Kingsland Homestead

143-35 37th Avenue | Flushing | built 1785

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1785

    Charles Doughty builds the farmhouse later known as Kingsland

    Charles Doughty put up this Flushing house around 1785. It did not start out here: the building has been picked up and relocated twice since then, and today the Queens Historical Society runs it as a museum interpreted to the Victorian era.

    “Kingsland was built by Charles Doughty in approximately 1785…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1801

    Sea captain Joseph King buys the house that likely gives Kingsland its name

    In 1801 the house passed to Joseph King, a British sea captain who had married into the Doughty family as Charles Doughty's son-in-law. The name Kingsland is thought to come from him. King also put up a stable on the property, and more than a century later the house itself would be moved onto that stable's site.

    “British sea captain Joseph King, who bought the home in 1801…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1923

    The planned Flushing Line extension forces Kingsland to move

    In 1923, with development expected to follow the proposed extension of the city's Flushing subway line, the house was moved. Its new spot was the site of a stable that Joseph King himself had built.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1965

    Neighbors save Kingsland from a shopping center and win it early landmark status

    Plans for the Murray Hill Shopping Center put the house at risk in 1965. Local residents rallied to keep it, and that same year the Landmarks Preservation Commission made it one of the first buildings in New York City to be declared a landmark.

    “…threatened again in 1965, by the construction of the Murray Hill Shopping Center, but the community was able to save the house…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 1966

    April 19

    The city designates the Weeping Beech in Kingsland's park as a landmark

    On April 19, 1966, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Weeping Beech, a tree that the Flushing nurseryman Samuel Parsons had planted on the site after buying a section of a tree on Baron DeMann's estate in Beersal, Belgium. It then stood more than 60 feet tall with a spread of about 85 feet and a trunk 14 feet around. Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving recommended the designation in a letter.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  6. 1968

    The Kingsland Preservation Committee moves the threatened house to its present site

    New construction endangered the house once more in 1968. The Kingsland Preservation Committee, founded three years earlier and later renamed the Queens Historical Society, arranged to have it moved to where it stands today, in the park that also holds Weeping Beech Park.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1973

    March

    Kingsland Homestead is dedicated as a museum after long delays

    Following years of setbacks after the move, the house was formally dedicated as a museum in March 1973. The Queens Historical Society has its offices inside, and exhibitions there have ranged from Queens during World War II to slavery and its legacy in Queens and on Long Island.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 1998

    December

    A funeral is held for the Weeping Beech beside the homestead

    The Weeping Beech, believed to be the parent of every weeping beech in the country, died in 1997 after 151 years. A funeral for it followed in December 1998. Its remains went to artists for sculptures and benches on a downtown Flushing heritage trail, a ten-foot piece stayed in the park as a memorial, and seven of its offspring still grow around the house.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

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