Lady Moody Triangle

Village Rd. N., Ave. U bet. Van Sicklen St. and Lake St.

Brooklyn

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

Lady Deborah Moody (ca.1583-1659), a wealthy, Protestant widow, left England for America in 1639, and in 1645, settled in Brooklyn. She founded the town of Gravesend, naming it after her hometown in the Old World. Lady Moody became the first woman in the New World to receive a land patent, to write the first town charter in English in New Netherland, and to established one of the first towns with a square block plan in the New World. Furthermore, Gravesend’s policy of religious freedom set it apart from most colonial settlements.

Lady Moody and her assemblage of Anabaptists landed in New England, but met with a cold welcome from the Puritans who controlled the region. In 1643, she moved to New Amsterdam and, on December 19, 1645, Dutch Governor Kieft granted Moody land in the south of what is now Brooklyn.

Park Information

Lost and Found Information

Directions to Lady Moody Triangle

News

Daily Plant: Women's History and New York City Parks (Part I)