Elizabeth Oakes Smith was buried some 50 yards to the northwest of her home in Patchogue, next to her husband, Seba Smith. In the one image (below) looking back at Main Street from behind the gravestones, a small column stands where "The Willows" once stood.
While the graveyard was once used by several families, since the 1970s the area has been sporadically cared for. At one point a fifteen foot locust tree grew at the base of Oakes Smith's marker. Vandals have broken several stones, including Oakes Smith's--twice. Since the 1980s, volunteers such as Peter Barry, a fireman in Patchogue, have kept the graves visible as much as possible, but the fate of the land is still in dispute.
The black and white images are from 1994. I am grateful to John Redshawe, a local resident, for recording the color images here in the fall of 2000.
