Future of 114-year old Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church building in limbo

The corner of Wildwood Lane and New York Avenue has been a pivotal part of Smithtown since the 1800s, when slaves met on the lot to pray. The Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church was built on the property in 1910 and has been home to Smithtown's only historically Black church for more than a century, providing them with community in a predominantly white town, historians recalled.

Now, its future is in limbo: A real estate sign is posted next to the church. Over the summer, the building's owners listed the property for sale with an asking price of $425,000. The listing was later pulled. Now, officials in Smithtown and Suffolk County are weighing efforts to preserve the property.

The congregation disbanded in 2020 as attendance dwindled from a peak of 20 parishioners to just three, and the cost of repairs became too expensive, clergy leaders said. Portions of the roof needed fixing, and the cost to renovate the church was nearing $200,000, they said.

“We just cannot afford to continue the upkeep,” said the Rev. Jo-An Owings, presiding elder of the Jamaica-Long Island district of the A.M.E. Church. Owings, who is overseeing the sale of the property, said: “We just don’t have the capacity — physical or financial — to continue.”

The land had been owned by the Smith family, the town's founders, before it was sold to the town's Black congregants for $1 in 1931.

The former Rev. Leonard Davis had led the congregation from 1984 to 1991.

“When people feel welcome, they feel like they’re a part of this church, then they will travel and they will pass other churches just to get here because they feel at home here; they feel love here,” Davis said.

After Trinity disbanded, the Haitian Independent Methodist Church rented out the church. The group departed in September, Owings said.

The church has not been designated as a historic site on state or federal registers. But the Rev. Onick Bouquet, who led services for the Haitian Independent Methodist Church, said its contributions to the town are immeasurable.

“There is a spirit here,” he said. “We’re descendants of slavery … we want to keep its legacy. This place should be a landmark.”

114 years of history 

In 1776, the Smithtown population totaled 716, of which 161 were slaves, according to former town historian Bradley Harris' book "Black Roots in Smithtown: A Short History of the Black Community." The town's Black population declined precipitously since, Harris wrote. 

In 2020, Smithtown's Black population was 2.7%, compared with a white population of 79.2%, according to U.S. census data. The total town population is 115,756, according to the census data.

Slavery was legal in New York between the early 1620s until 1827. During that period, slaves were not allowed to worship in the town's churches. Undeterred, slaves still gathered on the corner of New York Avenue and Wildwood Lane.

After they were emancipated, the former slaves continued to meet in the same spot. The church was officially founded in 1910 under the name “The A.M.E. Church of Smithtown." It was built as a brown-shingled building resembling a barn, according to a journal the church published as part of its 80th anniversary celebrations in 1990. 

“This was a convenient spot for people to get together to talk about common problems, whether it was about discrimination or social codes of conduct,” said Noel Gish, a historian and author of “Smithtown, New York: 1660-1929,” in an interview.

Isadora Smith of the Smith family sold the property to the Black congregants of Smithtown for $1 on Aug. 1, 1931, according to Gish and former clergy members.

Nine pastors led the church from the 1930s until the early 1960s, according to church records. It closed for several years, but in 1967 reopened as the “Trinity A.M.E. Church.” The Rev. Benjamin McDaniel enlisted several local teens to clean, paint and restore the building before its reopening, Davis said. 

The 1,750-square-foot building sits on a .14-acre lot. Inside, two white double-doors lead to two rows of cedar pews, with two sets of traditional and African drums to the right for when music is played during services. A red-carpeted pulpit faces the congregation.

Congregants came from across Long Island, even Brooklyn, recalled Davis, who became the church’s pastor in 1984.

Lillian Edison, 83, of Central Islip, joined the church in 1973. She stayed as a member until 2005, when she moved to Chesapeake, Virginia.

Edison said she and most of her family, including her children, attended “this little country church where everyone got along with each other.”

Pastors came and went, but the church was a constant in her life, she recalled.

“We just fell in love with [the church], so I kept going there. It was really uplifting,” Edison said.

'Great love on the corner'

Myrel Bailey-Walton was the church’s final pastor, serving from 2012 until 2020. Her departure marked the end of the century-plus long congregation that met there. 

Over the years the church never had more than 12 members at a time and the building required significant upkeep, Bailey-Walton said. Her husband, the church musician and other church flock helped as much as they could, as did the occasional municipal grant.

Tithes and donations supported the church. A "sister church," the Setauket-based Bethel African Methodist Episcopal, contributed help, too.

Trinity's small size allowed for the congregants to form deep and intimate bonds, Bailey-Walton said.

“We had uplifting songs, uplifting services, uplifting sermons … just because you’re few in numbers doesn’t mean you don’t do what the larger churches do; you just do it at a smaller level," Bailey-Walton said. "There was great love on the corner there on New York Avenue.”

Owings said she withdrew the listing after the appointment of Bishop Samuel L. Green Sr., to a senior leadership role in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Green wanted to evaluate the property before a decision was made about its future, Owings said. 

She said the A.M.E. had hoped to sell the property to another congregation. But it's possible a developer purchases it and demolishes it to make way for housing, she said.

Smithtown should commemorate Trinity's history with a plaque or historical marker near the site, “so there is a visible presence always," Owings said.

The property is in a zoning district that "primarily allows single-family dwellings" but does not allow office or retail use, said Allyson Murray, principal planner with Smithtown's planning department.

The zoning district allows "places of worship and similar community facilities," Murray said, but "there are no covenants on the property that would further restrict its use."

"Town staff has had conversations with the church, [Suffolk] County, and historic preservation groups to try to explore options for preservation of the site," Murray said.

Preservation talks 

Suffolk County officials have met with those in Smithtown’s planning department as well as clergy leaders to evaluate the property and determined it "will need considerable work," spokesman Michael Martino said.

The county is working with officials in the town, the A.M.E., and Stony Brook University’s Department of Africana Studies to find a partner organization “who can manage the site and provide historic programming” there.

Suffolk County will have the church property appraised. Suffolk officials expect to present the valuations to the county’s Environmental Trust Review Board in early 2025, Martino added. The board is responsible for approving county land acquisitions.

Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim said the county has contacted the town about a possible partnership to maintain the property. However, Wehrheim said the county must first appraise the property before talks can proceed. 

Wehrheim said he is aware of the church's historical significance, and said, "I certainly think [the property] should be worked on and I think it's an important piece of property to maintain just for the history of the town of Smithtown."

Churches nationwide have struggled to keep pace with operational costs as their congregations diminished in numbers, said Zebulon Miletsky, an associate professor at Stony Brook University's Department of Africana Studies. As a result, he said, religious leaders have closed and sold off their historic properties.

"Nationally, there are always places that are being lost to history because a community can't come up with a good civic process where all parties can sit down and take a moment to educate folks who may not be aware of the historic importance," Miletsky said. "There's no regaining these places."

'That's my prayer'

Antoinette C. Miller, 76, a Lake Ronkonkoma resident who now lives in Boynton Beach, Florida, was a worship leader during the church’s final years.

Asked what she hopes people will remember about the church, Miller cited the connections that it inspired among its small, but devoted members.

“I always used to bring friends of mine there and let them know that here, we tried to uplift people in the area,” Miller said. “There was a warmth about learning how God was in your life and how you could use that to help other people.”

Bailey-Walton said she still holds out hope that another church buys the building and continues to operate it as a place of worship.

“I would pray that it would stay as a place of worship,” Bailey-Walton said. “That’s my prayer. Those grounds were selected for worship, and I hope it stays that way.”