BENNETT HOUSE



Shore Road & 95th Street

	During the first World War an ammunition boat, which was anchored off Fort 
Hamilton, exploded and damaged the roof of an ancient house on the Shore Road. 
This was not the first time that the dwelling had been a war casualty. 

	On 4 July 1776 American soldiers, waiting a long-expected attack by the British, 
constructed a small battery at The Narrows and opened fire on the English frigate Asia 
which was riding close to the shore in the rear of the British fleet. Instantly the Asia 
sent a broadside of four 24-pound shells to the land. According to the account published 
in a Philadelphia paper at the time, 
"One of the balls lodged in the wall of Mr. BENNETT'S house without penetrating it." 

	This Mr. BENNETT, generally spelled BENNET, was the same man who was compelled to act 
as a guide for the British forces advancing from The Narrows towards the American lines 
on the morning of the battle of Long Island. He was John, son of Wynant and Geertje 
(EMMANS) BENNET. 

	At the time of his marriage to Williamtie BARKELOO in July, 1761, her father Harmanus 
BARKELOO gave the young couple a farm. On this, John built his house, of course facing it 
to the south. Its west gable was not many rods distant from the old Narrows Road, and when 
that highway was widened in the nineteenth century, the gable flanked the new Shore Road. 

	After John's death his property went to his son Richard and later to Richard's son, 
Richard R. BENNET (born 1866) who married Frances Julia COOK. 

	Richard R. BENNET'S son Charles C. wrote his surname BENNETT. He married Elizabeth, 
daughter of Daniel VAN BRUNT and Mary BERGEN, 18 September 1873. In 1890, he sold his 
ancestral acres. 

	After the sale, the house for a time at least was used as a boarding house. 

	Harmanus BARKELOO, who married Sarah TERHUNE about 1730, was a second lieutenant in the 
New Utrecht company of Kings County Militia, receiving his commission in March 1770. 
He inherited his property, including the farm which he gave to the BENNETS, from his father 
Willem WILLEMSE. 

	It was originally part of the CORTELYOU property and was the share that went to Maria 
CORTELYOU, wife of Willem WILLEMSE, as her part of her father's, Jacques CORTELYOU'S, estate. 

	Before he moved to his wife's farm in 1698, Willem WILLEMSE had lived in Gravesend. 
He was the son of Willem JANSEN VAN BROCKELOO who arrived in New Amsterdam about 1657. 

	Willem JANSEN was from Borkuloo (Borkeloe, Borceloe) in Zutphen in Gelderland, the 
Netherlands. He probably returned to Holland for we find him landing for a second time in 
New Amsterdam in 1664. 

	In 1666 he married Lysbet, widow of Christoffel JANS, and she was probably his second wife. 
His name is on the Flatlands assessment rolls of 1676 and 68. He died in November 1683. His
children were :
Jannetje, 
Cornelis, 
Jan WILLEMSE, 
Willem WILLEMSE, 
Dirck, 
Daniel, 
Coenrad and Lisbeth. 


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