Lakeview Cemetery, located on the corner of what is now Waverly Avenue and West Main Street in Patchogue, is a historical gem. The origin of Lakeview dates back to 1791, with its first burying grounds located behind the old Union Church.

As it stands today, there is an old iron fence, put up by Augusta Josephine Smith Weeks, that divides the cemetery property in half. Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese own the eastern portion that is split into the Rice Family Cemetery and Lakeview Cemetery. The Waverly Avenue Cemetery, located on the western side of the fence, consists of the Union, Methodist and Gerard sections. The western side is considered abandoned, as it has been unattended for at least 14 years.

In the early days of settling on Long Island, “Smith” was a popular surname. The Smith family, of the John “Rock” Smiths, have been on Long Island since 1641 and were extremely influential during the peak of the cemetery and development of Long Island. They were a family of 10 siblings: four sisters and six brothers. A few of the males died young, and most of the siblings did not have grandchildren. The last known direct descendent of their line died in 1954.

Patchogue’s “four sisters”—Charlotte Goldsmith Keech (1823-1887), Betsey Ann Smith Roberts (1828-1897), Augusta Josephine Smith Weeks (1831-1901) and Ruth Newey Smith (1835-1917)—owned many properties while donating their time and money to Patchogue. The four of them lived on what is now South Ocean Avenue. Their house still stands all the way at the end, the last house before entering Mascot Dock.

The sisters wore many hats, so to speak. They were all seamstresses and became successful businesswomen by running two cloak factories in Manhattan. Traveling was important to them, as they went to Europe 26 times within 36 years. They all dabbled in writing poetry, and Betsey Ann Smith Robert is one of Long Island’s only women to have written a full book of poems in the 19th century. It can still be bought and read today. Ruth Newey Smith held two patents: one for an umbrella that could also be used as a cane and another for an envelope that had a special design so if someone opened it, a person would be able to tell.

The Smith family owned the property north of Sunrise Highway, where a Chuck E. Cheese stands today. At the time, Ruth Newey Smith thought Patchogue Village would expand to this area and when it did, she wanted a park to be built. She paid for the fencing, which has since been moved to Shorefront Park due to Sunrise Highway expanding in the 1950s. The Smith family, in various different forms, owned all the property from Shorefront Park to Sandspit Park. When the last remaining Smith, Ruth Newey Smith, died, the property was left to the Patchogue Village.

In Lakeview, their impact is just as great. In 1895, they paid for eight plots and headstones for the lost sailors of the Louis V. Place shipwreck. They related to the tragedy as one of their brothers died in an unrelated sailing accident. When Ruth Newey Smith died, she left the cemetery to Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and the Diocese. However, the Smith genealogical monument, Smith family plot and small statue to remembrance, was supposed to stay within the family, but since there is no direct descendent of the family, the Smith family plot in Lakeview is legally abandoned.

Today, the Lakeview Cemetery Committee is working to have an assessment done of the abandoned Smith family plot to figure out what needs to be done in terms of restorations. As far as genealogical remembrance is concerned, statues are legally not allowed to be abandoned. So, nobody knows who owns these statues and Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and the Diocese do not claim them as theirs. For now, their ownership remains a mystery.

Isabella Scuteri is a reporter with The SBU Media Group, part of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism’s Working Newsroom program for students and local media.