Brewster family has deep local roots
Brewster burial ground in the Town of Babylon. Credit:
I am very pleased with the article on how my ancestor Charles Devine Brewster led the black community's efforts to integrate the Amityville public school in 1895 .
However, the article left out the fact that the Brewsters are black and Shinnecock Indian.
Accounts of local history say the Brewsters moved to the Amityville area in the 1780s. Intermarriage between Long Island's Indian and black residents was common.
Today, a historical sign in the Town of Babylon marks the burial ground where the Brewsters, some of them veterans of the Civil War, were laid to rest in the 1800s.
Herbert Brewster Jr.
Enfield, Conn.
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