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
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“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
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—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)