The St David African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was founded in 1840, to serve people of color who were segregated in Sag Harbor's Presbyterian church. The AME Zion church became an anchor for the growing neighborhood of Eastville in Sag Harbor. Its cemetery, founded in 1857, is currently under the stewardship of the Eastville Community Historical Society. There are approximately 100 graves on the site, including the gravesite of Reverend J. P. Thompson, the first pastor of the St. David AME Zion Church.

The Eastville community, a mixed diaspora of Irish, Native American and African-American workers, was first developed in the 1830s during the boom times of Sag Harbor whaling.Previously Snooksville, after the Irish Snooks-Hicks family, it became Eastville due to being east of the village. The AME church, built in 1839 by African Americans and Native Americans on Eastville Avenue and believed to have housed a stop on the Underground Railroad, is still standing in its original location. The founder, Rev. J. P. Thompson, was an abolitionist and confidante of orator Frederick Douglass. The Eastville Community Historical Society of Sag Harbor (founded 1981) also owns, maintains and preserves the adjacent century-old cemetery in which African and Native Americans of the post-colonial St. David's church membership are buried, of whom many were Sag Harbor whalers. Also prominent in the community were many Quakers who were sympathetic to the abolitionist cause.

In 1857, trustees Elymus Derby, Samuel Butler and David Hempstead of the AME Zion church purchased the land for a cemetery from Hannah and Anna Maria Solomon. It was used for burials until 1993.

source: Wikipedia