The Joseph Lloyd Manor is an 18th-century house that overlooks Lloyd Harbor in Huntington, Long Island and was once the seat of an estate belonging to one of the region’s wealthiest families. Today it is more well known as the former home of the first published African American author Jupiter Hammon who lived, wrote, and was enslaved there. The site is owned and maintained by Preservation Long Island. Over the last year, Preservation Long Island staff evaluated the sites’ interpretation, something that had not been done since the 1990s. Staff focused on community involvement to help them determine important narratives. Jupiter Hammon’s story became the focus of a new interpretative plan for the Joseph Lloyd Manor, the Jupiter Hammon Project.

Completed in 1767 for Joseph Lloyd (1716-1780),  the third lord of the Manor of Queens Village, the Joseph Lloyd Manor House once served as the seat of a 3,000acre provisioning plantation and agricultural estate. The Joseph Lloyd Manor overlooks Lloyd Harbor in Huntington on Long Island.

Jupiter Hammon’s life and writings offer an exceptionally nuanced view of slavery and freedom on Long Island before and after the American Revolution. The vast majority of literature and historical documents from the 18th century that we find in museums, libraries, and archives are not written by people who were enslaved. “This is what makes Hammon’s writings so significant. It is a voice to the social and moral conflicts that slavery raised in the newly formed United States,” Lauren Brincat, Curator at Preservation Long Island. 

Identifying the Need for Change

“We came to the conclusion that it was time to rethink the refurbishing of the house, the stories we told, and how we were engaging visitors. From the beginning, we recognized that Jupiter Hammon is a nationally significant individual in history and not many people know about him. (Hammon is often referred to as the founder of African American literature.) I think that in recognizing that is due in part to us not doing enough as an organization to elevate his history and voice,” said Brincat. 

Sarah Pharaon of the International Coalition for Sites of Conscience leading the Arc of Dialogue training at Preservation Long Island’s headquarters in Cold Spring Harbor, August 2019. Photo courtesy of Preservation Long Island

After conducting an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the  Joseph Lloyd Manor was facing, Preservation Long Island staff determined that the new interpretation must be equitable and that they had to look beyond the organization to determine  how to tell Hammon’s story and  engage visitors with his history. Staff sought community involvement from the start. “Working with our community was important and it is a large part of this initiative,” said Brincat. Preservation Long Island began working with local community stakeholders, Hammon’s descendents, and Long Island communities of color. Partners also included a Jupiter Hammon Project Advisory Council, Huntington Historical Society board members, and members of the local NAACP in Huntington.

The Preservation Long Island team meeting with members of the Jupiter Hammon Advisory Council at Joseph Lloyd Manor, march 2019. Left to right: Melisa Rousseau, Irene Moore, Lauren Brincat, Denice Evans-Sheppard, Zenzelé Cooper, Julia Keiser, and Darren St. George. Photo courtesy of Preservation Long Island.

The Jupiter Hammon Project’s goal is to expand the interpretive programming at Joseph Lloyd Manor to reflect the multiple perspectives that shaped the house’s history. The project also includes online resources, articles about Hammon, and a collection of digitized primary, secondary, and interactive sources to illuminate more about Hammon’s life and the history of enslavement on Long Island. 

“As one of the significant early examples of African American literature before the republic, Jupiter Hammon’s work is a masterful ethical critique on slavery, religion, and humane relationship,” said Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Eastville Community Historical Society and a member of the Jupiter Hammon Project Advisory Council. Grier-Key became involved with the project because of Preservation Long Island’s approach to the subject matter. “Preservation Long Island embraced inclusion and utilized experienced facilitators and experts which set the tone to sustained attempts to tell the story of all Americans,” said Grier-Key. 

Cordell Reaves, Historic Preservation and Interpretation Analyst for the NY State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation will serve as moderator for the project’s three roundtable discussions. “I think that the level of dialogue with this project is definitely something that can and should be replicated at other projects, regardless of the subject matter,” said Reaves. “Curatorial or education departments cannot develop a project like this in their  own silos and expect the public to show up at the end and totally support it. I think that the staff of Preservation Long Island have been very mindful of involving the public and giving the public the chance to give immediate feedback throughout the project.”

