The Year is 1778.
“I, Elias Hicks of Oysterbay in Queens County and Province of New York Do Hereby Set Free From Bondage My Negro Man Named Ben Declaring Him Absolutely Free Forever Without Any Interruption From Me or Any Person Claiming Him From or Under Me in Witness Whereof I Have Hereunto Set My Hand and Seal This Fourteenth Day of the Twelfth Month Anno Domini One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Eight.
Signed Sealed and Delivered in the Presence of John Willis and Eldred Vanivyck, ELIAS HICKS.”
Quaker leader Elias Hicks, 1748 - 1830
The Year is 1793
In a clearing surrounded by oaks and birches not far from what is now the convergence of the Long Island Expressway and Glen Cove Road, the Quakers set up a school and church, a house to freedom, for the 155 black men, women and children, given their papers of manumission nearly 50 years before the State Legislature abolished slavery. The area was named Guinea Town by the settlers as a reference to their African origins on the Guinea Coast. The 2½ mile stretch that runs through Old Westbury would eventually become Guinea Woods Road.
Guinea Town or Woods was a locus for freed black men, women and children, where parent and child learned to read and write and families could gather together.
New Light Baptist Church, Old Westbury
The Year is 1834
Barely a generation after its founding, Guinea Town amiably separated from its Quaker benefactors and confidently stood on its own. Eliakim Levi, a farmer and child of one of the freed slaves, drew up organization papers for a New Light Baptist Church, patterned after the Society of Friends. Said Marietta Hicks, a descendant of the Hicks family, “The early fathers were formal in their speech and plain in their dress in keeping with the Quaker custom.”
Eliakim Levi, a founder of New Light Baptist Church and a leader of Long Island’s earliest freed slaves
The early congregation flourished on the strength of emancipated slaves from all areas of the country. The New Light Baptist Church would eventually move from Old Westbury to New Cassel and become the American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church which stands at the crossroads of the community on Grand Boulevard.
After the move to New Cassell, maps of Old Westbury continued to note an “African Church” until the turn of the 20th century. William Hauxhurst, a well-known 19th century surveyor, produced a map that referenced a highway leading to “The Guinea”. Old Hempstead Town records refer to the “Guinea Meeting House”, and a 1927 map shows a “Guinea Town Road” which eventually became Guinea Woods Road.
Map of Old Westbury
The Year is 1980
Ruth Hendricks, whose family descends from early church members, notably said, "So much of our life was centered around the church. When it moved, everything moved with it. Guinea Town just became another woods. The area was… forgotten."
Ruth Hendricks, a descendant of an early church family, in her Hempstead home