Joseph Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor: The House Where Jupiter Hammon Wrote

ByPawli Paola Meyer
Colonial manor house overlooking

Admission is free, with a suggested $10 donation, at a Lloyd Harbor house on October 17 and 18, when Preservation Long Island marks the 315th birthday of Jupiter Hammon, a man enslaved by the Lloyd family who is widely described as America’s first published Black poet. The setting is Joseph Lloyd Manor, completed in 1767 for a landowning merchant and today a museum, a National Register property, and a designated National Literary Landmark.

From Lloyd Lane it reads as a well-kept colonial house on a rise above the harbor. The history behind its two national designations is spread through the rooms, the back wing, and a paper trail of land patents and poems.

Quick factsDetails
Address1 Lloyd Lane, Lloyd Harbor, NY 11743
Completed1767, per Preservation Long Island (other sources say 1766)
Built forJoseph Lloyd (1716–1780)
OwnerPreservation Long Island, by donation in 1968
DesignationsNational Register of Historic Places; National Literary Landmark (2020)
This weekendOctober 17–18, 2026; free, suggested $10 donation

Free tours and a film on October 17 and 18

Preservation Long Island, the nonprofit that owns the house, has built a birthday weekend for Hammon around the building where he lived and wrote. Saturday, October 17, brings free guided tours at 11:00 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 2:00 p.m. On Sunday, October 18, the manor opens at 11:00 a.m. for a screening of a short film by Malik Work, an actor and playwright, that interprets Hammon’s poem “An Essay on Slavery,” with a discussion afterward; self-guided tours run from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Advance registration is encouraged for the Saturday tours and the Sunday screening, and the event page carries the sign-up links.

The date is an annual one. A Times Beacon Record notice described a Black Poetry Day celebration at the manor on October 18, 2025, for Hammon’s 314th birthday, with a talk by author and professor James G. Basker, and it noted that Black Poetry Day is observed each year on Hammon’s birthday.

A manor on 3,000 acres of Lloyd Neck

The house belongs to a much larger property. In 1685, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Dongan granted James Lloyd a royal patent for the peninsula then called Horse Neck and renamed it the Manor of Queens Village, according to a Town of Huntington history of the family. Preservation Long Island describes the manor as a 3,000-acre provisioning plantation established in the late seventeenth century on Matinecock Nation land, with Joseph Lloyd Manor at its center.

Restored 18th-century study with a writing desk beneath a sash window

Henry Lloyd built a salt box dwelling on the neck in 1711, according to the Village of Lloyd Harbor, and after his death in 1763 his son Joseph put up a larger house to the west, per the Town of Huntington history. The neighboring Marshall Field III estate, later Caumsett State Historic Park, is covered in this blog’s piece on Lloyd Neck’s boundary geometry.

The house: dates, builder, and style

Sources disagree by a year or two on when the house went up. The Town of Huntington’s history and the Village of Lloyd Harbor both give 1766, Preservation Long Island says it was completed in 1767, and the National Park Service record lists 1766 and 1767 as the significant years, which would fit a house begun in one year and finished in the next. Clio, a historic-sites guide, gives about 1768.

That National Park Service record, filed under the name “Lloyd, Joseph, House” (reference 76001278), credits Abner Osborn as architect and names Architecture and Social History as the areas of significance, with a period of significance of 1750 to 1799. Clio and Wikipedia describe Osborn as a Connecticut carpenter. Wikipedia’s description of the building adds a five-bay symmetrical front, fluted pilasters and a segmental pediment around the door, formal interior woodwork, and a grand staircase. Labels for the style vary: Wikipedia calls it Georgian, Clio calls it Federal, and the National Park Service lists none. The property covers about two and a half acres overlooking Lloyd Harbor, per Preservation Long Island.

The rear of the house

A tour of the manor today includes the part of the building that guests of the Lloyds were not meant to notice. CBS New York reported in February 2024 that roughly a dozen enslaved people served the family and that they lived at the back of the house, out of view of visitors. Andrew Tharler, Preservation Long Island’s education director, said in the report: “Enslaved people could be hidden, but at the same time, they were really everywhere.”

Clio notes the rear entrances and describes the enslaved residents’ section as plainer and less ornamented than the formal rooms at the front.

Jupiter Hammon on Lloyd Neck

Hammon was born in 1711 on the Lloyd estate. In a photo tour of the Lloyd sites on The Reconstruction Era, writer Patrick Young noted that “Hammon was enslaved for his entire life,” and that he wrote poetry and prose as an enslaved man. Hammon learned to read and write, according to CBS, and the Poetry Foundation says he worked with Henry Lloyd in business ventures and, after Henry’s death in 1763, lived with Henry’s son Joseph.

