Sandy Ground Historical Society

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Sandy Ground Historical Society Sandy Ground is the oldest and continuously inhabited free black settlement in the United States

Sandy Ground, Freedom, and the Maritime History of Staten IslandSandy Ground Historical Society was proud to join the So...
10/19/2026

Sandy Ground, Freedom, and the Maritime History of Staten Island

Sandy Ground Historical Society was proud to join the South Street Seaport Museum for a special traveling museum program exploring Sandy Ground’s place in Staten Island history, Black history, maritime history, and American history.

Presented by Julie Moody Lewis, President of Sandy Ground Historical Society, the program examined Sandy Ground through land ownership, farming, faith, family, education, entrepreneurship, self-determination, community building, and maritime connections. Guests also engaged with historical objects, family knowledge, and public history that help document the people and experiences that shaped Sandy Ground.

One special part of the program was our “I Was Here” banner, where attendees could add their names and become part of the record of those who came to learn, engage, and help carry this history forward.

Presented in conjunction with the South Street Seaport Museum’s exhibition, The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation, the program offered an opportunity to examine what freedom, land ownership, opportunity, and community building looked like for Free Black Americans before the Emancipation Proclamation.

We thank the South Street Seaport Museum for its partnership, The Sandy Ground Historical Society team, and everyone who attended, asked questions, explored the materials, and participated in the conversation.

Programs like this are part of how Sandy Ground Historical Society continues to preserve, research, protect, and educate the public about the history of Sandy Ground.

Sandy Ground is the oldest Free Black settlement in the nation with descendants still living there today—and an essential chapter of American history.

Photography, Videography Alex Encarnacion

Black maritime history includes leadership, skill, and the fight for opportunity.On October 17, 1942, Captain Hugh Mulza...
10/18/2026

Black maritime history includes leadership, skill, and the fight for opportunity.
On October 17, 1942, Captain Hugh Mulzac boarded the Liberty ship SS Booker T. Washington as its captain.

Mulzac had earned a U.S. shipmaster’s license years earlier, but racial discrimination kept him from commanding a vessel. When he was finally offered command during World War II, he insisted on an integrated crew rather than a segregated one. The ship went on to make 22 successful voyages under his leadership.

His history matters because Black maritime history is not only about labor on the water.
It is also about:
Leadership.
Technical skill.
Navigation.
Management.
Persistence.
Breaking barriers.

Mulzac’s career reminds us that Black people were not simply working in maritime industries. They were also qualified to lead them, even when discrimination tried to keep them from doing so.

That broader maritime history helps us understand why maritime work became such an important part of Black economic life in places like New York and, later, Sandy Ground.

For Free Black families, growing food could mean much more than having something to eat.Land could create a way to feed ...
10/16/2026

For Free Black families, growing food could mean much more than having something to eat.
Land could create a way to feed a family, earn income, build stability, and create something that could be passed to the next generation.
That is part of what makes Sandy Ground’s agricultural history so important.

When Moses Harris and Silas Harris established Sandy Ground, farming became part of the economic foundation of the community. What families grew could support the household, be sold at market, and help strengthen their independence.

Agriculture required knowledge.
You had to understand the land.
Know what would grow.
Know when to plant and harvest.
Know how to get what you produced to market.
And know how to turn the work of the land into opportunity.

On World Food Day, we remember that food history is also economic history, family history, and community history.
For Sandy Ground, the land helped make something larger possible:
A Free Black community building for itself and for the generations that would follow.



These digital images are not reproductions of historic Sandy Ground quilts. They are a visual tribute inspired by a quilting tradition that has helped Sandy Ground Historical Society preserve history across generations.
This month, we are stitching the pieces together.

On October 14, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.He was 35 years old, making him the yo...
10/15/2026

On October 14, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He was 35 years old, making him the youngest man to have received the prize at that time. The Nobel Committee recognized him for his nonviolent struggle for civil rights in the United States.

King did not treat the award as his alone. When he formally accepted the prize in Oslo that December, he described himself as accepting it on behalf of the wider Civil Rights Movement and the many people whose names would never appear in headlines.
He also announced that the prize money, more than $54,000, would be directed toward advancing the civil rights movement.

History often remembers one name for good or bad.
But movements are built by thousands of people, organizers, students, clergy, families, volunteers, workers, and community members whose work may never receive the same recognition.

The award carried one name.
The movement carried many.

Before the community became known as Sandy Ground, one of its early names was Harrisville.And that name tells us somethi...
10/11/2026

Before the community became known as Sandy Ground, one of its early names was Harrisville.
And that name tells us something important about how the community was being built.

After Moses Harris and Silas Harris purchased land, they did more than farm it. They helped distribute land among family members, expanding Black landownership within the community.

At that time, owning property could also affect a Black man’s ability to vote in New York.
So land meant more than having a place to live.
It could mean:
A home.
A farm.
Economic opportunity.
Something to pass to family.
And greater political power.

As the Harris family’s presence and landownership grew, the community became known as Harrisville.
Over time, the area would also be known as Little Africa, Africa, and eventually Sandy Ground.

