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Volunteers with the Patchogue-based Friends of Lakeview Cemeteries had a brief window last year to raise as much money as they could to help fund ongoing cleanup efforts at the historic cemetery.
Because every dollar raised would be matched by a Challenge Match Grant the group had won.
So they hustled, knowing “every dollar raised would count as two,” they said.
From June to November, volunteers worked to gather donations from members of the community, including from two cemetery tours in the fall, and a summer “Weekend at Fire Island’ raffle that raised $4,100 alone toward cemetery efforts.
In total, the volunteers raised $7,295 in those five months.
Then last month, the group’s chair, Arlene Guzman Capobianco and longtime member Paula Miller Murphy, both of Patchogue Village (pictured, inset), accepted a matching grant check for $7,295 from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, which is based in Riverhead, at the Gardiner luncheon at Old Westbury Gardens.
About their work
The group holds several cleanups each year, and in the past has used donations to restore historic headstones, even install new headstones for Civil War soldiers buried at the cemetery.
In 2020, the village and town joined forces in the effort to restore the site by replacing the old, beaten down chain-link fence that lined the cemetery property along Waverly Avenue with a wrought iron-style fence.
The Town of Brookhaven took the lead in funding for the purchase and installation of the fence, with Patchogue Village also chipping in with a partial contribution, according to prior Greater Patchogue reports.
All about Patchogue’s Historic Lakeview Cemetery
Lakeview Cemetery, incorporated in 1899, is located on Main Street, just east of Waverly Avenue in Patchogue Village.
In 1791, several Christian denominations in Patchogue purchased the original lot for thirty shillings. They built a common meeting house and started using a portion of the property as a cemetery in 1794.
Over the following century additional land was purchased for cemetery use. Today the Lakeview Cemetery contains the cemeteries of Union, Gerard, Rice, and Old Episcopal which together contain over 1200 graves.
The largest, Lakeview, contains over 400 graves on land donated by Ruth Newey Smith.
The cemetery contains the graves of veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam War.
The graves of notable historic figures in the history of Patchogue and Suffolk County are also located here.
In 1992, Hans Henke, a retired Patchogue resident, began spending countless hours, by himself, resurrecting and rescuing this cemetery from ruins. The Village assisted his efforts, and in 2006, other local volunteers began to come together under the leadership of Steven Gill, and a Cemetery Restoration Committee was formed as part of the Greater Patchogue Foundation.
Today, the committee continues its volunteer work to restore, resurrect, and maintain this historic cemetery.
Source: Cemetery Restoration Committee