Vanessa Williams Shares Great-Great-Grandfather's Story In Oyster Bay

OYSTER BAY, NY — Singer Vanessa Williams, along with other members of her family, shared a story of Black history in Oyster Bay on ABC 7 News last Black History Month that recently won a New York Emmy Award.

ABC News producer Ebony Roundtree produced a short documentary about William's great-great-grandfather David Carll, and his descendants, some still living in his 1865 Oyster Bay home. In October, the segment, "David Carll’s Long Island Legacy," took the New York Emmy Award in the Historical/Cultural Short Form category.

Carll was a free man of color living in Oyster Bay in the 1860s. The home he built would be home to five more generations of his descendants.

"He didn't have to enlist but he did," Denice Evans- Sheppard, another descendant, said.

She still lives in the home off Pine Hollow Road with her family.

Carll was born free in Cold Spring, New York, but signed up to fight for the Union in the Civil War, his descendants explained. He had a shipping business and married a Welsh woman who was disowned by her families for marrying a Black man.

Iris Williams, of Oyster Bay, is another great-great-granddaughter of Carll.

"David Carll was a visionary," she said.

Evans-Sheppard pointed out that in 1750, 17 percent of Oyster Bay were Black.

Evans-Sheppard is the executive director of the Oyster Bay Historical Society.

"Most people that come to Oyster Bay feel that it's a rich, affluent town, but they don't think people of color lived here," she said.

The house stayed in the family. Vanessa Williams remembered visiting as a child. Williams, born in the Bronx, is known as becoming the first Black Miss America in 1984.

Carll is buried in Pine Hollow Cemetery.

See the documentary here.