Photos: Cemeteries of Patchogue

The Lakeview Cemeteries are actually made up of five cemeteries: Lakeview, Rice, Old Episcopal, Union and Gerard.

The area has a long history dating back to 1791, when the land at the corner of Main Street and Waverly Avenue in Patchogue was purchased.  In 1794, a meeting house was jointly built and equally shared by local Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians.  That meeting house survived until 1820, when it was replaced with a professionally constructed two-story meeting house.

Organized in 2006, the Cemetery Restoration Committee is a group of independent volunteers formed to restore the neglected and overgrown cemeteries.  Previously, the cemeteries received only sporadic care, but can now be better maintained by the CRC through grants provided by Suffolk County.  Although the cemeteries are now presentable, there is still much work to be done.  Many of the older headstones have disappeared or deteriorated, making it difficult to determine burial sites.

According to Steven Gill, Chairman of the CRC, some of the headstones are records of tragedies.  Some died by drowning, as many of the Patchogue men were sailors.  Other times the headstones recorded the loss of multiple members of a single family, especially children, who often died within days or weeks of each other due to disease.  The earliest burials date back to 1794 and veterans of nearly all the wars from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War are represented.

Funding for these projects is made available through grants as well as fundraisers by and .

Check the photos to see more from the Lakeview cemeteries and from for the cemetery's projects.