Historic Manorville Property Bought for $4.1M Will Be Preserved

Suffolk County and the Town of Brookhaven jointly paid $4.1 million to buy an 11.59-acre piece of open space in Manorville that was once home to a prominent African-American family.

The property was once a farm, first purchased by the historic Arch family in 1865, just three years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Annie Arch, the daughter of Abraham and Huldah Arch, was heavily involved in the AME Zion Church in Center Moriches and was a close friend of Mary Bell, whose nearby home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. Arch helped Bell run the church, which was posthumously renamed in Bell’s honor.

“Our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy the Central Pine Barrens and our natural endowments because of what we do today,” Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said during a news conference announcing the historic farmland preservation. “This historically significant property is an important chapter of Long Island’s African-American history, and I thank my partners in the Legislature and in town government for supporting this purchase.”

Suffolk used about $3 million from the county’s Drinking Water Protection Program to acquire the property, which partially falls in the Central Pine Barrens, which is preserved to protect the region’s sole-source aquifer. Brookhaven funded the balance of the acquisition.

The land falls within the Forge River Watershed.