GOOD OF THE VILLAGE ASSOCIATION OFFERS SEA CLIFF HISTORY LESSON AT CARPENTER GRAVEYARD THEATRE

This past Saturday, the Good of the Village Association hosted its annual Carpenter Graveyard Theatre, with local resident actors relating the history of the Village's origins through the experiences of the Carpenter family - among the first people of European ancestry to settle the area now known as Sea Cliff.  After an introduction by local emcee John Canning, visitors were guided through the cemetery stopping at grave sites, where the ghosts of different Carpenter family members told the story of his or her life in the context of what was happening in our local history as well as our nation's history, from the Revolutionary War, through the Civil War, into the 1870's when James Smith Carpenter donated his land to the Methodist Church for a campground, and beyond with the 1886 murder of Thomas Carpenter, allegedly at the hands of Henry Franck, and concluding with Mrs. Coles Carpenter, a founding member of the Good of the Village Association in 1898.   


 This is the third consecutive year that the GVA has organized the event. For more on the first Graveyard Theatre and the history and stories of those buried in the cemetery, read Conversations With Our Past, edited by Peggy Costello and Alex Terentiev, with photographs by Elizabeth Jordan.  A copy of the book can be found at Sea Cliff Library