Inwood
Manhattan
The New York City area is
filled with old Dutch homes dating back to as early as the 17th
century—one of the legacies left by some of the city’s earliest European
settlers. Anyone who knows me knows I love architecture and visiting historic
homes. Unfortunately, many of the Dutch homes in NYC’s various boroughs are a
bit blah. The main culprits are poor upkeep, silly displays, and didactics that
lack. Thankfully, the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum at the very top of Manhattan
does not fall prey to any of these shortcomings. Plus it has a few extra things
that help make it stand out from the dozens of other Dutch homes in the region.
The Dyckman Farmhouse was Manhattan’s last Dutch colonial style farmhouse and is one of the oldest house
museums in NYC. The farm was developed in the 1660’s by Jan Dyckman who bought
a good chunk of the land (about 250 acres) at Manhattan’s northern tip. The
original farm and home was destroyed by the Revolutionary War but Jan’s
grandson, William, replanted the land and built the home that is now the museum
in 1784. The farm thrived until 1868, but the changing scape of the
neighborhood from rural to urban caused the family business to flounder. In
1915, Mary Alice and Fannie Fredericka, the daughters of the last Dyckman to
live in the house, bought the building in order to turn it into a museum. The
daughters and their husbands restored the farmhouse and donated it to the City
of New York in 1916.
The Farmhouse Museum has
changed a lot in the last one hundred years. One of the most fun aspects is
that the second floor rooms have been kept the way the sisters and their
husbands originally designed them, even though they are not historically
accurate. These rooms demonstrate the romantic view early 20th-century
Americans had of life during colonial times as well as the way curatorial
practices have changed over time. The first floor rooms and basement, however,
present a much more accurate view of colonial life circa 1800. The contrast
between the two bedrooms is particularly striking: the second floor bedroom is
filled with floral patterns and lace that are much more English Victorian in
style than Dutch Colonial, and the first floor bedroom contains simple wood
furniture with a practical quilt bedspread.
The grounds contain two bonus
features added in the 1915 restoration that give the museum a little added
flare. The first is a Hessian military hut, which, while obviously not part of
the original farmhouse, is a historically accurate reproduction of the sort of
military huts that the British and German soldiers built during their
occupation of northern Manhattan. Amateur historians and archaeologists,
including Reginald Pelham Bolton and William Calvier, conducted digs throughout
the area and discovered the remains of a military encampment. The military hut
found on the Dyckman Farmhouse grounds today was built largely from original
hut stones found on these digs. Different items left by soldiers, such as
bottles, buttons, and pipes are part of the museum’s permanent collection and
some can be seen in the farmhouse’s “Relic Room.”
In order to get to the
Hessian hut, visitors need to pass through the ground’s lovely gardens, which
is the second feature added in 1915. The daughters were able to procure only
half an acre of the family’s original land, so the farm could not be recreated.
Instead they opted to create a garden containing remnants of the original farm,
including a smokehouse and a cherry tree. It is free to walk the museum grounds
and the gorgeous, well-maintained flowers and bushes are well worth the detour.
Unfortunately, the detached summer home is closed to visitors. It has a small
bedroom above it that was believed to be the quarters of the two black servants
and one black slave that worked in the household.
If one choses to enter
the farmhouse itself, admission is a suggested donation of a dollar. And it’s
worth the price. While the farmhouse does receive a lot of school groups, the
museum itself is much more geared toward adults, particularly history and
curatorial nerds. There are a few children’s books and toys, but much more old
maps, photos, and family trees. The people working the museum are helpful and
unobtrusive—not at all pushy or overly vigilant, as is sometimes the case in
small house museums. The museum is open to visitors only Friday through Sunday;
the majority of school groups make appointments for other times during the
week, so you don’t need to worry about encountering a large group of children
even if you visit during the school year.
From what I’ve seen of
Dutch Colonial homes in NYC, the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum is among the best. So
get that dollar out of your pocket and go while the flowers are still in bloom.
Very interesting!
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