or dwelling located there. In his will, made in 1686, Elbertse assigned to his son Gerrit Stoothoff “my island . . . under the jurisdiction of Amesfort.” Gerrit also was bequeathed his father’s house and lot “in the town of Amesfort.” The testator left to a son-in-law sixty acres on the mainland.
What became known as the Bergen House was erected well before 1800, the approximate year in which additions were made to the structure. By that time a complicated, drawn-out legal contest had been resolved concerning rival claims to Bergen Island advanced by two lines of Elbertse’s descendants. There is record of an ejectment suit in 1784. At least three men held meadowlands at Bergen Island in the mid-1780s, Wilhemus Stoothoof, Johannis Stoothoof, and Elias Hubbard. – JAMAICA BAY: A HISTORY – Gateway National Recreation Area New York, New Jersey
via NYC Religion (CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE)
