Queens County Farm Museum

The Queens County Farm Museum is located on 47 acres of the New York City neighborhood of Bellerose, Queens. The museum occupies the city’s largest remaining tract of undisturbed farmland (in operation since 1697), and is also the city’s only working historical farm. The site features original farm buildings from three different centuries, a greenhouse, livestock, various pieces of vintage farm equipment, and some open planting fields. Guided tours are offered year-round, and hay rides are featured between the months of April and October.

History

A Dutch family, the Adriances, owned the farm from 1697 to 1808. Their three-room farmhouse, built in in 1772, has been restored and still stands. After 1808, a series of families owned the farm as it continued to evolve from a colonial homestead to a modern “truck farming” or market gardening business. Under its last private farmer, Daniel Stattel, it became, by 1900, “the second largest [farm] in size in Queens County and the highest in dollar value…assessed at 32,000 dollars.” In 1926, the Stattels sold the farm to real estate investor Pauline Reisman, who, in turn, later that year sold it to Creedmoor State Hospital, which used it for occupational therapy, to stock its kitchen, and to grow ornamental plants for the rest of the hospital campus. In 1975, state legislation authored by Frank Padavan transferred ownership of the farm from the hospital to the the New York City Department of Parks, for the purpose of starting a museum.