Seabrook Village is a restored African-American community, depicting life among freedmen and their descendants from 1865-1930, and is one of the most unique living history museums in Georgia. [Unfortunately, hours are inconsistent and it’s not always accessible]. The pending loss of the little one-room schoolhouse pictured above is what drove the community to come together to preserve their historic resources. While it may seem abandoned and in a state of disrepair, it’s actually an authentic look into the challenges most Black Georgians faced on a daily basis from Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era. The Seabrook community was established through land grants dictated in General William T. Sherman‘s Field Order No. 15 in 1865. This was the policy which became known as “Forty Acres and a Mule” and it afforded many former slaves the opportunity to settle land they had once worked as laborers.

The offices of the Seabrook Village Foundation are located at the adjacent Eddie Bowens Farm house.

Meredith Belford writes of this house: [it] was moved from Trade Hill Road and fully restored at Seabrook Village in 1994. It was the home of Georgia Ann Delegal who was the child of freed slaves. Despite having limited education, her parents became very successful after their emancipation and amassed several hundred acres of land in the Seabrook and Trade Hill communities. They donated land for the original site of the Seabrook School and the present site of the Sunbury Missionary Baptist Church when it was moved from Sunbury to Seabrook in 1917. The house reflects their elevated status within the community.

This house was built by Pompey and Josephine Gould and was originally located near Dorchester Station. It was donated by Lula Gibbons and moved and restored in 1994.

This is a typical “one-seater”, built with scrap materials that were on hand.

According to the Seabrook Village Foundation, this corn crib was restored using original methods and tools. It was originally located at the Sam Ripley Farm.