November 2010

In 1714, Luis Moses Gomez, who had fled from the Spanish inquisition, purchased 6,000 acres of land along the Hudson Highlands where several Indian trails converged. At this site, he built a fieldstone block house into the side of a hill and by a stream that became known as “Jews Creek.”

The walls of the house run about three feet thick still stand today. Native Americans came to hold ceremonial rites at their campground at the Duyfil’s Danskammer (Devil’s Dance Chamber) on the shores of the Hudson on Gomez’s property. For some thirty years, Luis Gomez and his sons conducted a thriving fur trade from the home. Gomez became the first president when the synagogue of New York’s Spanish and Portuguese congregation was built.

This same building, years later, became a meeting center of the new American patriots, considering Washington's army was so close by in Newburgh. Later, Gomez Mill was home to various writers and artists such as Dard Hunter.

The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre was imported to the U.S. in 1876 as Sweden’s exhibit for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The enchanting Swedish architecture and craftsmanship of the structure, suggestive of a model schoolhouse, caught the eye of Fredrick Law Olmsted, who brought it to Central Park in 1877.

Beginning in 1939, the Cottage served as the home of a marionette theater troupe that traveled across the city performing on playgrounds and school auditoriums. Under the direction of City Parks Foundation, citywide puppet shows in parks continue to this day through the CityParks PuppetMobile.

In 1973 a permanent theater was constructed inside the Cottage, precisely designed for marionette performances. Since then, hundreds of thousands of children and families from around the world have enjoyed its original marionette productions. The Theatre’s productions are based on classic fairy tales and offer an enriching theatrical and educational experience for children ages 3-9. The Cottage is a member of the Historic House Trust of New York City.

By 1786, James Seguine had purchased a large parcel of land overlooking Prince’s Bay. His grandson, Joseph Seguine, built the current Greek Revival-style house in 1838. In addition to operating the family’s thriving oyster harvesting business, Joseph helped establish the Staten Island Railroad Company, founded the Staten Island Oil and Candlemaking Company on his own property, and owned extensive farmland in the surrounding neighborhood.

The Seguines’ home reflects their prosperity. On the grand facade facing the water, six monumental square columns support a second floor gallery and classical pediment with a sweeping fanlight. Inside the house, Greek Revival mantels and plasterwork grace the spacious rooms, all of which feature tall windows and doors to circulate cool ocean breezes throughout the house. A wide, sloping lawn opens a broad vista to the bay.

The Skenesborough Museum concentrates on the history of the area, along with a focus the U.S. Navy and forms of transportation. The site, a previously unused canal terminal, lends itself to large displays. A 16-foot diorama shows the home and out buildings of the community’s founder. Also included in the museum are the seven different ways in which ships were first built in Skenesborough. The museum has everything from wooden ship models to early fire equipment to photographs and family records.

During the Battle of Brooklyn in August 1776, a regiment of about 400 volunteers from Maryland engaged a superior force of British and Hessian soldiers in a desperate defensive maneuver to enable other American troops to flee across the Gowanus marshes to the safety of Washington's encampment on Brooklyn Heights. The Marylanders’ sacrifice became legend – a storied moment in a long war.

After the war’s end, the Cortelyou family owned the house from 1790 to 1850. In the following years, the land surrounding the old Vechte-Cortelyou farmhouse was filled to provide level building lots for fashionable row houses.

The square block around the battle shrine remained intact and became Washington Park in 1883. Its lawns were the summer home of the Brooklyn Baseball Club – later known as the Brooklyn Dodgers – which used the House as its first headquarters. In 1889 and 1890, the World Series was played at Washington Park, establishing the tradition of Brooklyn baseball.

During the decade before the Revolutionary War, the Georgian house, with its monumental portico and octagonal drawing room, was the setting for some of the colony’s most fashionable parties.

In the fall of 1776, the Mansion was seized by the Continental Army and served as headquarters for George Washington during the Battle of Harlem Heights. British and Hessian commanders occupied the house after Washington’s retreat from New York.

In the summer of 1790, Washington returned to the Mansion and dined with the members of his cabinet. Among those at the table were Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Knox.

In 1810, wealthy French wine merchant Stephen Jumel and his American wife, Eliza, purchased the Mansion, and spared no expense refurbishing it. In 1828, they returned from Paris with crates of furniture and paintings, much of which they claimed had belonged to Napoleon. A year after Stephen Jumel died in 1832, his widow married former vice president Aaron Burr. The marriage ended quickly and Eliza lived alone in the house until her death in 1865.

Complete with the family’s original furnishings and personal possessions, the house offers a rare and intimate glimpse of domestic life during the significant era of the 19th-century when New York City was transformed from a colonial seaport into a thriving metropolis.

Period rooms display the family’s furniture from New York’s best cabinetmakers, high-style decorative objects, china and glassware, utilitarian household items, as well as clothing, books, and other personal memorabilia. The late-Federal and Greek Revival building is among the finest surviving examples of the architecture of the period. Highlights include the formal Greek Revival double parlors with black-and-gold marble mantelpieces, Ionic columns, mahogany pocket doors, and elaborate ornamental plasterwork. Matching gas chandeliers from the 1830s hang from the 13-foot ceilings.

The Museum’s collection of 19th-century costumes and textiles is among the most significant in New York City and includes more than 30 dresses from the 1820s to the 1880s documented as having belonged to the Tredwell women.

Illustrated by Lynd Ward, this tale of the friendship between the tiny beacon and the George Washington Bridge introduced children around the world to the red, round, and very, very proud little lighthouse in New York.

Built in 1880, the 40-foot tower was moved in 1921 to Jeffrey’s Hook, a rocky point on the Hudson River near Manhattan’s northern edge. The Lighthouse warned ships away from the shore as they made their way down the narrow channel between New York and New Jersey.

However, when construction of the George Washington Bridge was completed in 1931, the brilliant lights of the bridge’s 600-foot towers overwhelmed the little Lighthouse. In 1947, it was officially decommissioned and abandoned, and by 1951, the Little Red Lighthouse was slated for demolition – its cast-iron shell to be sold for scrap.

Hearing this news, thousands of children who had loved Swift’s book started a nationwide campaign to save the Little Red Lighthouse. Thanks in part to their efforts, ownership of the Lighthouse was transferred from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

Pieter Lefferts built the house around 1783, four generations after his ancestors arrived in the New World. Lefferts served as a lieutenant in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and was later appointed to a judgeship in Kings County. He also served as a member of the New York State convention that ratified the Constitution in 1788.

Lefferts’s son, John, inherited the farm when his father died. Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt, John’s daughter, recorded the history of her family, her community, and her landmark home in The Social History of Flatbush, published in 1881.

By the turn of the century, Brooklyn’s rural setting was disappearing under the sprawl of real estate development. In 1917, the estate of John Lefferts offered the House to the City of New York on the condition that the House be moved from its original location onto city property. The City accepted the offer and moved the House into Prospect Park in 1918. In 1920, it was opened as a museum by the Fort Greene chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

After a period of religious doubt and time spent as a lieutenant and captain during the War of 1812, William Miller began to study the Bible himself. His quest led him to determine that the scriptures were to be understood literally, in both their historical and grammatical sense. For Miller, the scriptures pointed to a day of judgment. Upon reading Daniel 8:14, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” Miller became obsessed with the idea of Christ’s second coming.

In August 1831, Miller agreed to preach his message for the first time, followed by a published series of eight articles in the Vermont Telegraph the next year. By 1844, Miller had given over 3200 lectures.