Van Pelt Manor was the name given to an area of

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, that today is part of the section of

Bensonhurst Bensonhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bordered on the northwest by 14th Avenue, on the northeast by 60th Street, on the southeast by Avenue P and 22n ...

. In the early part of the 20th century, it gave its name to a

railroad station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

, a

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, and Public School 128 was known as Van Pelt Manor grammar school. The house purchased or raised by Aert Teunisse Van Pelt about 1670-1690 stood on modern-day 18th Avenue between 81st and 82nd Streets, east of the old village square and north of the pre-revolutionary Dutch Church of New Utrecht. Van Pelt Manor was an area in

New Utrecht New Utrecht ( nl, Nieuw Utrecht) was a town in western Long Island, New York (state), New York encompassing all or part of the present-day Bath Beach, Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Brooklyn, Borough Park, Dyker Heights and Fort Hamilton n ...

one of the Dutch towns in Brooklyn. Van Pelt Manor was originally owned by the descendants of Teunis Laenen van Pelt, an early Dutch settler. Some authors have written that Teunis Van Pelt was a "

Patroon In the United States, a patroon (; from Dutch ''patroon'' ) was a landholder with manorial rights to large tracts of land in the 17th century Dutch colony of New Netherland on the east coast of North America. Through the Charter of Freedoms a ...

" who was granted manorial rights. Several other tracts of land in New York were designated as "manors', such as

Pelham Manor Pelham Manor is an affluent village located in Westchester County, New York. As of the 2020 census, the village had a total population of 5,752. It is located in the town of Pelham. History The Bolton Priory, Edgewood House, and Pelhamdale are ...

and

Livingston Manor Livingston Manor was a tract of land in the Province of New York granted to Robert Livingston the Elder during the reign of George I of Great Britain. History Livingston Manor was a tract of land in the colonial Province of New York granted ...

. However, author Harold D. Eberlein states: "there never was a duly and legally constituted Van Pelt Manor and this appellation has no defense whatever on any historic grounds. In 1675, 1678 and 1680 considerable tracts of land were acquired by Teunis Van Pelt, the ''emigre'', and added to what he already had previously. These additional holdings in

, mentioned in Governor Dongan's Patent of 1686, may have created the impression that the Van Pelts, who were always a prominent family in the neighbourhood, were paving the way for the erection of their possessions to the legal and administrative status of a manor, but if they cherished any such intention it was never consummated."Eberlein, Harold Donaldson. Manor Houses and Historic Homes of Long Island and Staten Island. Phila: Lippincott, 1928. Eight generations of the Van Pelt family lived at Van Pelt Manor. Some of the more noteworthy were Captain Petrus Van Pelt, who was elected to the New York Provincial Congress in 1776, Teunis Van Pelt Talmage, elected to the New York State Assembly, and John V.B. Van Pelt, the last elected Supervisor (mayor) of New Utrecht before it was annexed by the City of Brooklyn in 1894. Townsend Cortelyou Van Pelt, brother of Supervisor Van Pelt, deeded the Van Pelt Manor House and surrounding grounds to the City of New York for one dollar in 1910. The Manor House was torn down after a fire in 1952, but the grounds, known as Milestone Park, are administered by the

New York City Department of Parks The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

as a small recreation area. In the early 1950s the house which was unprotected was used by neighborhood children to play in. The fire was suspected to have started by children whom often built small fires to stay warm while playing in the structure.

Sources

* Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace {{authority control Geography of Brooklyn History of Brooklyn Houses in Brooklyn