Brooklyn Timeline: Williamsburg
1638: The Dutch Come to Williamsburg
The Dutch were the first European settlers of Brooklyn and their influence stretches into the present in ways as small as the introduction of the “stoop” and as big as the very name of the borough. 1638 was the year that the Dutch West Indies Company bought the land that is now Williamsburg from the Canarsie Indians who had long inhabited the western tip of Long Island. The land that the Dutch bought was eventually chartered as the town of Boswijck which would later be known as Bushwick. At this point, what would eventually be Williamsburg was just farmland. And not the rooftop farms of today. Oh no, these were the original organic farms of Brooklyn. There were undoubtedly a lot of beards, as well, because facial hair has pretty much always been in style in Williamsburg.
