In the heart of Mattituck, along a stretch of Main Road framed by fields and vineyards, Southold Town officials gathered Tuesday to dedicate a new historic marker honoring the extraordinary life of Elymus Reeve — a formerly enslaved man who grew to become a revered farmer, preacher and civic leader on the North Fork in the mid-1800s.
Reeve’s new marker stands at the corner of Main Road and Mill Lane, part of a growing effort to illuminate African-American history in the region.
Reeve was described by 19th-century Southold historian Epher Whitaker as “one of the most remarkable men ever mentioned in the annals” of the town. At a time when most Black individuals on the North Fork were still enslaved, Reeve’s leadership and spiritual gifts left a lasting impression on his community.
And a vivid one, too. Writing in The Long Island Forum in 1951, North Fork historian and Presbyterian minister Dr. Clarence Ashton Wood recounted a dramatic church meeting from 1850 where Reeve stood and preached. Wood quoted an eyewitness who recalled Reeve’s “deep, powerful, magnetic voice,” saying it “poured forth a flood of adoration and praise so majestic in thought, so profound in feeling, so graceful and biblical in language that all hearts were affected as the trees are moved by the mighty wind.
“It has been my happiness to hear the prayers of many Christian ministers of renown,” the account continues “…but I have never heard any man pray with more propriety, sublimity and fervor than Lymas prayed.”
Reeve — whose name also appears in period records as Limas, Limus, Lymus or Elymas —was born into slavery around 1783 and owned by James and Elizabeth Reeve, who also enslaved his father, a man known locally as “Reuben the lawyer,” according to current Southold Town Historian Amy Folk.
After James Reeve passed away, his widow freed Reuben, and — later in her life — also freed his son, Elymus, and gave him an acre of land on a farm called Shell Bank, which ran alongside what is known today as Wickham Creek.
“There’s a picture in Charles Craven’s book [A History of Mattituck, Long Island] not only of Elymas, but also [his] house,” Folk said, citing the image above. “The house is sitting up on a hill, and this [area] behind us … is really the only hill around Marratooka Pond on this side of the road. I’m pretty sure that’s where the house was.”
In the early 19th century slavery on the North Fork looked very different from the plantation system of the South, according to town records. Most white households in Southold and Riverhead owned one or two enslaved people, who often worked side-by-side with their enslavers in farm fields, kitchens and workshops. Census and church registers show that the town’s enslaved population, never huge, had already begun to shrink after New York’s 1799 so-called “gradual emancipation” law. By 1810 the federal census still listed slaves in the township, but a growing class of “free colored” households was also taking shape. After the state’s final emancipation deadline of July 4, 1827, the last 11 enslaved people in Southold were freed, joining 28 already-free Black townspeople and marking the legal end of slavery on the North Fork.
Folk explained that Reeve was selected for a marker because “we knew the most about [him]. He’s one of the few people whose reputation lasted through the years in the minds of the citizens of our area.”
Reeve’s early life was shaped by a strong religious foundation. As a boy, he was mentored by a fellow enslaved woman known as Blind Betty, who had committed large portions of the Bible and hymnals to memory. Reeve’s sharp intellect was evident early. He taught himself to read and write, learned arithmetic and kept the farm’s accounts — skills that earned him responsibility as overseer of the Reeve family farm before he secured his freedom.
In 1806, at the age of 23, he joined the Cutchogue Presbyterian Church and would eventually become a church elder.
He married Hagar, herself a formerly enslaved woman, and together they had nine children, including their youngest, John Bunyon Reeve — born in 1831.
John Bunyon Reeve would go on to earn a degree from Union Theological Seminary, serve as a pastor in Philadelphia and teach at Howard University. Daughter Parthenia also achieved distinction through her work with the National Association of Women’s Clubs, according to the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, which funded the historic marker through a grant.
After the death of Elizabeth Reeve in 1820, Elymus inherited another home and 3.5 acres of land known historically as the Obadiah Hudson place and continued to farm, preach and participate in community life into his later years.
At age 77, Reeve appeared on an 1861 public notice, published with other Mattituck residents warning against illegal fishing in Mattituck Pond, according to longislandgenealogy.com.
Reeve died in April 1870, and was buried in Cutchogue’s Old Burying Ground, alongside his wife and several of their children.
In recent years, Folk and other local historians — including veteran journalist Steve Wick and historian Richard Wines — have worked to uncover the stories of more than 550 Black men and women who lived in Southold between the mid-1600s and 1827. They have identified names for about 350 of them, adding a new dimension to the region’s long-overlooked Black history.