James Riker

Born in 1822, he was an American writer, historian, and genealogist whose name is closely tied to early New York local history. He is best known for The Annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New York (1852), a substantial historical study that gathered together town records, family histories, and accounts of the area's colonial past.

His writing reflects the strong 19th-century interest in documenting communities before older memories and documents disappeared. Because of that care for detail, his work has remained useful to readers interested in Queens history, genealogy, and the development of New York City and its surrounding towns.

He died in 1889. Today, he is remembered less as a literary figure than as a careful compiler of local history whose research helped preserve an important piece of New York's past.