On a drizzly Saturday morning in early summer, a group of eight is gathered around a table in a back room of the Hallock Homestead Museum in Rocky Point..

Before them were piles of papers and screen-loads of information: Brookhaven Town census records dating back to 1790; mortgages and bills of sale; original account ledgers; church registers; clippings from long-defunct local newspapers; legal documents; and tax rolls.

All are shared, studied, noted and commented on.

This is a working meeting of the Rocky Point Historical Society’s Committee on Black and Indigenous Farmers of Rocky Point 1790-1850 — formed in late 2024 to collaborate on an investigation into a largely forgotten slice of local history.

"We’re finding so many new things," said committee chairman Charles Bevington, of

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