In 1675, when Brooklyn was still a sandy marshland occupied by the Canarsie Indians, a Dutch immigrant named Jan Martense Schenck (pronounced "Skenk") built this home for his family on the edge of Jamaica Bay, near the small farming town of Flatlands.

The Jan Martense Schenck House, today. Photograph by the Brooklyn Expedition.

Today, this house sits inside the Brooklyn Museum of Art! Read about everything that happened in between.

An immigrant is someone who moves to another country. back to top