Reverend Isaac Coleman and Rebecca Gray Coleman House

1482 Woodrow Road | Woodrow | built 1858

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1859

    An 1859 map shows Maryland oysterman Ephraim Bishop living in the house

    H.F. Walling's map of 1859 is the first record that clearly identifies the house, naming Ephraim Bishop as its occupant with his wife Ann. Bishop, an African American oysterman, had come to Staten Island from Maryland in 1851. No one knows when the house was built; the Landmarks Commission thought it may be the oldest surviving building of the Sandy Ground community.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1864

    Rev. Isaac Coleman buys the house on becoming pastor of the Rossville AME Zion Church

    Ann Bishop, widowed by 1862, sold the house in 1864 to Isaac Coleman, the church's sixth pastor, who had preached in western Pennsylvania since at least 1848. He had recently married Rebecca Gray, a widow from North Carolina who had been living in New York City with her children. The couple moved in during 1864, but a year later the church sent him to Williamsburgh, Brooklyn.

    “She sold it in 1864 to Isaac Coleman who had come to Sandy Ground to serve as the sixth pastor…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1871

    Widowed Rebecca Coleman moves into the house with her son Stephen Gray's family

    By 1870 Isaac Coleman was dead and Rebecca was sharing a Manhattan home with her son Stephen Gray, who worked as a waiter, and his wife Martha and four children. In 1871 the whole household moved into the Woodrow Road house. The house has belonged to Rebecca Gray's descendants ever since, though in recent years it has been rented out as a two-family home.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1910

    The 1910 census counts 12 people from three families living in the house

    In 1881 Stephen Gray's daughter Rebecca married oysterman Robert H. Landin of Talbot County, Maryland, and the couple raised five children in the house. By 1910 their oldest daughter and her husband, Abram Decker, had moved in with their own children, and the census counted 12 people from three families plus a boarder. The count fell to 10 in 1920 and six in 1930.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 4 buildings with stories in Woodrow