STOOTHOFF - WILLIAMSON HOUSE 1587 East 53rd Street

Douwe STOOTHOFF married Cornelia VAN SINDEREN on 1 June 1797. He was the son of Wilhelmus STOOTHOFF of Flatlands' leading lights, and she the granddaughter of Domine Ulpianus VAN SINDEREN. He established their home on a farm south of Mill Lane not far from Mill Island. There he erected a large substantial house, a barn to which he later put an addition and a shed. He dug himself a well. In 1813, he added a small wing to his house as the home of Mrs. Betsey LOTT, who, while living in it, committed suicide by cutting her throat.. . Douwe STOOTHOFF died on Sunday, 9 April 1826, "after eight years of excrutiating complaint which he bore with great fortitude and resignation," as Baxter wrote in his diary. His brother Cornelius sold the farm and its buildings in 1828 to John WILLIAMSON (b.24 July 1803 - d.29 January 1881) of Gravesend for $4,600. With his wife Maria KOUWENHOVEN and their young sons, William and Stephen, John WILLIAMSON moved into his new home. In it, his sons Garret and James were born and their sister Joanna. At his death, he left his property to his widow who divided it among her children. Garret (b.9 November 1818) bought the others' shares and went in for farming in a modern way. It was he who first grew hothouse rhubarb on Long Island for the market. Garret erected greenhouses and started his plants. Every April, when the plants were in their prime, he engaged neighborhood women to bunch the stalks. It is said he received as much as $200 a load, so delicate was its flavor. As Garret and his wife, Magdalena SCHENCK of Canarsie, had no children of their own, Mrs. WILLIAMSON'S niece Helen SCHENCK (Mrs. Arthur FULLER) lived with them. She often watched the women at work bunching the rhubarb in the barn where they kept their hands warm by means of oil stoves. After Garret's death, his property was sold and his house moved to its present location and very much altered. The WILLIAMSONs were descended from Willem WILLEMSEN who was born in Amsterdam, Holland, about 1637. He arrived in New Amsterdam on the Concorde in 1657 and at once went to Gravesend where he settled. He married Mayke Pieterse WYCKOFF, probably about 1678. He was on the Gravesend assessment roll in 1683, its census of 1698. He took the oath of allegiance in that town in 1687. He made his will on 1 December 1721. His children were : Nicholas (born in 1680), Pieter (baptized 16 April 1682) William, Jacobus, Cornelis, Marretje and Anne. . . His son Nicholas, who was a farmer in Gravesend, took for his second wife, Ida REMSEN (b.3 January 1705 - d.3 November 1784). She was the mother of his son Rem (b.18 April 1738 - d.26 January 1825) who married Susanna BASSETT. Rem WILLIAMSON was Captain of the Gravesend Troop of the Long Island Levies and Militia, receiving his commission on 11 March 1776. He advanced money to the State of New York during the Revolution, and his name is on the list of those who cashed their pledges issued by Governor George CLINTON. His son, Stephen Bassett WILLIAMSON (baptized in Gravesend on 24 January 1764) married Sarah ADRIANCE and was the father of John who bought Douwe STOOTHOFF's farm. . . Next Chapter..CORNELIUS B. KOUWENHOVEN HOUSE DUTCH Houses..Index Main Return to TOWN Index Main Return to BROOKLYN Index Main