Prospect Lefferts Gardens and the Lefferts name trace their origins all the way back to the original Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam. 16-year-old Leffert Pieterse arrived with his family from Amsterdam in 1660 and settled in the newly created village of Midwout, an outpost recently created by Peter Stuyvesant on Lange Eylandt. (Midwout would become Flatbush once the British took over, and the dense woodland area around the village became Midwood.) He seems to have been a busy man… By the 1680’s, young Leffert had amassed land holdings in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, New Jersey and sired 14 children – starting a family dynasty that lasts until this day. 

Lefferts Pieterse eventually moved to the Bedford area leaving the family homestead to his son Pieter Lefferts (the Lefferts took on the Anglicized practice of putting their surnames in the second position after the British firmly established their hold on the colonies.) The house stood at what is now the intersection of Flatbush & Maple St and passed through two more sets of hands before meeting a fiery fate. Pieter bequeathed the home to his son John Lefferts, a judge for the British Court of Special Sessions and Common Pleas, and upon John’s passing the estate fell to John’s son Peter in 1776. 

Note the year and place: the Revolutionary War was just underway, the Battle of Brooklyn lay shortly ahead, and the Lefferts house was in its path. Peter was by this time a Lieutenant in the Continental Army, and the fighting was about to literally take place in his backyard. The British landed forces in Gravesend on August 22nd, 1776 and began their attack – a flanking maneuver coming down Flatbush Road. With the Continental Army in retreat to Brooklyn Heights, the Leffert’s home was set ablaze to keep it from being used by the invaders. After Independence was secured, Peter moved back to the family homestead and built the house that stands in Prospect Park today. 

The Lefferts clan featured very prominently as Brooklyn transformed from the rural landscape of farmlands and small settlements into what was America’s fourth largest city at the time of its incorporation into New York City. John Lefferts, who inherited the property from Peter, was a Congressman and State Senator. His daughter, Phebe Lefferts Vanderbilt, authored The Social History of Flatbush (1881), featuring stories told by her grandmother, Femmetie Lefferts. The book became an oft-quoted source for historians researching the Brooklyn Colonial era.

Phebe’s brother John Jr. – a prominent businessman in his own right and the last Lefferts to live his entire life in the house – inherited the family lands, and he in turn left them to his son James. It was James who, along with his siblings, recognized that the urban sprawl was inevitable and divided the family farm into 600 lots with strict covenants designed to keep the new development of “Lefferts Manor” a high-end residential neighborhood with single family homes. Their house remained at the corner of Maple and Flatbush until 1918 when the Lefferts donated it to New York City as a historical and cultural learning center. The city then moved the house to its current location in Prospect Park, and it now operates as the Lefferts Historic House, a living history museum detailing family life in 19th century Brooklyn, including the Dutch and Native Americans who lived in the area.