The Ketchams Move To East Jamaica
David & Mary Ketcham purchase the farm and extensive property from feed and grain retailer Henry Henderson and move from West Hills (Dix Hills) into the area east of Jamaica in Long Island, NY. Their son Aaron Oakley would be born within the year and their daughter Elizabeth by 1852. They would acquire more land in time, particularly from neighbour Van Siclen (in 1856).
A scene from the Van Siclen farm in Jamaica, NY (1882)
Some of Mary and David's property holdings were outlined in the newspaper when the dairy magnate Alexander Campbell, sued The Long Island Development Co. in 1894.
THE NEWTOWN REGISTER, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6. 1894., Page 7
All that certain farm, piece or parcel of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon, situated at Hollis, in the Town of Jamaica, Queens County and State of New York, being the same premises conveyed to said David Ketcham by Henry Henderson and wife, by deed dated May 2, 1849, and recorded in Queens County Clerk's office in Liber xx of Deeds, page xxx, on May 10, 1849, and in said deed bounded and described as follows, to wit: Northerly by land of Michael Skidmore, William G. Carpenter and Philip McArdle: easterly by land of John L. Bennet, southerly by land of James Hendrickson, Nathaniel Smith and Stephen Henderson, and southwesterly by the public highway leading front Springfield to Jamaica, and containing by estimation thirty acres, be the same more or less, within the bounds.
Also another piece adjoining- the above described piece on the north, being the same piece of land conveyed to said Ketcham by William Van Siclen and wife, by deed dated May 2,1856, and recorded in said Clerk's office in Liber xxx of Deeds, page xxx, on May 2, 1856, and in said deed described as follows: On the north by the Long Island Railroad: on the east by land formerly of Philip McArdle: on the south by land of said David Ketcham, being the piece last above described, and on the west by land formerly of Michael Skidmore, containing four acres and one half, be the same more or less...
