‘Museums’ added to Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council organization name
The Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council — which takes care of the Village Green, its five historical buildings and the Old Burying Ground — has added “and Museums” to its name.
According to executive director Mark MacNish, the new designation means the nonprofit is now an “educational facility” that can be tax-supported.
The Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council and Museums also recently received a $10,000 grant to restore monuments at the Old Burying Ground, located at Main Road and Harbor Lane in Cutchogue. The monuments include those for the 10 Revolutionary War veterans buried there, as well as others dating back to the early 1700s. Work at the site is expected to start in the fall.
“It’s a significant site where some of the first settlers are buried,” Mr. MacNish said. “We have over 500 stones there, and once a stone falls or is broken, it can cost up to $1,000 for each stone.”
He estimates a fifth of the stones in the cemetery need work. Proceeds from the graveyard tours offered by the organization also go to support the cemetery, he said, and volunteers from the Boy Scouts and the high school are pitching in.
“There’s a lot of community interest in these old burial grounds,” he said. “When I’m there, people come up and ask what I am doing here. So people are keeping an eye on the site.” The council is asking people not to take rubbings of the stones because they are fragile.
The Old Burying Ground is among the oldest on the North Fork. The land was part of the property that early settler William Wells had purchased from the Corchaug in 1661. The earliest marked gravestone bears the date 1717.
“Long Island’s historic cemeteries are an incredible historic resource,” said Kathryn M. Curran, executive director of the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, the organization funding the grant. “The art of the stones physically represents societies’ changing attitudes and also speaks to early trade networks. The information on those interred offers genealogy and community information. Cemeteries are important documents to a region’s history.”
The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, established in 1987, primarily supports the study of Long Island history and its role in the American experience. Robert David Lion Gardiner was, until his death in August 2004, the 16th Lord of the Manor of Gardiner’s Island.
