Another view of the Lent Riker Smith Homestead rear garden looking diagonally across it toward the Secret Garden entry gate. Photo by NYCHS during the June 5, 2005 tour given by Marion Smith to benefit the Queens Historical Society. Tour images do not appear in Edgar Alan Nutt's 2004 book and have been added to the web version by NYCHS. Click image to visit the Queens Historical Society web site.

Abraham came from Holland by 1638 and lived first in New Amsterdam, where all the children were born, before obtaining land in Newtown and acquiring in a 1664 patent from Gov. Petrus Stuyvesant what became Riker’s Island, as detailed in an earlier chapter.

Soon he was involved in a variety of property transactions, the first of which was in 1638 for a Wallabout tract of land from the West India Company, patented to him on Aug. 8, 1640, by Director-General William Kieft; this tract may have been regranted in 1660 to a company of French settlers.

Meanwhile he obtained a patent for land on Long Island on May 8, 1640; this parcel is described in the July 29, 1641, deed of Cornelis Jacobsen Stille as lying “opposite Rinnegakonck, bounded by Gysbert Rycken, Hans Hansen, etc.” In early 1642, in partnership with Jan Pietersen, he obtained title to a house and lot at what is now the northwest corner of Bridge and Broad Streets, and almost immediately he sold the property to Michel Piquet.

Later in the same year the partners obtained a lot near Fort Amsterdam which apparently they soon sold since in 1645 Abraham successfully sued for payment- In 1646 he obtained a lot on Heeren Gracht, or Broad Street, which extended to what then was Prinse Straat and now is an easterly extension of Beaver Street; he built his house on half of this lot and sold the other half to shoemaker Jochem Beeckman.

Where his family lived in New Amsterdam prior to occupying the Heeren Gracht house is not known, but he and his family were in the latter until at least 1655 when they apparently moved to the Poor Bowery farm in Newtown. Until then, and from July 2, 1643, the farm had been leased to William Hutchinson.

Another angle on the Lent Riker Smith Homestead rear garden looking directly across it toward the small trees and scrubs that block view of the Riker cemetery's eastern wall. Photo by NYCHS during the June 5, 2005 tour given by Marion Smith to benefit the Queens Historical Society. Tour images do not appear in Edgar Alan Nutt's 2004 book and have been added to the web version by NYCHS. Click image to visit the Queens Historical Society web site.

[An undocumented source reports that the land that was leased to William Hutchinson reverted to the West India Company for failure to cultivate; if this is correct the property involved was other than the Poor Bowery farmstead.]

In addition to these property transactions there is an undocumented report that Abraham Rycken in 1638 obtained the earliest deed for land in the town of Brooklyn.

From various court record entries, many of which refer to property transactions, Abraham appears to have been rather quarrelsome and prone to litigate. One such record involves the suit of Jacques Bentyn against Abraham regarding stolen pigs that were eaten in Abraham’s house and the latter’s countersuit for slander. In April 10, 1642, proceedings resulted in proof being presented that pork had indeed been eaten in his house as a result of which the slander suit went nowhere,

The basis for the oldest and youngest sons in later Life to have adopted the Lent surname is considered elsewhere. Some records include a daughter Wyntie who was born in 1658 and married Hendrick Hendricksen, but it is certain that she instead was the daughter of Ryck Hendrickszen and the sister of Hendrick Rycken who settled on Staten Island; these individuals were members of the entirely separate Riker family referred to in Chapter One.

The will was probated in Queens County on April 10, 1689, and included an inventory of personalty totaling just £13.13.00 and consisting of his clothing, two iron pots, two chests, some old iron, and four cows. Although the estate seems extraordinarily small, its size is explained by the fact that realty, which doubtless was very significant, was not at that time considered to be part of a decedent’s estate, and by the probability that son Abraham and family were living in Abraham’s home and that much was already considered to belong to the son.