Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor

Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor

The Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor was founded in 1981 and chartered by New York State in 1986 to preserve the history of the working-class community of Eastville and to tell the story of St. David AME Zion Church.

The church remains in its original location, built in 1839 by African Americans and Native Americans on Eastville Avenue. It is widely believed to have been a stop along the Underground Railroad.

Its founding pastor, Reverend Joseph Parrish Thompson, was a noted abolitionist and friend of Frederick Douglass. The Society also owns, upkeeps, preserves and protects the adjacent century-old cemetery in which African and Native Americans of the earlier St. David's church membership are buried, many of whom were Sag Harbor Whalers.