Historic preservation projects happen in many forms. One of these little-known forms is through the establishment of land trusts, organizations that are tasked with preserving the stories of their communities. These organizations take over the ownership, stewardship, and management of a piece of property, supporting those who have historically occupied it and preserving historic structures for community use.

Their purview can be expansive— ranging from managing natural resources to retaining physical spaces for the communities who made their lives on the land. However, while each land trust prioritizes different things, they each focus efforts on protecting and preserving the land and the history nestled within.

In this story we highlight two land trust projects that received funding from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. These projects highlight the dynamic functions of land trusts—ranging from political organization to cultural resource preservation, and how they use historic preservation as a tool to not only save the past, but to secure a place in the present for historically excluded groups.

Edisto Island Open Land Trust

The Sea Islands of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts boasts beautiful landscapes and a deep, storied history—one increasingly under threat to commercialization and new development. Edisto Island, named for the Indigenous people who first inhabited the island, is experiencing such threats. Organized in 1994, the Edisto Island Open Land Trust (EIOLT) in South Carolina works to conserve and protect Edisto Island, as well as preserve the history of the Gullah Geechee and indigenous people who inhabited the island well past the antebellum period.

The history is shown through the preservation of historic dwellings on the island such as the Point of Pines Cabin—former slave quarters—to family homes like the Hutchinson House. Many of the Black families on Edisto Island are the direct descendants of enslaved people from Central and West Africa. The Gullah-Geechee nation extends from North Carolina down the Southern coast to the beaches of Georgia, a community that worked to preserve its African roots while building a culture in an unfamiliar world.

These Black families inhabited these houses well into the 1970s, a story of formerly enslaved people who continued to make lives for themselves in the places they had been enslaved post-Emancipation as sharecroppers. It is here that the Gullah people worked to establish themselves, grow independent political power, and create a sustainable community.

The Hutchinson House—one of the oldest surviving homes built on Edisto Island by African Americans during Reconstruction—was created by Henry Hutchinson who made his living growing Sea Island cotton and working one of the first cotton gins owned and operated by a Black person. The EIOLT acquired not only the home, but also the land it sits on. In addition to preserving the land, the EIOLT works closely with descendants to build out more of the history of Henry Hutchinson and his family.

Supported by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, the grants support the EIOLT’s continuing work to restore the Hutchinson House as a community gathering space, updating weathering and other necessary structural elements.

One such project is restarting the growing of Sea Island cotton on Edisto Island. While the project started in 2019, the work to reestablish cultivation of this historic plant is an incredible historic achievement, much like the cultivation of Carolina Gold rice in Charleston. It is through this work that EIOLT is exploring and acknowledging that that preservation encompasses many forms

Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust

Many land trusts can have a personal connection for preservationists, as families keep their family histories alive in the present day. The Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust (DFCLT) centers on preserving the 153-acre Dennis Farm, which tells the story of a free African American family from New England that settled in northeast Pennsylvania after the American Revolution. The Dennis Farm, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, showcases the layout of a New England farmstead, circa 1800.

It features a farmhouse, built circa 1825; the foundation of an earlier house; a stonewall-enclosed family cemetery where documented African American veterans of the American Revolution, War of 1812 and Civil War are resting; and a mile of stonewalls up and down the property. The DFCLT is currently raising funds to match a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to transform the Dennis Farmhouse to a museum that will showcase the family’s history, artifacts, photographs, and documents. The family also donated a number of artifacts to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

Born in Connecticut in 1750, patriarch Prince Perkins (1750-1839) and his family, free African Americans, first settled in Northeast Pennsylvania in 1793. Perkins used money he earned fighting in the American Revolution to purchase land. He and his family cleared the land on the farm’s upper tier and built a homestead that included a house, springhouse, well, and the hilltop cemetery. All that remains of the Prince Perkins Homestead is the stone foundation of their house, the springhouse, and well.

Prince Perkins' granddaughter, Angeline Perkins Dennis, inherited the property in the mid-19th century when her father, William Perkins, passed away. She and her husband, Henry W. Dennis (1815-1882), who was the son of another free African American family from New England, purchased additional acres with the farmhouse and barn complex on the farm’s lower tier. Since then, the entire property has been known as The Dennis Farm. However, it hasn’t been a working farm since 1918. In 1939, the house was modernized and served as a summer home until the 1960s. No one has lived there since then.

The Dennis Farm is rare as a property continuously owned by a Black family for more than 200 years. Because it was not a modern working farm in the 20th century, the layout of the farm was not updated, so it retains its historical integrity. The farmhouse is one example of this, with its architectural style, a classic timber-frame saltbox, known throughout New England.

The Prince Perkins Homestead on the upper tier, and the grounds outside the farmhouse on the lower tier, were the subject of Binghamton University (SUNY) Archeological Field School in 2008-2009. More archaeological studies are planned for the future to unearth valuable information about the Dennis Farm.

The family, through the work of the DFCLT, preserves the story of this free Black family through site preservation, offers tours, hosts cultural programs, and partners with community organizations, colleges, universities and high schools for educational initiatives. Inspired by her grandfather, Norman Henry Dennis (1898-1976), who taught her their history, M. Denise Dennis, a direct descendant of Prince Perkins, is the steward of farm’s preservation. In 2001, she founded DFCLT with her great-aunt Hope Dennis (1906-2006) and serves as president and CEO.

“To me, this is a labor of love. We are preserving the property, conserving its natural resources, and sharing its history with the public because it is a rare and successful example of early free African American land ownership and self-agency, in a largely European American community [of] the rural North, from after the American Revolution to the present,” said Denise Dennis. “We are fortunate in that our history is well documented.”

Falling in with the long history of family history stewardship by the Dennis and Perkins families, Denise and the DFCLT continue to focus on preservation projects, with the intention of repurposing the farmhouse as a museum and creating an interpretation center on the land itself.