Visit to Oyster Bay, New York
A few months after moving from Oyster Bay, New York, I had an opportunity to return for some family business related to the Underhill Burying Ground.
Right away I gravitated to the Baptist Church Cemetery that I had been involved in restoration efforts for.
I was struck how proudly in the distance stood the Octagon Hotel which I also had a hand in restoring through the Oyster Bay Historic Preservation Roundtable.
Regrettably the plaque on the stone by the cemetery had a fairly glaring error – as Captain John Underhill is buried at the Underhill Burying Ground in Lattingtown and not at the Old Baptist Cemetery.
That evening I was hosted at the Clark family home facing Oyster Bay Cove. From my window I had a wonderful sense of the landscape. The gardens, while not in their fullest, still recollected a time when they would have been the grandest of any of the great estates.
I made a quick visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Audubon Center where my wife Chrissy used to work. This was one of the last visits in which the aviaries were still intact. Later these would be removed along with the birds and other animals they supported, never to be replaced.
Walking up the hill of Youngs Cemetery I traversed the same stairs where the casket of President Theodore Roosevelt was carried on January 8, 1919, to his final resting place.
“Keep your eyes on the stars and keep your feet on the ground.” – Theodore Roosevelet
Above the grave the cemetery grounds rose, giving a few of Oyster Bay harbor and Cove Neck where Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill estate sat. The gravesite is almost perfectly aligned looking towards the house.
One last detail to catch my eye was the Trousdell plot. I had the good fortune to be involved in a preservation effort to save their house, locally known as Hillside. A group of preservation and environmental groups came together as the house sat on a sizable lot. Years later the house was fully restored and returned to use as a private residence.