The Sand Hill Indian Story- Part 2

NEPTUNE TOWNSHIP - Last weekend, on August 3rd, the descendants of "Indian Ike" Isaac Richardson gathered in Eatontown's Wolcott Park to revisit the long and storied history of one of Neptune's oldest families.

There were attendees from all over the country; there was food and laughter and somber remembrance of those who could not make it.  Gary Puryear manned the grill with his brother Todd (Neptune Township Fire Commissioner); their sister Donna (retired Asbury Park teacher and current Neptune Board of Education Member) herded a bulk of her 15 siblings and their children into a panorama-sized photo.  Family members got on the microphone and introduced themselves to the dozens of attendees, some of whom they'd never met before, and shared which branch of the large family tree they grew from.  Uncle Fortune Thomas, the family's current "Chief," offered a prayer, ending with a thank you "to everyone who came to share our history."

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The attendees ranged in age from 1 to 90, but everyone had at least one thing in common: they are a part of a legacy at least six generations long, and still growing.  The families are now not just Richardsons and Reveys and Crummels; they've added Ashtons, Thomases, Williamses, Cooks and Wellses too.  Cousin Kimberly Wells told TAPinto Neptune that she "wanted to have another reunion because, after the pandemic, our family started losing each other, and I didn't want us to lose our traditions.  I thought it was time for our younger generations to keep our history alive," she continued, "we are the future."

It's challenging to put into words, or a cohesive timeline; or to capture the entirety, the depth and breadth and impact of such a long lineage.  Cousin Claire Garland and the Sand Hill Indian Historical Association have committed to a careful and thoughtful documentation of the family's history from the 1700s on; the website and various presentations and publishings over the years comprise an impressive and robust body of work, such as a recent Lifelong Learning Course at Brookdale hosted by Ms. Garland which led participants on a virtual tour around "a 75-mile journey from the historic Lenape Council Fire at Minisink Island in the Delaware River through historic villages of New Jersey to Monmouth County," and detailed, "the colonial history of Matawan, Holmdel, Middletown, and Locust villages ending at Monmouth County Clay Pit Park on the Navesink River."

On Sunday, 8/18, the Sand Hill Indian Historical Association will also participate in an "evening of listening to local county tales" on the Middletown Arts Center Lawn (36 Church Street, Middletown, NJ 07748).  It's in these acts, and the large gatherings such as the Reunion, that the Richardson family keeps history moving forward.  Claire shares, "Our work continues through events and exhibits, one of which is being shown now at Ocean Township Museum, called First Nations. Another exhibit is Edge of the Waters at
the Berkeley Hotel Lobby in Asbury Park and included the Richardson-Revey families as founders of the resort area since they were builders of many structures in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove during the 1880s-1920s."

As the family began to learn more about their history, the Association realized that "there are high percentages of Northwest European DNA in (our) family since our heritage can be traced back to Holland, England and the Caribbean Islands."  To this end, they invited Teresa Vega from Radiant Roots Boricua Branches who shares, "I use the term “Afro-Dutch” to describe the early Africans who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1626 and were acculturated by the Dutch. These early Africans primarily married among themselves, but also married, or had children with, people of Native and European ancestry. Intermarriage between people of African and Native descent has been documented in my family," and Teresa's extensive research shows that the Richardsons are cousins of hers from the Revy-Van Salee lineage, which first can be traced back to Elizabeth Susan Van Surlay Revy, who "married into the Richardson family, who were Cherokees from Georgia and stopped in Monmouth County, NJ on their way to the Oneida Nation in the late 1700s, where they settled, "

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And from these roots first planted in what is now known as Bedford-Stuyvesant to the North and the Cherokee Nation of Georgia in the South, the family of "Indian" Ike found itself at a picnic in Eatontown, New Jersey, half a mile away from their namesake street, Richardson, still in use today.  And they recounted stories of growing up on Sand Hill in Neptune, of jumping off the now-leveled hill and scraping knees; of making everything from scratch (Donna still cans food and makes everything fresh, in nod to her childhood at Sand Hill); of "The Big House" and Richardson Heights.

Donna's second cousin, Camille Richardson (whose father, Isaac W. Richardson, carried the name of "Indian Ike"), sums it up: "There was nothing better than growing up on Sand Hill. Anyone who grew up on Sand Hill knows what family really is."

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