Collaborative Roundtables

The Jupiter Hammon Project will include three public roundtable discussions that will address the legacy of slavery on Long Island and the life of Jupiter Hammon. Discussions will connect renowned scholars and professionals with local residents, descendent communities, and other stakeholders. 

Originally roundtable discussions were to be held at different historic sites on Long Island but now will be presented in a digital format. These roundtable events are free and open to thepublic. To learn more and to register please visit: https://preservationlongisland.org/jupiter-hammon-project/

The first roundtable, “Long Island in the Black Atlantic World” will explore a global perspective on enslaved Africans on Long Island asking “why did Long Island have one of the largest enslaved populations in the North during the 17th and 18th centuries?” This roundtable will address Jupiter Hammon’s Long Island as a hub of the Atlantic slave trade and a key player in a global economy dependent on black enslavement. 

The second roundtable, “The Voice of Jupiter Hammon” will examine his poetry and how his religious beliefs influenced his thoughts about freedom and equality. The third and last roundtable discussion “Confronting Slavery at Joseph Lloyd Manor” will use conversations from the previous roundtables to explore how Preservation Long Island can effectively engage audiences with difficult history narratives, and encourage responsible, rigorous, and relevant dialogues about the region’s history of enslavement and its lasting effects on our society today. 

“Originally the structure for these roundtable discussions was to bring in the community to have discussions with scholars and engage each other in dialogue and also to learn some of the histories at historic sites throughout the region, not just at the Lloyd Manor,” said Brincat. Those sites included Weeksville Heritage Center, Suffolk County Historical Society, and Preservation Long Island in Cold Spring Harbor. Roundtables were scheduled to start this August, but the COVID-19 pandemic has moved these roundtables online.

This online approach increases access to these conversations to the public, however, it will condense roundtable discussions from an all-day forum to a shorter presentation. There will still be formal discussions led by scholars and Preservation Long Island hopes to increase access to these scholars by offering scheduled virtual office hours. 

“I hope that people will see Jupiter Hammon as the complex person that he was,” said Reaves when asked about his hopes for these conversations. “I hope people gain a greater appreciation for the world that he lived in.”

Long Term Goals and Relevance Today

Preservation Long Island hopes to create a report to share with other institutions. “We’re hoping that this can be a model for other organizations, not just regionally but across the country,” said Brincat. “That’s a big part of what we want to achieve out of this project, to be able to share our experience with others so that they may be able to learn from this and adapt it for their own uses.” 

“I want people to get a better understanding of what life was like on Long Island for someone of African descent during that period,” said Reaves. “What were the relationships between the free and enslaved community and what was [Hammon’s] place in that community, not just understanding his relationship with the Lloyd family or his writing but a better understanding of the world he lived in.” These discussions will ultimately help develop a new interpretive direction for the Joseph Lloyd Manor that encourages responsible, rigorous, and relevant encounters with Long Island’s history of enslavement and its impact on society today.

“There are many connections here to the ongoing legacy of slavery in America,” said Reaves. “It’s one of the reasons why people say ‘why can’t we talk about something else?’ and ‘why do we have to keep talking about the subject?’ It’s because we don’t have a good understanding of this subject, especially in the North.” The Jupiter Hammon Project hopes to provide educational content for the development of revised school curricula and serve as a model approach to program development for other sites of enslavement in the region.

For Brincat and Preservation Long Island this project is about reinterpreting the house and using the story of Jupiter Hammon to help tell the long history of enslavement on Long Island. “These stories are particularly relevant to Long Island today as one of the most segregated areas in the entire country,” said Brincat. “It’s important to make these connections to the present day and we want this story to be relevant and historically rigorous but responsible too.”

“I think as these things come up that involve discrimination, prejudice, and racial violence, all of these things harken back to understanding the full chain of events that got us to this present point,” said Reaves. “and that chain starts in early slavery in the colonial period.”

For more information about the Jupiter Hammon Project: https://preservationlongisland.org/jupiter-hammon-project/