# Flatbush, Kings County, New York in the 1650s > A new Dutch farming village stands inside contested Lenape country, governed from New Amsterdam and anxious behind palisades. - Place: Flatbush, Kings County, New York (40.652, -73.959) - Years: 1650 to 1659 - Known then as: Midwout - Page: https://yorehistory.com/place/flatbush-kings-county-new-york/1650s - Step into it (interactive): https://yorehistory.com/?step=Flatbush%2C%20Kings%20County%2C%20New%20York%2C%20United%20States&at=40.6521,-73.9590&year=1655 ## Looking around You stand at Midwout, the Dutch-chartered town of 1651[1], near the later crossing of Flatbush and Church avenues[2]. Around the village is post-and-rail or palisade fencing[5], with strong palisades ordered for safety in 1656[3]. The church rising here is sixty feet long, twenty-eight feet wide, and fourteen feet high below the beams[4], built with timber cut by neighbors from Breuckelen and Amersfoort. Beyond it lie grain fields that cannot be cleared until the governor’s tithe is taken or commuted[3], and beyond those Canarsee meadows east-northeast of Canarsee Indian planting lands[3]. Work is agricultural: maize hills are cut about six feet apart[5], beans may climb corn stalks, and western Long Island farmers carry produce to New Amsterdam’s Saturday market[6]. This is not yet Flatbush in English speech; it is Midwout[1]. ## Work: Fields before town The visible economy is farming: western Long Island farmers brought produce to New Amsterdam’s Saturday market[6], while maize was planted in six-foot-spaced hills[5]. Grain tithes reserved in patents[3] show how harvest and government were tied together. ## Faith: One church for four towns The religious center is Kings County’s first church, established at Midwout in 1654[4]. Polhemus preached Sunday mornings at Midwout[4], while also serving nearby Amersfoort and Breuckelen. ## Law & power: Stuyvesant’s orders reach here Authority comes from New Amsterdam and the West India Company world: New Netherland was a Dutch West India Company colony[7]. Locally, people contested that authority when Flatbush delegates protested laws and the lack of popular choice in magistrates[3]. ## In the air: Rights and rule argued The argument of the decade is not abstract: Elbert Elbertson and Thomas Spicer joined a 1653 remonstrance over laws and magistrates[3]. In a village of farms and patents, political rights are being argued through petitions and council minutes. ## What people feared: Palisades after violence Fear is close enough to shape the village: Stuyvesant ordered Flatbush enclosed with palisades in 1656[3]. The year before, regional violence had reached Staten Island and Gravesend[3], making night safety a local concern. ## Money: Tithes in the grain Cash prices are hard to recover here, but obligation is visible: grain could not be removed from fields until patent tithes were taken or commuted[3]. No reliable local price list for 1650s Midwout was found in accessible online sources. ## Who lived here: Dutch beside Canarsee land Midwout is a Dutch colonial town, but its bounds press against Indigenous ground: the Canarsee Meadows patent named nearby Canarsee Indian planting lands[3]. The place’s colonial name is Midwout[1], not yet the later English Flatbush. ## Roads & news: Roads to New Amsterdam News, orders, and goods move through New Amsterdam: farmers from Brooklyn and western Long Island went there for Saturday market[6]. The badness of roads was important enough that church service arrangements were made around travel among Midwout, Amersfoort, and Breuckelen[4]. ## Year by year - **1650** (nearby): The Treaty of Hartford fixed a Dutch-English boundary claim that placed Midwout within Nieuw Nederlandt.[1] - **1651** (here): Midwout was chartered as a Dutch town on March 6, 1651.[1] - **1653** (here): Flatbush delegates joined a New Amsterdam convention and remonstrance against laws and appointed magistrates.[3] - **1654** (here): Kings County’s first Dutch Reformed church was established at Midwout on October 13, 1654.[4] - **1654** (the world): The First Anglo-Dutch War ended after disrupting Dutch and English Atlantic shipping.[7] - **1655** (nearby): Violence known as the Peach Tree War struck Staten Island and threatened settlements around western Long Island.[3] - **1656** (here): Stuyvesant ordered Flatbush enclosed with palisades and also enforced grain tithes before harvest removal.[3] - **1658** (here): Midwout was described as a seat of justice and market town for the county.