Abraham Perdue and the Bell AME Church

Born circa 1797, Abraham Perdue arrived in Center Moriches in 1828, a freed slave among many seeking opportunities on the East End of Long Island during a time of great economic, political, and social change. Over the course of his life, he prospered and became a leader in the African American community and a founder of the Bell AME church.

After the revolution, early 19th-century manumission laws created a society on Long Island where slaves and freed people of color lived side by side. While Suffolk County’s Black population declined from 2,236 in 1790 to 1907 in 1845, Black labor was a major part of the workforce. (Bolton-Marcos)

Local industries—whaling, fishing, brick-making—offered employment to those who didn’t work on farms, sometimes for former owners, or in related occupations like carpentry or coopering. The railroad increased opportunities as well, to those like Perdue who moved east in search of them. Women found domestic work—laundry, ironing, sewing, cleaning and cooking—often on area estates.

A 1924 article in The County Review, “Advent of Steamers Aroused Settlers: When Side Wheelers Succeeded Packets in 1835 Eastern Long Island Was Made Accessible to City Dwellers,” lists Abraham Perdue as a “boatsteerer” on the bark John A. Robb in 1861. On the 1880 census, his occupation is listed as ‘laborer.” For men like Perdue, prosperity meant offering opportunity to others.

Economic insufficiency loomed over former slaves. From colonial times, Long Island villages could expel residents deemed unfit to remain.  After the revolution, unemployed or impoverished former slaves who fell on community assistance could be “rented out” by community governments to recoup the cost of their support.

In villages where African Americans found greater opportunities, they bought land, educated their children, and founded church and social organizations. Prominent members, those with property like Abraham Perdue, founded African Methodist Episcopal churches, often initially offering space to gather and worship in their home until funds could be raised to build a church.

From its origins in Philadelphia as the Free African Society (1787), the AME church helped define community and promote progress in civil rights.

It grew out of the efforts of Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others who sought to worship within the Wesleyan faith. Allen, a freed slave, used the courts to successfully challenge existing restrictions on Black congregants to gain recognition of his congregation as a religious group, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The denomination was founded in 1816. (ame-church.org)

In an interview with Julian Bond for the University of Virginia, “Explorations in Black Leadership: The Influence of the AME Church,” journalist Gwen Ifill noted that drawing on its heritage, founded as it was by freed slaves, the AME church was about being active, community, and civil rights. “It sees Jesus as an activist and a religious leader… politics was part of its effort to progress,” she said, pointing out that Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks were among its distinguished members.

On Long Island, congregants worshipped, establishing AME churches in Amityville (1811), Setauket (1815), Bellport (1838), and Huntington (1843). Nathaniel S. Prime’s “History of Long Island,” published 1845, included 12 AME churches on Long Island, including one in “Moriches and Mastick” with 21 members.

That church, now known as the Bell AME church, was founded by Abraham Perdue, born into slavery, successful businessman and property owner, who came to Center Moriches from Huntington.

Land ownership was crucial, a point of entry for community membership on the East End from colonial times. Towns that allotted land, or permitted private transactions of land sales to an outsider, made an indication to both the community and to the purchaser of his acceptance. It also conveyed upon the property owner other rights such as suffrage. Prior to the 20th century, only male property owners could vote. Land ownership was “the gateway to opportunity in East End towns.” (Siminoff)

In 1815, seven African Americans owned land in Brookhaven town: Arthur Allesworth, Obediah Cuffe, Jayne Cuffee, Peter Halsey, Jonah Miller, Prince, Ben Woodhull. Three of these were in Mastic or Manorville.

Perdue arrived in Center Moriches from Huntington in 1828. Records from the 1820s and ‘30s show that some schools in Huntington had Black students enrolled, evidence that some parents had the financial means to pay for their children to be educated. Others sought apprenticeship, sometimes based upon indenture, to secure their children’s economic future.  Free public school was not available in New York State until 1850.

His experience living in Huntington, the influence of Quakers, especially those in and around New York City, who were early proponents of emancipation, as well as his own religious faith may have influenced Perdue’s recognition that African Americans and Poosepatuck Indigenous residents needed the support religious affiliation could provide.

Writing in her “Ancient History” column in the Suffolk County News (October 7, 1965), Catherine Hoag notes, “He is said to have purchased property there (Center Moriches) and founded a ‘praying group… Eventually a church was erected, probably in 1840, which later became known as the Bell African American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.”

“Abraham Perdue,” she wrote, “played an important part in the early history of Long island.”