Editing Amersfoort (section)

=== Nieuw Amersfoort ===
[[File:RM8067 Westsingel 49 ab.jpg|thumb|The historic [[brasserie]] of Amersfoort, now a [[Rijksmonument]]]]
[[File:Netherlands, Amersfoort, map of 1865.JPG|thumb|left|Amersfoort in 1865]]
One of the six Dutch towns established in the 17th century in what is now [[Brooklyn]] was called "Nieuw Amersfoort" (New Amersfoort). The original patentees were [[Wolfert Gerritse van Couwenhoven|Wolfert Gerritse van Kouwenhoven]] and [[Andries Hudde]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/dutch-deed-fetches-more-than-a-handful-of-beads/|title=Dutch Deed Fetches More Than a Handful of Beads|last=Kilgannon|first=Corey|date=2007-11-01|website=City Room|language=en-US|access-date=2018-05-16}}</ref> Unlike other Dutch names which were retained up to the present, Nieuw Amersfoort is now called "[[Flatlands, Brooklyn|Flatlands]]".

In the 18th century, the city flourished because of the cultivation of [[tobacco]],<ref group="note">The Russian word for the tobacco ''[[Nicotiana rustica]]'', махорка (makhorka), may bear an etymological debt to this city. See the [http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/vasmer/43178/%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BA%D0%B0 dictionary of Max Vasmer.]</ref> but from about 1800 onwards began to decline.

The decline was halted by the establishment of the first railway connection in 1863, and some years later, by the building of a substantial number of infantry and cavalry barracks, which were needed to defend the western cities of the Netherlands.

After the 1920s, growth stalled again; in 1970, the national government designated Amersfoort, then numbering some 70,000 inhabitants, as a "growth city".