Raynham Hall Museum walking tour in Oyster Bay encourages preservation

Justinne Lake-Jedzinak led a group of about 20 people down a winding dirt path at the end of Simcoe Street in Oyster Bay. Through the wooded area emerged Fort Hill Cemetery, the resting place of the Townsend family.

The history of the Townsends, one of the earliest nonnative settling families on Long Island, was a focal point on the nearly-2-mile Historic Oyster Bay Walking Tour, run by Raynham Hall Museum, that touched on the area’s deep roots in America’s foundation.

The tour, the final in a series of trips that began this summer, highlighted the need to share local history and encourage historical preservation, according to members of the museum and attendees of Saturday’s walk.

“A lot of the infrastructure from the Revolutionary War period is gone,” said Lake-Jedzinak, director of education at the museum. “Walking around town gives us a better chance of understanding what it would have been like then and how this town has developed.”

The tour was developed with Margo Arceri, of the Three Village Historical Society, and began in July. Museum officials said the tour sold out in the summer and early fall. It includes Colonial-era locations and sites pivotal to President Theodore Roosevelt. 

The walk began at the home of Samuel Townsend, on the property of present-day Raynham Hall. Considered a patriot in an area surrounded by loyalists, Townsend was “essentially living in hostile territory,” Lake-Jedzinak said.

Overlooking the home, just hundreds of feet away, was Fortified Hill – now only recognizable by the hill of Prospect Street and a sign that marks the location of the stronghold occupied by British Col. John Graves Simcoe and his troops in the late 1770s.

The small Townsend family cemetery is at the top of that hill. It includes Robert Townsend's grave, whose code name was “Samuel Culper Jr.” in Gen. George Washington’s spy ring during the Revolutionary War.

Many of the stones, however, are worn and faded. Some headstones are cracked. The condition is emblematic of the passage of time that has caused some historic locations to fade into obscurity or be demolished.

"It's a shame," said Jim Vaughan, of Oyster Bay, who was in the tour group. "The cemetery is overgrown."

Efforts have been made to maintain and preserve historic sites in the hamlet, and the town is pushing to make the area a destination of historical tourism.

Joann Perrotto, a Raynham Hall Museum tour guide, said concerns are increasing as time passes to preserve locations that can be lost as it becomes economically unfeasible to maintain them.

“They knock these houses down because people can’t afford to keep them,” Perrotto said.

Gary Davis, of Massapequa, said the walk showcased “the importance of preservation of history.”

“A lot of our historic areas and monuments are in disrepair,” Davis said.

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