Will Presence of Old Burial Vault, Long Emptied, Complicate Real Estate Sale?

Well-hidden though it may be, people who walk regularly along the streets of Sag Harbor have probably noticed a small brownstone marker, partially obscured by shrubs, at the intersection of Rysam and High streets. The headstone-like marker sits behind two brownstone posts connected by a chain and reads:

Rysam Sleight
Vault
1813 1913

Although the stone is on a narrow strip of land owned by the Oakland Cemetery Association, the burial vault itself — visible only by a few brownstone slabs covering it — is on a separate, irregularly shaped lot behind the houses at 14 and 10 High Street.

The notion of bodies being buried in an overgrown portion of someone’s backyard is certainly a spooky one, but if you are looking for a good ghost story, this isn’t it, although it certainly involves a fair amount of mystery and more than a little confusion.

This all matters now because, earlier this year, a two-bedroom cottage on a small lot at 14 High Street went on the market for $2.8 million. That price includes the separate lot — with the burial vault out back.

When Kurt Kahofer, a retired Sag Harbor Elementary School teacher, history buff, and co-founder of the Burying Ground Preservation Group, which restores old burying grounds, saw the listing, he was startled, because a few years earlier, he had seen an old map from 1873 that showed a triangular lot marked “Vault” in the same area.

“Because of my work with cemeteries, ‘vault’ means burial vault,” said Kahofer, who set out one day to locate it. Kahofer said he found the marker next to the street and, not knowing it was private property, made his way to the backyard, where he encountered several granite fence posts and the vault cover largely overgrown with weeds.

“It was an astounding discovery,” he said, “because brownstone was used in cemeteries before marble, so this dated to the early to mid-19th century.”

News that the property was for sale set off an alarm, Kahofer added, because state law protects cemeteries, and when he saw the real estate advertisement, he envisioned a future owner disturbing the vault to build something like a swimming pool in its place.

Although Kahofer said he did not know if the bodies remained buried on the site, Deering Yardley, owner of the Yardley & Pino Funeral Home, put that matter to rest, so to speak. He said the bodies were removed from the vault years and years ago.

“My father and grandfather removed them,” he said, “probably before I was born.” For the record, Yardley was born in 1939.

Probably at that same time, the land was turned over to Oakland Cemetery, although at some point, the parcel was subdivided with a neighbor buying the landlocked parcel, and the small access strip fronting on High Street remaining in the cemetery association’s hands.

Both the Rysams and Sleights were prominent Sag Harbor families. Captain William Rysam, who lived in Sag Harbor from about 1778 until his death in 1809, was a prosperous shipbuilder and businessman, who, it should be noted, was also engaged in the slave trade. The Sleights were also prominent citizens, who owned most of the land east of Division Street and on both sides of Rysam Street up to High Street.

In his book “Sleights of Sag Harbor,” published in 1929, Harry Sleight provided a list of at least 25 people who were buried in the vault. However, a cursory study of Oakland Cemetery records failed to find matches to that list, leaving the question of what became of the remains unanswered.

Dave Thommen, a lifelong resident of Rysam Street and history buff himself, said his father, the late Kenneth Thommen, who also grew up on the block, had told him the vault was empty. He said it was “a rite of manhood” for the boys in the neighborhood to work up the courage to go into the vault.”

Thommen said it was his understanding that there had been a mausoleum at the site, which had been moved with the bodies to Oakland Cemetery. But the only two mausoleums in the cemetery today are those of the Fahys family of watchcase fame, which is visible from Jermain Avenue, and a smaller one with the name Case on it. Headstones with the name Sleight on them are located in several parts of the cemetery.

Zach Studenroth, the village’s historic preservation consultant, is co-founder with Kahofer of the Burying Ground Preservation Group. He said the New York State Cemetery Board, which was created in the 1930s to oversee cemeteries, should have been notified of the transfer, especially since it involved Oakland Cemetery, unless, of course, the transfer took place before the cemetery board was created.

“This is such a creepy topic that people don’t really want to talk about it,” he said.

Studenroth said he was interested to hear of Thommen’s account, via his father’s memory, that there had been a structure on the site because, he said, it would have been unusual for the vault to be marked only by stone slabs at the ground level and not have some type of decorative enclosure.

But to Studenroth, the larger concern is that the property lies in the village’s historic district, and the parcel containing the vault is included in a survey, last updated in 1994, as part of a federal requirement for that district.

The survey notes that the property has the streetside marker and the granite fence posts, but makes no mention of the burial vault. “It’s possible that whoever did this survey didn’t go in far enough to sweep the leaves off the vault cover,” Studenroth said. “But if this property had nothing on it of historic significance, it would not have been included.”

With that in mind, Studenroth said anyone who purchases the property would likely face an uphill battle with the Village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review if they proposed any type of change that would compromise the vault.