Lefferts Playground honors an influential Dutch family that resided in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush. The Lefferts traced their roots to Dutch colonist Pieter Janse Hagewout (1650-1704), a farmer and shoemaker who emigrated from Holland with his family aboard de Bonte Koe (The Spotted Cow) in 1660.
In 1776, 31,000 British soldiers invaded Long Island during the Revolutionary War. Several days before the Battle of Long Island (August 26-31, 1776), the Lefferts Homestead in Flatbush was destroyed, not by the British, but by American troops who burned several houses in an attempt to drive the British away. The Lefferts family left the area before this burning took place.