Those changing names remind us that communities are not created in a single moment.
They grow through families, land, work, institutions, and generations of people building on what came before them.



These digital images are not reproductions of historic Sandy Ground quilts. They are a visual tribute inspired by a quilting tradition that has helped Sandy Ground Historical Society preserve history across generations.

This month, we are stitching the pieces together.

George Washington Carver changed the way people thought about farming.On October 8, 1896, Carver joined the staff of Tus...
10/08/2026

George Washington Carver changed the way people thought about farming.

On October 8, 1896, Carver joined the staff of Tuskegee Institute as Director of Agriculture. He had already earned advanced training in agricultural science, and he brought that knowledge into work focused on helping farmers improve the land and strengthen their livelihoods.

Carver taught practical methods such as crop rotation, soil conservation, and the use of alternative crops to help restore exhausted soil and reduce dependence on a single crop. He also worked to make agricultural knowledge useful beyond the classroom.

That is an important part of Black agricultural history.
Farming was not only physical labor.
It required observation.
Experimentation.
Knowledge of soil, weather, plants, markets, and timing.

For Black farmers trying to build stability and opportunity, agricultural knowledge could be a powerful tool.
Carver’s work reminds us that Black farming history is also a history of science, innovation, education, and problem-solving.

Three Women of Achievement, One Special MomentThis past weekend, Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro, Julie Moody Lewis, and Edwin...
10/08/2026

Three Women of Achievement, One Special Moment

This past weekend, Sylvia Moody D’Alessandro, Julie Moody Lewis, and Edwina Martin came together at the Rossville A.M.E. Zion Church 175th Anniversary Luncheon for a moment.

All three women have been recognized as Staten Island Advance Women of Achievement, making this photograph a special moment of leadership, service, community, and Staten Island history.

For Sandy Ground Historical Society, it was especially meaningful to see Sylvia and Julie together, two generations connected by decades of work preserving, researching, and sharing the history of Sandy Ground and the surrounding community.

Congratulations to Rossville A.M.E. Zion Church on 175 years.

Giving roses to Sylvia, Julie, and Edwina for the contributions they continue to make to Staten Island.

Three Women of Achievement. Three legacies of service.

One photograph worth preserving.

Music can preserve history, carry memory, and build institutions.On October 6, 1871, a group of students from Fisk Unive...
10/06/2026

Music can preserve history, carry memory, and build institutions.

On October 6, 1871, a group of students from Fisk University left Nashville on a concert tour to raise money for their struggling school. They became known as the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Their performances helped introduce African American spirituals to audiences across the United States and Europe. The money they raised helped support Fisk University and contributed to the construction of Jubilee Hall, an important building in the history of Black education.

That is what makes their history bigger than music.
They showed how culture could become preservation.
How performance could support education.
And how songs carried across generations could help build a future for Black students.

For communities like Sandy Ground, that lesson feels familiar.
Faith, education, family knowledge, art, and community institutions have all played a role in preserving history and carrying it forward.
Sometimes history is written in documents.

Sometimes it is carried in song.

Sandy Ground was rural, but it was never isolated.After Moses Harris and Silas Harris established themselves on Staten I...
10/05/2026

Sandy Ground was rural, but it was never isolated.

After Moses Harris and Silas Harris established themselves on Staten Island, the goods they produced at Sandy Ground were sold in Manhattan.

Farming was not only about feeding a family. It was also business.
The Harris brothers were participating in the larger New York economy growing, transporting, and selling what the land produced beyond Staten Island.

That income helped make agriculture part of a larger strategy of landownership, independence, family stability, and community growth.

It also changes how we should picture early Sandy Ground aka Harrisville
This was a Free Black community with connections beyond its own boundaries.

The land was on Staten Island.
The marketplace in Manhattan.
And Sandy Ground was part of a much larger New York story.

These digital images are not reproductions of historic Sandy Ground quilts. They are a visual tribute inspired by a quilting tradition that has helped Sandy Ground Historical Society preserve history across generations.

This month, we are stitching the pieces together.

Who gets to record history matters.In 1864, during the Civil War, The New Orleans Tribune became the first Black daily n...
10/04/2026

Who gets to record history matters.

In 1864, during the Civil War, The New Orleans Tribune became the first Black daily newspaper in the United States.

Originally published as a tri-weekly newspaper, it began daily publication on October 4, 1864, serving readers in both French and English.

Its pages gave Black Americans a platform to document their communities, discuss education and civil rights, challenge inequality, and participate directly in the public conversation about the nation’s future.

Newspapers do more than report what happened. They leave evidence.
They preserve names, debates, businesses, institutions, accomplishments, struggles, and the voices of people who might otherwise be missing from the historical record.
That same principle remains important today.

At Sandy Ground Historical Society, photographs, documents, family records, oral histories, artifacts, and community knowledge help us preserve history from the perspective of the people who lived it.

When communities document their own history, they help determine what future generations will remember.

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1538 Woodrow Road
New York, NY
10309

Telephone

+13479832231

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