Piece of history covered up in Hempstead as village modernizes government

History advocates are unhappy Hempstead Village officials covered up a mural depicting a 1643 agreement between white settlers and Native Americans — part of an effort to provide transparency in government through modern technology.

Early this year, a wall was erected in front of the mural, which Sea Cliff artist Robert Gaston Herbert painted in 1944 at Village Hall. The village started broadcasting its public meetings on cable TV after receiving video equipment from Optimum through a community benefit agreement and needed a blank space for the aesthetics, Mayor Waylyn Hobbs said.

He said he instructed public works crews to ensure the painting wasn't damaged by the new wall, which isn't touching the mural. 

“I believe in preserving history,” Hobbs said. “We will just have to find a way to keep the mural and at the same time make improvements in our village board meetings.”

The painting shows the agreement between settlers from the Stamford outpost of the New Haven Colony in Connecticut and Tackapausha, an Algonquin sachem who negotiated the land agreement for the settlement of Hempstead. 

“I am open to looking down the road at another way to do it,” Hobbs added.

Among those who have voiced displeasure about the mural's recent disappearance is Sandi Brewster-walker,  executive director and government affairs officer of Montaukett Indian Nation.

“It really bothers me," she said. “It’s like taking an eraser and trying to erase us from Long Island.” 

Brewster-walker said the mural shows an accurate depiction of what indigenous people looked like on Long Island, which is important to preserve. Many depictions of the appearances of Native Americans in movies and on TV are inaccurate, she said.

The mural shows indigenous negotiators dressed in heavy furs and long pants, which is what Brewster-walker said they would have worn at that time on the East Coast. 

Hempstead Village historian Reine Bethany, who has served in her role since 2016, called the mural “a touchpoint in history” — showing the moment that set the town and village on track to being founded.

At the time, the land was part of the Hempstead Plains. After the agreement, the settlers returned to Connecticut and then came back to Long Island the following spring to what became today's Hempstead Village.

“I want to see it daylighted,” Bethany said of the mural. “This is part of the Long Island native people’s history.”

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.