Celebrating Memorial Day in Port Jefferson Throughout History

It was once called Decoration Day.

According to Port Jefferson village historian Kenneth Brady Memorial Day used to be called “Decoration Day” when it was first observed back in May 1866. Residents of Waterloo in upstate New York would go out and decorated the graves of their Civil War dead in remembrance. (The official town website of Waterloo confirms this fact.)

“Port Jefferson subsequently honored its fallen sailors and soldiers during annual ceremonies organized by Lewis O. Conklin Post 627, Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a Union veteran organization with a 'camp' in the village,” Brady wrote in a story in the historical section of the village’s website.

His post describes how residents would honor the soldiers and provides a list of those soldiers buried at Cedar Hill.

To celebrate Memorial Day in Port Jefferson, we collected a few historical photos and put them in the gallery above. Click through to see some of the ways residents celebrated Memorial Day or Decoration Day.

For thousands more photos from the history of Port Jefferson head over to the historical section of the village's official website.