Last weekend the Lefferts Historic House organized an exhibition of its Dutch documents and Bibles. This display was part of the 5 Dutch Days, a city-wide event in New York City.

The House was built circa 1783 and is located within Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. It is the former home of Continental Army Lieutenant Pieter Lefferts and his wife Femmetie.

It houses a children’s museum on the first floor. For the 5 Dutch Days a guided tour of the rooms upstairs was available every 30 minutes which introduced the history of the house and its inhabitants.

Eight historic documents, most of them in Dutch, were on display. One of the most interesting exhibits is the land grant with the signature and seal of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, dating from 1661. Written in Dutch, this document establishes the Lefferts family’s property in New Netherland.

On display was a slave bill of sale which described the purchase of a young woman named Jenny by Pieter Lefferts from her former owner Hendricks van Buren. The bill was discovered in one of the family Bibles of the Lefferts family.

Also on view was a quilt show, “Sewing Threads of New York: The 400 Year Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Voyage”. For the kids there were old-fashioned games such as walking on stilts and hooping. Dutch snacks were provided at the end of the tour: Dutch cheeses and speculaas cookies.

Lefferts Historic House
Located in Prospect Park, Brooklyn
(Inside the Park’s Willink entrance, at the intersection of Flatbush and Ocean Ave. and Empire Blvd.)
www.prospectpark.org

The Lefferts Historic House in Brooklyn, NY.

Quilt exhibition on the first floor: Sewing Threads of New York: The 400 Year Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s Voyage.

Quilt.

Dutch documents and bibles on display.

A religious book in Dutch — “Van de Ondervindinge”.

Two land deeds that establish the ownership of the Leffert family’s property. Both carry the signature of Petrus Stuyvesant.

Dutch cheese and speculaas. American wine — in the 1600’s the Dutch experimented with growing grapes in what is now New York but weren’t very successful.