Lent Homestead and Cemetery
building in New York, United States
The Riker–Lent–Smith Homestead and Cemetery are a historic house and cemetery in the Steinway and East Elmhurst neighborhoods of Queens in New York City.
The earliest part of the house was built by Abraham Riker in 1656. He was an early settler of New Amsterdam, and a member of the Riker family, for whom Rikers Island nearby is named; the house was owned by the Riker and Lent families for much of its history. In 1729, the house was expanded and additions were built by then-owner Abraham Lent, a descendant of Abraham Riker. The small graveyard contains not only the graves of family members, but also that of Irish revolutionary and physician William James MacNeven who died in 1841 and who had stayed with the Riker family. Around 1800 the house was again expanded to its current size. It remains an intact house in the Dutch Colonial style. Current owner Marion Duckworth Smith and her late husband Michael Smith began restoration work in 1980, and the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The house is the oldest known existing residential structure in Queens.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lent Homestead and Cemetery” as building in New York, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as building in New York, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6523299. VIAF identifies the subject as 166168840788745401952. The Library of Congress control number is sh2018002237. Authority coordinates are 40.773, -73.892. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1656, 1729, 1841 and 1800.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Lent Homestead and Cemetery”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Lent Homestead and Cemetery primary sources, Lent Homestead and Cemetery archive and Lent research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lent Homestead and Cemetery”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Lent Homestead and Cemetery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.