Plain rear wing of an 18th-century shingled colonial house

Preservation Long Island, the Poetry Foundation, and CBS New York all describe Hammon as the first published African American or Black poet. The Poetry Foundation dates his broadside “An Evening Thought” to 1760, while Young’s account places it in 1761. CBS counts six poems and three essays, with the possibility that more remain to be found, and reports that the Lloyds published his religious writings but not “An Essay on Slavery.” The Poetry Foundation also lists a 1787 speech to the African Society of New York City, “An Address to the Negroes in the State of New-York,” and a 2020 Times Beacon Record report places the writing of that address and the essay at the manor in 1786.

The Revolution scattered the household. Joseph Lloyd sided with the patriots and fled to Connecticut when the British occupied Huntington, and Hammon went with him, according to the Town of Huntington history. Preservation Long Island adds that the British occupied the manor house itself during the war, and the town history records that they built Fort Franklin in 1778 on Lloyd land at the western edge of the neck, the site now called Fort Hill. After Joseph Lloyd’s death in 1780, Clio reports, Hammon passed to Lloyd’s nephew.

The Poetry Foundation says Hammon was buried in an unmarked grave on the Lloyd estate; Preservation Long Island gives his death as before 1806, and CBS says he lived to age 90. Lauren Brincat, the organization’s curator, called him “a nationally significant individual in history” in 2020 and added that few people know of him.

From country house to museum

The Lloyd family kept the manor until 1876, according to Preservation Long Island. It then became the country house of Anna Matheson Wood (1882 to 1980), who donated the property to the organization in 1968. Clio and Wikipedia give 1976 as the year of the National Register listing, which matches the November 7, 1976 date on the National Park Service record.

On October 17, 2020, United for Libraries dedicated the house a Literary Landmark. The ALA’s page for the dedication calls it the first virtual Literary Landmark dedication and the thirty-eighth in New York State, with partners that included the Town of Huntington African American Historic Designation Council and the NAACP Huntington Branch.

How the house is presented has since become a project of its own. The organization’s Jupiter Hammon Project states its aim as “a more relevant and equitable interpretation of Joseph Lloyd Manor,” and in late summer and fall of 2020 it held three virtual public roundtables with the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn, the Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead, and the Lloyd Harbor Historical Society. PBS’s Treasures of New York devoted a nine-minute segment to the manor and the project, which aired December 7, 2023. Malik Work’s film, first shown publicly on February 9, 2022, has been available online since November 2022, and the organization has said it will become part of a future exhibition and audiovisual installation at the manor.

Landmark status and legal protection

A plaque and a legal restriction are different things, a distinction that matters to anyone buying or owning an old house. The National Park Service states in its National Register FAQs that under federal law, listing “places no restrictions on what a non-federal owner may do with their property,” unless a project involves federal assistance, usually funding or permitting. The agency adds that owners act within local laws and ordinances.

The Literary Landmark program works through dedication and a plaque; its program page describes the designation that way and does not claim any regulatory effect. At Joseph Lloyd Manor, the practical safeguard looks to be stewardship by a preservation nonprofit that opens the house to the public, which is an observation and not a legal conclusion.

Prospective owners of a Long Island house with historic credentials can ask about local landmark ordinances, recorded easements, and permit rules before relying on a listing in either direction. This blog’s guides to preservation easements and to buying historic homes cover those questions. This is for informational purposes only — consult a licensed attorney or financial advisor for your specific situation.

Watch: the project and the film

Two videos from Preservation Long Island follow: a 49-second introduction to the Jupiter Hammon Project, and a recording of Malik Work’s film with the discussion moderated by Professor Douglas Jones, about 82 minutes in all.

Rowboat at a mooring in a misty North Shore harbor at morning
Jupiter Hammon Project: Join the Conversation, Preservation Long Island, 49 seconds
An Essay on Slavery, Malik Work film and discussion, Preservation Long Island, about 82 minutes

CBS New York’s four-and-a-half-minute report from February 2024 and the PBS segment are also online.

Planning a visit

The manor is at 1 Lloyd Lane, Lloyd Harbor, NY 11743. Preservation Long Island lists seasonal house tours from June to mid-October, so the birthday weekend falls near the close of the 2026 season; the tours page does not give a closing date or regular hours. Private and group tours are $12 per person with a $120 minimum, booked through a request form. Schedules change, so the event page is the place to confirm before traveling.

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