The Wyckoff House Museum preserves, interprets, and operates New York City’s oldest building and the surrounding one-and-a-half acres of park. Through innovative educational and farm-based programs we build cultural and agricultural connections within our community, emphasizing immigration, family, food, and community through history. In April of 1637, a young man named Pieter Claesen arrived in what was then the Dutch-controlled colony of New Netherland. Like most of New Netherland’s immigrants, Pieter’s native language and culture were not Dutch. Pieter grew up in Norden, an area in what is now Germany, where the population spoke Frisian.