Eagle Scout project would restore forgotten historic family cemetery

A tiny, overgrown family cemetery tucked into the Calverton woods may soon get some long-overdue TLC.

Riverhead High School senior Corey Allen is proposing to clean up and restore the historic Wells Cemetery off River Road in Calverton. 

The 17-year-old Calverton resident is a Life Scout in Boy Scout Troop 94 in Wading River and he would like to work on the cemetery for his proposed Eagle Scout project. He pitched the idea to the town board at its work session Feb. 27.

“When you go past it, you can easily miss it from the road because it’s set back,” Corey told town board members. “But it is noticeable if you’re going around the [EPCAL] bike path, which is how I noticed it.”

While Corey was searching for an Eagle Scout project, former councilman George Bartunek mentioned the cemetery. It piqued Corey’s interest and he began to research the site. 

The history of the family burial ground dates back to 1839, when the first family member, Prudence (Wells) Raynor was buried there. Four more families members would soon follow because an epidemic of typhoid fever, a bacterial infection, swept through family. In all 16 members of the Wells family are buried there. The last interment there took place in 1930. 

The property has been owned by the Town of Riverhead since 1987, though it has not been regularly maintained by the town. Today, the cemetery is covered with leaves and overgrown underbrush. Dangerous dead trees and limbs were removed from the site in October, but more work needs to be done. 

Corey would clean up the leaves and overgrown brush on the site and restore three damaged headstones, he told the town board. He’d also like to create an entrance from the EPCAL recreation trail, with a signs and install a bench and a bike rack. 

He said he has a pledge from Hollis Warner of Peconic Monument Works in Riverhead to donate the materials and assistance with repairing the broken headstones. Corey said he also met with Speedy Signs and the Riverhead Landmarks Committee about a proposed sign. Several other Life Scouts in his troop are helping him.

After listening to Corey’s pitch, town board members embraced the idea. 

Corey is making his proposal this week to the Scout committee, he said in an interview. Once he gets the committee’s approval, he’ll meet again with town officials, he said. He hopes to complete his project before the fall, as he will then attend Suffolk County Community College where he will study graphic design. 

Title to the cemetery was given to the town by Wells Family descendent Albert Lane in 1987. Records do not indicate what happened after the acquisition — but in 2007 Peconic River Sportsman’s Club member John Hall came across it while chasing a deer. He saw it was overgrown and in disarray and he took it upon himself to start tending to it. Hall mowed grass, blew away leaves, and even replaced one of the headstones. He became the cemetery’s caretaker for over a decade, but over the years he was no longer able to take care of it. 

“I know I took on this responsibility without permission from the town board of Riverhead but the history of the cemetery goes back to 1839,” wrote Hall in a letter dated May 4, 2007 to former Town Supervisor Phil Cardinale. “History is so important to our future.”

The last names listed on the tombstones may vary, but all the family members can be traced back to Wells family patriarch John H. Wells. He died on Oct. 20, 1875 after a fall while he attempted to jump between two of the family’s barns. His tombstone reads “Surely there was but a step between me and death.”