Beverly Gorham

Beverly Gorham is a retired school teacher who taught in the New York City Public School system for over thirty years. Since her retirement, she has remained active in the field of educational pursuits. Beverly has served the children of Huntington as a tutor and as a mentor. She has been a volunteer in the school and community based programs, Project Excel, and Haven House/Bridges. She has kept abreast of the latest developments in the field of education through her work as a tutor and as a scorer, assessing the test results of the annual New York State Testing Program.

Beverly is a graduate of Barnard College where she majored in anthropology. She pursued her post graduate studies, majoring in education, at Teachers College and Brooklyn College.
She is an active member of the NAACP Huntington Branch. Currently, she is the branch treasurer, having also held the position of branch secretary for several previous years. Her involvement in the Huntington community also includes serving as committee person in Election District 143.

Beverly is a member of Evergreen Baptist Church where she is the secretary of the Sunday School Department.
Born in Sparta, Georgia, Beverly has made her home in Huntington since 1989. She is a mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother of one.

Peter Crippen

Pioneer of the African American community in Huntington, Peter Crippen made his way to Huntington from Virginia and purchased a grist mill, the oldest industrial building in North America, and made it his home. The home remained in his family for over 100 years through 2019. Mr. Crippen was a founding member of Bethel AME Church, the first African American church in Huntington.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington

Jupiter Hammon

A lifelong enslaved person and an American writer, Jupiter Hammon is acknowledged as “the father of African American poetry.” His poems were first published in 1761, the first African American published poet in North America. Beyond his groundbreaking poetry, he also authored prose, served as a preacher, and worked as a commercial clerk for the Lloyd family on what is now known as Lloyd Neck, New York.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington

Booker Washington

An American educator, author, and orator, served as the predominant leader in the African American community and contemporary Black elite from 1890 to 1915. For many years, Huntington was Mr. Washington’s summer home.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/booker-t-washington

Alice Coltrane

Alice Coltrane stands as one of this country’s leading women in jazz. A skilled pianist and one of the rare jazz harpists in history, Alice Coltrane lived in Huntington with her husband, John, as an accomplished American musician, composer, bandleader, and Hindu spiritual leader.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.alicecoltrane.com/

John William Coltrane

A lifelong Huntington resident and iconic American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, he stands as a pivotal and highly praised figure in the realms of jazz and 20th-century music.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.johncoltrane.com/biography

Samuel Ballton

An enslaved person-turned Union Army veteran, Samuel Ballton traveled north to Huntington and made it his home. As a real estate developer in the Greenlawn section of Huntington, many of the homes he developed stand to this day. As a prolific farmer, he earned the moniker “the Greenlawn Pickle King” in 1899 by cultivating 1.5 million cucumbers-turned-pickles in a single season.

PHOTO CREDIT:
https://www.huntingtonny.gov/filestorage/13747/99540/16499/Samuel_Ballton.pdf

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