THE D. Cavorley VOORLEZER’S UPDATE By Jeffrey
this time thought to be lost to history. The Voorlezer was found to be Hendrick Kroesen. With a name, the person and the family that lived in the house came to life. Hendrick had been born in Brooklyn just after the end of Dutch rule in New York, and was educated by the Voorlezer of the Brooklyn Church. It is unknown when he had taken up the position of Voorlezer, but he was living in the Voorlezer’s House in the 1690s. While staying in the house, Hendrick married Cornelia, and had a daughter Maritje born in 1698, on whose baptismal certificate his name is found. When the family moved out of the Voorlezer’s house in 1700, he took up residence not far from the new Dutch Reformed Church in Port Richmond, and would go on to hold many political titles on the North Shore. Following these discoveries and ceremonies, the Voorlezer’s House was honored with a series of plaques and titles. The first of these was the presentation of a plaque from Queen Juliana of the Netherlands honoring the building’s historical uniqueness, as well as its importance in colonial American society. By the mid-1960s the building had
Children dance and play by the Voorlezer’s House during the 1942 celebration.
hrough a strange twist of history, the Voorlezer’s House was saved by a descendent of the very man whom leased the land to the Dutch Congregation in 1696. Mrs. T. Livingstone Kennedy, direct descendent of James Hans Dye, hearing of the venerable old structure’s peril, purchased the building for the historical society, and provided additional funding to move it away from Arthur Kill Road which was being widened at the time. With the building’s more modern 1890s addition recently demolished and its future now protected, the restoration process began. The major focuses of the project were to install a new foundation, and to repair some of the carpentry and masonry work on the building. Luckily, through all its ever changing careers, the majority of the house’s original features were still intact, most notably the staircases, fireplaces, floor boards, and filled walls. On April 14, 1942, the public entered its doors for the fi