Dyckman Farmhouse Museum

Now that the Dyckman Farmhouse is the only Dutch farmhouse in Manhattan, have you ever wondered what others would have looked like? The first slide is a drawing of an old Dutch farmhouse that sat on 7th Ave. and 50th St. in the 1800s. This area is now just a few blocks away from Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, and the Museum and Modern Art. Doesn't this house look quite a bit like the Dyckman Farmhouse? In general, Dutch farmhouses in 1880s America shared a number of architectural features. They often had flared eaves on the front and rear of the roof, which is when the roof comes over from the house to create something like a small awning. Most had porches or front stoops, and they almost always had the quintessential Dutch doors. Most also had a smaller building, like you see here and at the DFM, which acted as a smokehouse. Smokehouses were used for preserving meat long before refrigeration was on anyones mind!

#FromOurCollection this is a foot warmer! Homes and public spaces before the mid-1800s were usually poorly heated, which led to the rise of the foot stove, or foot warmer in Northern Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States during the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries. Inside there would be a tray designed to hold embers or coals, which were the sources of the heat. The holes you see on the front of the box also have a purpose beyond decoration as they were made to allow for ventilation. Women’s skirts or blankets would be draped over the foot warmer to further insulate the heat. They were also designed to be portable and would be brought to places like church or when riding in carriages. The use of foot warmers faded out with the rise of heated cars and train carriages in the mid-nineteenth century, though they were still used in rural parts of the country until the late nineteenth century.

Do you know about the language of flowers? Floriography, or the fancy name for the language of flowers, assigns a meaning to every flower which can also be influenced by variety of flower and color. It gained popularity in the Victorian Era as a way to silently express emotions, though many flowers today don't carry the same meaning they once did. Let's see what some of the flowers at the Dyckman Farmhouse mean! The first photo is a narcissus, which is most often associated with rebirth, new beginnings, hope, and joy! Though in medieval times they could be interpreted as an omen of death! The second photo is a daylily which are thought to signify flirtation or a fleeting sense of allure due to how briefly they bloom. The last picture is a hollyhock, which represents abundance and fruitfulness!

One of our favorite things to host at the Dyckman Farmhouse are live music performances! Which makes sense because live music performances have been around for thousands of years! Research shows that during Ancient Rome and Greece, live music became an important part of culture as it was used to accompany marriages, funerals, other religious ceremonies and used in theater productions. Since then, the importance and prevalence of live music has only grown. Opera, alongside choral and orchestral performances, began to rise in the 1700s, and by the early 1900s, jazz and the blues had invaded the United States, being played live in bars across the country. In the 1960's, the modern concert as we know it began and today concerts are the favorite weekend activity of thousands. Keep an eye out for our next performance!

In this #HistoricalPhotograph we see how much Broadway and 207th Street, just a few blocks down from the Dyckman Farmhouse, has changed. The first photo is from 1910, and though we might still see a bus driving down the road it looks nothing like Broadway and 207th today! The second photo is from 1915 and shows Inwood's Church of the Good Shepherd which to this day is the only Catholic Church on Broadway. The Church has changed quite a bit from this photo, undergoing a redesign and expansion in 1935 to accommodate the growing size of it's congregants, but it has remained an integral part of the Inwood community.

#FromOurCollection this is what has become known as the Cowpens flag, or the 3rd Maryland Flag. An early version of the United States flag that shares similarities with the Betsy Ross flag, in that the stars are arranged in a circle, but diverts from the Betsy Ross flag by the circle consisting of twelve stars with the thirteenth sitting in the center. How this flag got its name is contested, with Joshua Blatcher saying that his father, William Blatcher who was a member of the 3rd Maryland Regiment, carried the flag at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. That specific flag was later donated and was on display in the Maryland Statehouse until the 1980s. New research has shown that the story Joshua Blatcher told wasn’t quite true for a number of reasons. For one, the flag he said his father carried has been shown to have been made in the 1840s, and that his father was likely killed at the Battle of Camden which was months before Cowpens. It was determined that Joshua himself actually carried the flag at the Battle of North Point during the War of 1812. Furthermore, it’s been found that the 3rd Maryland Regiment wasn’t even at the Battle of Cowpens, and that at the time no American regiment was authorized to carry a “Stars and Stripes” flag. While the Cowpens design could date to the American Revolution, the flag that Blatcher donated was made no earlier than 1843.

After being inspired by the South Street Seaport Museum's exhibition , which we posted about yesterday, we decided to look more into the watery and little known history of New York, or as it was known then, Novum Amsterodamum (New Amsterdam). The Dutch town that existed before the English took control of New York in 1664 was far from the quaint trading city that you may imagine, instead it had a reputation for alcohol and free roaming hogs. It's been said that one in every four buildings in New Amsterdam sold alcohol, and that it got to the point in 1647 that Peter Stuyvesant, the director general of New Netherland, set into motion some of the earliest laws in North America, including prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Another issue plaguing New Amsterdam was the unrestrained running of animals like hogs, goats, and sheep. In 1650, an ordinance was passed forbidding such animals from running free.

Last week the DFM staff and interns got the chance to go explore the South Street Seaport Museum's new exhibition called "Maritime City." We absolutely loved it, especially the cabinet of curiosities which you can see at the end of the video. The exhibition opened March 12th, make sure you go check it out!

March is Women's History Month, which is a time to remember and reflect on the contributions and achievements of the women and girls around us. Two of the most influential women to ever grace the Dyckman Farmhouse and the reason we're all here are Mary Alice Dyckman and Fannie Fredericka Dyckman Welch. Mary and Frannie who were the daughters of Isaac Michael Dyckman who was the last Dyckman Child to grow up in the farmhouse. Later in their lives, Mary and Frannie were faced with the possibility of losing the farmhouse, and they responded by undertaking a major restoration and furnishing project in attempts to bring the house back to what was believed to be its earliest appearance. They went on to source objects from family and friends to furnish the house, and by 1916 the farmhouse was open as a museum to visitors. During this Women's History Month we're especially grateful to the women who gave us the opportunity to connect with the Inwood Community and keep the last remaining farmhouse in Manhattan alive.

#FromOurCollection this would have been shot from a cannon, believe it or not! Used in naval warfare, often by pirates, this is called a dismantling shot or bar shot. This would have been used to damage a ship's sails and rigging, slowing the ship down. Made of hammered (wrought) iron, a bar shot is made by two hemispheres, which are called bullets, joined in the middle by an iron bar. A bar shot is a “battering projectile,” and when it was shot it would have spun at high speed, cutting through sails, ropes, and any unfortunate sailor who stood in its way like a buzz saw. The bar shots only downfall was it’s limited range which meant it could only be used effectively when ships were close together.