More Than 1,700 Unknown Graves Discovered In Southampton Village

The unmarked graves of first and second generation settlers in Southampton have been discovered—finally shedding some light on the mystery of what happened to one of New York’s oldest cemeteries.

Through a ground-penetrating radar survey of the Old Burial Ground in Southampton Village, the remains of 1,700 people were identified at the site. With fewer than 50 stones still in place, it has long been questioned how many remains were actually there and what exactly happened to the rest of the stones.

According to Southampton Town Historical Burying Ground Committee member Roger Tollefsen, burials stopped at the cemetery in the early 1700s because it was full, and records indicate a nearby landowner, Edwin Post, was to blame for the majority of the 1,652 missing grave-markers at the site.

Over the years, after the cemetery had been closed and nearly forgotten, Mr. Post claimed the property and used the burial ground as a farm and pigsty, and for animal grazing. It is thought that most of the stones now missing from the cemetery were thrown in a ditch surrounding the property while other wooden markers might have decomposed over time.

Records indicate that in 1886 Mr. Post was sued by the Town of Southampton for trespassing on the property, and the court decided against Mr. Post. However, officials were not certain where the graves were or where the boundaries of the cemetery used to be, leading to many remains recently being found under the hedges that now surround the property.

Ground-penetrating radar uses radar pulses to view underground. Through electromagnetic radiation, a special machine is used to see the reflected signals from subsurface structures.

Robert Perry, the owner of Topographix, a cemetery mapping and ground penetrating radar company, was able to identify where several rows of remains were in the cemetery. From surveying an area of more than 20,000 square feet, he was able to create the estimate for the number of graves.

According to Mr. Perry’s findings, the cemetery was laid out with the longest side of each burial plot in a north-south orientation. The grave plots appeared to be 10 feet long by 5 feet wide and dated back to 1640. In some cases, the density of the graves within a plot was much greater, indicating possible family plots.

Mr. Perry attempted to locate any gravestones that may have been buried at the site but, according to a report by Mr. Tollefsen, no buried gravestones were found in the 5,000-square-foot area of the search.

Mr. Tollefsen said the Old Burial Ground is the likely location of the majority of the first and second generations of settlers in Southampton, which held a population of 738 Christians and 83 slaves in 1698. He said before this discovery, the 48 stones that remain at the cemetery was the only indicator of where remains were.

“Up to this point in time, I don’t think anyone knew the magnitude before,” Mr. Tollefsen said.

Additionally, he said this new discovery might indicate that the Old Burial Ground in the village is one of the oldest municipally laid-out cemeteries in the country, if not the oldest.

“The entire thing was gridded out,” he said. “The heads were positioned east with the rising sun. It was full. It’s something that was allowed to be ignored and was taken advantage of by an individual who wanted to use the land. There was 300,000 pounds of stone carefully engraved, lovingly placed and removed to who knows where.”

Southampton Town Clerk Sundy Schermeyer, who first initiated the survey, said a kiosk will be placed at the site to raise awareness of the past.

“You can’t tell by looking at it, unfortunately, because the stones are gone,” she said. “We’re trying to establish a better background and history of this location. From what information we have available to us, this very well may be one of the oldest colonial burial grounds that remains in the site.”

Committee members encourage residents with any information, old documents or stones from the past to contact the Southampton Town historian, Zach Studenroth, to help the town continue to unearth the mystery of the 1,700 buried settlers in the Old Burial Ground.

This cemetery was the center of a dispute earlier this year between the town and a neighboring property owner who installed deer fencing and a privet hedge on a portion of the property that belonged to the town. The January dispute resulted in a $10,000 donation from the homeowner to the town to maintain the cemetery.

Mr. Tollefsen said their goal was to identify the general boundaries of where remains were, not to target the specific area where the dispute took place. However, he said the scan did show remains further out on the east and west sides of the cemetery than otherwise indicated by the hedges and bushes.