Kinderhook, New York (original) (raw)

Kinderhook is the name of a town and a village in Columbia County, New York State, USA on the Kinderhook Creek. The town has around 8,300 residents and the village 1,300.

United States President Martin Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, and was known as "Old Kinderhook".

The area was named by Henry Hudson in 1609 as "Kinderhoeck". First settled by the Dutch around 1640, although the area was part of that surrenderd to the British in 1664. In 1686 the area was granted the Great Kinderhook Patent and organized into one township.

Much of the area's growth did not occur until the 19th century - in 1813 the village had only twenty dwellings. By 1843, the number had grown to 86 and just seven years later there were about 200 buildings and 1400 inhabitants.