Freetown, East Hampton: An Overview

Esperanza and Irwin discuss Freetown, East Hampton. Following the passage of the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799 in New York State, John Lyon Gardiner and other wealthy local slave-owners settled newly freed slaves in Freetown. Some of these households bore the last names of their former owners in subsequent census records. Rufus Right, Cyrus Hedges, William Gardiner, and Luce Gardiner were early African American residents of Freetown. In 1879, a New York City real estate developer, Arthur W. Benson (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn), acquired 10,000 acres in Montauk, where a group of  Montaukett  people maintained a small community. Benson and local officials relocated the Montaukett households to Freetown, offering them cash and deeds to newly subdivided lots. Many direct connections to Freetown's past survive today. Archival records about the community of Freetown are preserved in East Hampton Library's extensive Long Island Collection. Moreover, a number buildings and sites survive. For example, the George and Sara Fowler House, and Saint Matthews Chapel.