[3] ## What the sources say - The place was called Midwout in Dutch records and was chartered as a town on March 6, 1651. (from the sources)[1] - The village center of Midwout/Flatbush was at the intersection now known as Flatbush and Church avenues. (from the sources)[2] - On June 20, 1656, Governor Peter Stuyvesant granted the inhabitants of Midwout a patent for the Canarsee Meadows, described as east-northeast of Canarsee Indian planting lands. (from the sources)[3] - By 1658 Midwout was described as a county seat of justice and a market town, with the minister, sheriff, clerk, schoolmaster, courts, and county business located there. (from the sources)[3] - The first church in Kings County was established at Midwout on October 13, 1654, and the building ordered in 1655 was to measure 60 by 28 feet and 14 feet high below the beams. (from the sources)[4] - Rev. Joannes Theodorus Polhemus was permitted by Stuyvesant to preach at Midwout and Amersfoort, and he was to preach Sunday mornings at Midwout. (from the sources)[4] - In December 1653, Flatbush delegates Elbert Elbertson and Thomas Spicer joined a New Amsterdam convention protesting laws and the lack of popular choice in magistrates. (from the sources)[3] - After violence on Staten Island and at Gravesend in 1655, Stuyvesant ordered Flatbush inhabitants in 1656 to enclose their village with palisades. (from the sources)[3] - On June 6, 1656, Stuyvesant forbade people in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Flatlands to remove grain from the fields until patent tithes had been taken or commuted. (from the sources)[3] - In April 1654, magistrates of Midwout, Brooklyn, and Amersfoort formed a volunteer military company against “robbers and pirates,” with a sergeant and patrol in each village. (from the sources)[3] - As across New Netherland, maize was planted by cutting hills about six feet apart, putting five or six grains in a hill, and later weeding around the hills. (from the sources)[5] - As across New Netherland, beans could be planted around maize so the corn stalk served as the bean pole and two crops were gathered together. (from the sources)[5] - Van der Donck wrote in the 1650s that New Netherland farms used post-and-rail or palisade fences rather than Dutch dikes and ditches. (from the sources)[5] - In 1656 New Amsterdam established Saturday Market Day, when country farmers from Brooklyn and western Long Island brought produce to the city for sale. (from the sources)[6] - New Netherland was governed as a Dutch West India Company colony, and by the 1650s it had become a growing North Atlantic trading port colony of about 9,000 people at its height. (from the sources)[7] - The First Anglo-Dutch War, fought from 1652 to 1654 over shipping and trade, would have mattered in a Dutch Atlantic colony dependent on ships. (from the sources)[7] - Local descriptions of ordinary Midwout houses in the 1650s are scarce online; the surviving accessible records emphasize patents, church orders, courts, crops, and defense. (not known) - No reliable local price list for 1650s Midwout food, tools, rent, or wages was found online in this quick search. (not known) ## Sources 1. Place: Midwout (Flatbush, Brooklyn). Mapping Early New York: Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/place/midwout-flatbush-brooklyn 2. Schooling in Midwout, Brooklyn in 1666. NYC Department of Records & Information Services, 2022. https://www.archives.nyc/blog/2022/8/10/schooling-in-midwout-brooklyn-in-1666 3. The History of the Town of Flatbush, in Kings County, Long Island. Long Island Genealogy, 1842. https://longislandgenealogy.com/histflat.html 4. Notes Geographical and Historical, Relating to the Town of Brooklyn. Project Gutenberg, 1824. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56078/56078-h/56078-h.htm 5. Description of the New Netherlands. Wikisource, 1656. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Description_of_the_New_Netherlands/Part_2 6. Demographics: Farmer. Mapping Early New York: Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/occupation/farmer 7. The Rise and Fall of New Netherland. National Park Service. https://home.nps.gov/mava/learn/historyculture/new-netherland.htm ## The same place in other decades - [Flatbush in the 1680s](https://yorehistory.com/place/flatbush-kings-county-new-york/1680s/md) - [Flatbush, Brooklyn in the 1960s](https://yorehistory.com/place/brooklyn-kings-county-new-york/1960s/md) ## Nearby, about the same time - [Chesterfield, Burlington County, New Jersey in the 1680s](https://yorehistory.com/place/chesterfield-burlington-county-new-jersey/1680s/md) (83 km) --- Researched by Yore's AI historian (gpt-5.5) on 2026-10-13 from the sources listed. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked "inferred" are conclusions, not records. Cite as: Yore, "Flatbush, Kings County, New York in the 1650s", https://yorehistory.com/place/flatbush-kings-county-new-york/1650s