Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: c. 1848 STYLE: Greek Revival This is Greek Revival church stands at the head of an avenue of Linden trees. The church is of clapboard, painted white; the yard, with an ancient cemetery adjacent, is enclosed by a fine wrought-iron fence; and the whole presents a living image of rural worship of a type which has all but disappeared from the City. It is set on a stone foundation, and built on the site of two earlier churches, the earliest having been dedicated in 1663. Also on the church grounds there is a Sunday School building and a small graveyard containing many old gravestones.

Flatlands Reformed Church Cemetery, 1922. The Flatlands Reformed Church, along with the Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope and the Flatbush Reformed Church, were founded in 1654. They are the oldest churches in Brooklyn. The church graveyard was established at the same time and it is the resting place of generations of Brooklyn's founding families with names like Lott, Schenck, Kouwenhoven, and Wyckoff. The remains of Pieter Claesen Wyckoff, a church founder, are said to be buried under the pulpit. As Wyckoff died in 1694 and the current building was only erected in 1848, it is unclear where exactly "beneath the pulpit" means. Both the church and graveyard were designated landmarks in 1966.

One of the most historically significant spots in all of Brooklyn is the intersection of Kings Highway and Flatbush Avenue. Here the British occupation force encamped during the summer of 1776. This was the village center of Flatlands and the Flatlands Reformed Church remains, set back form the main roadway along what is now East 40th Street. The elegant Greek Revival structure, built in 1848, is the third on the site and reportedly covers the gravesite of some of the village's earliest settlers, including Pieter Claesen Wyckoff. The fascinating cemetery with many Dutch gravestones contains several later Wyckoff family graves.

Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church, The Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church was one of three Kings County churches established in 1654, at the instruction of Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of what was then the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The two sister churches were located in Flatbush and present-day Park Slope. The adjacent cemetery includes graves dating to the congregation's 17th century origins.

The kitchen wing of this picturesque house (the low extension to the left of the taller section) was built about 1747, presumably by an ancestor of Garret Stoothoff. Stoothoff’s daughter, Altje (Dutch for “Alice”), married John Baxter, an Irish-born schoolmaster in the town of Flatlands. The Baxters inherited the property, and in 1811 joined the small house to a new, larger wing. Their daughter, Abigail, wife of William I. Kouwenhoven, eventually became the owner, hence its tripartite name: Stoothoff-Baxter-Kouwenhoven. The house was reoriented about 1900 for the opening of East 48th Street. It became a landmark in 1976

"Flatbush Ave., west side, between Aves., M. and P. The view shows the old St. Thomas Aquinas R.C. Church, 1931." This small church building opened in 1885 as the mission church of the larger nearby Holy Cross Church. The surrounding area was still very rural, dotted with family farms. By 1901 the parish had 150 members, but with the development and urbanization of the borough happening quickly, by 1909 the parishioners numbered 700. The church functions were moved out of this building in 1930, when a larger church was completed on Hendrickson Street. For a time this building served as a gymnasium for the parish school, but services returned in the 1940s and continue today.