Dr. Douwe Ditmars (1771-1860)
M.D., of Shore Road & Ditmars Boulevard, Hell Gate, New York
He was born at Jamaica, Queens County, New York. He graduated from Princeton, studied medicine, and moved to British Guiana in South America. He returned to the States in 1816 and bought a farm at Hell Gate. The house in which he lived was built in 1719 and stood at what is today Shore Road & Ditmars Boulevard. He married Anna, daughter of U.S. Congressman Samuel Rikers, of Newtown, Long Island. Their son, Abram, was the first Mayor of Long Island City.
