Bev Tyler Guest Speaker at Annual Celebration

“Building a Community: Patriot’s Rock and 400 Years of Change,” a talk by local historian Beverly C. Tyler, will highlight the Three Village Community Trust’s annual fundraiser on Thursday, November 10 at 7:30 pm at the Setauket Neighborhood House. Tyler, the noted writer and lecturer, will discuss the history of the area surrounding Patriots’ Rock, the center of Patriot resistance to British troops in the 1777 Battle of Setauket.

 Tyler’s presentation will begin with the Native Americans, who settled the area 400 years ago, and continue to the present. The Community Trust acquired Patriot’s Rock and the historic circa 1740 house on the property last year, thanks in part to the generosity of Blanche Tyler-Davis. The house, built by farmer Amos Smith, eventually belonged to the Tyler family, who ran a general store in the front of the building until the 1920s.

Beverly Tyler is well known for leading walking tours as Revolutionary War farmer and spy Abraham Woodhull and as a 19th-century ship captain. He appeared on the History Channel production “Spies of the Revolutionary War,” and over the past 30 years, he has written more than 800 columns in the Village Times Herald and other regional publications. He is the author of “Village Green Program, A Teacher’s Guide” and “Discover Setauket- Brookhaven’s Original Settlement,” which is used in all Three Village School District’s 4th-grade classes. His most recent book is the Three Village Historical Society’s “Walk Through History: A Guided Walking Tour of Brookhaven’s Original Settlement in Setauket.”

The event will include wine, hors d’oeuvres and desserts. There will be prizes, and an oil painting by Cynthia Crowell “Scott’s Cove Skiffs, Setauket Harbor,” will be raffled off. Tickets (only 200) for the painting are on sale now for $25. The cost to attend is $30 per person or $50 for two. For information, call 689-0225 or visit www.threevillagecommunitytrust.org.

The Three Village Community Trust is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting the unique character of the community through the acquisition of diverse properties, either through gift or purchase The Trust seeks to preserve both the natural resources and the local heritage. In addition to its acquisition of the Patriot’s Rock, the Trust acts as steward of the Rubber Factory Houses, (to be moved to a location behind the Trust headquarters on Main Street in Setauket), also of the Gamecock Cottage at West Meadow Beach, the Setauket-Port Jefferson Greenway Trail and the Steven D. Matthews Nature Preserve in Poquott.

Trustees are:  Cynthia Barnes, Alice D’Amico, Robert de Zafra, Katherine Downs, Kathleen Matthews, Herb Mones, John Morris, Joe Pierro, Robert Reuter, Michael Schaefer and Norma Watson.