Two of the most intriguing — and slightly spooky — historical tours on the North Fork take place each October in graveyards in Mattituck and Cutchogue.
The North Fork Community Theatre’s troupe of actors partner with the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council & Museums, the Mattituck-Laurel Historical Society and the Mattituck Presbyterian Church Graveyard Restoration Committee to present the creepy sessions.
Now in their seventh year, the popular tours offer an accessible way to learn about local history. Visitors are guided through
the graveyard by a group of silent “widows” dressed in black Victorian mourning clothes.
“The content comes from the historical societies,” says Mary Motto Kalich of NFCT. “We portray real people in costume
and speaking about their lives,” she continues, with the actors often standing on the grave of the person they’re portraying.
“One of the highlights of the [Mattituck] tour is the Wickham murders, which was big news at the time,” Kalich says. “The family and their servant were murdered by a worker; the victims are buried in the graveyard.”
The 1854 murders of Cutchogue farmer James Wickham, his wife, Frances, and their teenage servant Stephen Winston by farmhand Nicholas Behan are perhaps the most notorious murders on the North Fork. (Behan was convicted and hanged in Riverhead in December 1854.)
The Mattituck tour also features the lives of architects, lawyers, Revolutionary and Civil War veterans and a mother buried next to the graves of her four young children.
The Cutchogue tour likewise brings to life notable figures in the town’s history, including a veteran of the French and Indian War, an exiled Tory, a beloved schoolteacher, former slaves and many more.
Tour attendees have been appreciative and enthusiastic. “People are so curious,” says Kalich. “Some come because their family members are buried there and are portrayed in the tour … there’s also the tourists who want to see something local to the North Fork — you can’t get any more local than this. And people who live here also come; they want to know what really happened in the town that they live in.”
The CNSHCM was recently awarded a $10,000 grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation to restore monuments at the Old Burying Ground, where the Cutchogue tour takes place. The oldest monuments there date back to the early 1700s. The restoration of monuments marking 10 Revolutionary War veterans buried at the site starts this fall.
The Mattituck tours take place at the Mattituck Presbyterian Church graveyard on Saturday, Oct. 4 (rain date: Oct. 18) and tickets are available for specific start times between 2 and 4 p.m. Cutchogue tours take place at the Old Burying Ground on Sunday, Oct. 5 (rain date: Oct. 19); tickets are available for specific start times between 2 and 4 p.m.
Tours run for approximately 45 minutes. Tickets are $25 and can be reserved on NFCT’s website or by calling 631-298-NFCT (6328).
