Other key players in a rich history

BY COLLIN NASH STAFF WRITER, April 8, 2005 The Town of Huntington, like the rest of Long Island, was home to slaves. In fact, Long Island had the largest slave population of any area in the north for most of the colonial era.According to the 1800 census, 4.7 percent of Huntington's population (which then included what is now Babylon) were slaves. By 1850 -- 23 years after slavery had been abolished in New York State -- the percentage of freed blacks in Huntington was about 6 percent. (The percentage has diminished some since then: Blacks in Huntington now comprise 4.2 percent of the population, according to the 2000 census.) Then, as now, the black church was more than a place of praise and worship. It was a place of cultural, political, economic and social exchange. Some of these early churches still function to this day.The Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, for example, was incorporated in 1843. The oldest black church in Huntington, it includes names such as Crippin, Powell, Plummer, Allen and Seaman that go back generations to some of the church's early followers.Designated a national historic site in 1985, Bethel AME produced one of Huntington's most celebrated sons in Bishop Decatur Ward Nichols, who died in January this year at 104. Known by his parishioners as the Senior Bishop of Methodism, Nichols, like several other black figures before him, helped forge a historical heritage that makes Huntington a gold mine for history buffs such as Thelma Jackson-Abidally.Luminaries of black history that called Huntington home include: Jupiter Hammon Born in 1711, Jupiter Hammon was sold to the Lloyd family as a boy. Hammon lived and worked in Lloyd Neck in Huntington as a slave for four generations of Lloyds. Slavery, however, couldn't shackle Hammon's intellect. At a time when few African-American slaves could read, Hammon became the first published black American poet. He was among a fortunate handful of slaves who managed to get an education, thanks to Henry Lloyd, a foreign trader and the patriarch of the Lloyd family, who allowed Hammon to attend school with the Lloyd children. Full Story: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lfsidex10,0,5138499.story?coll=ny-li-bigpix