History
The farm was privately owned by a Dutch family, the Adriances, from 1697 to 1808. Their three-room farmhouse, built in 1772, has been restored and still stands. After 1808, a series of families owned the farm as it continued to evolve from a colonial homestead to a modern "truck farming" or market gardening business. Under its last private farmer, Daniel Stattel, it became, by 1900, "the second largest in size in Queens County and the highest in dollar value...assessed at 32,000 dollars." In 1926, the Stattels sold the farm to real estate investor Pauline Reisman, who, in turn, later that year sold it to Creedmoor State Hospital, which used it for occupational therapy, to stock its kitchen, and to grow ornamental plants for the rest of the hospital campus. In 1975, state legislation authored by Frank Padavan transferred ownership of the farm from the hospital to the New York City Department of Parks, for the purpose of starting a museum.
Read more about this topic: Queens County Farm Museum
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)