Upcoming events

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL OF THE UPCOMING EVENTS.

IN MEMORY OF PEARL HARBOR DAY - Saturday, December 7th at 1:00 PM Presented by W. Adam Mandelbaum

In memory of Pearl Harbor Day, the Oyster Bay Historical Society presents Long Island and the Long War: World War II and Our Island.
Join W. Adam Mandelbaum for an interesting lecture about:
  • Our Fighter Planes in Foreign Skies
  • Nazi Subs off of the South Shore
  • The Nazi Mole from Merrick
  • POW Camps on Long Island
  • Nazi Double Agents and Wading River Radio
  • Torpedo Testing at Montauk
  • And more...
Light Refreshments | $10 - Members | $15 - Non-members 

supernatural court cases - Sunday, october 27th - 1:00 PM
​Presented by W. Adam Mandelbaum

Ghost, demons, witches, and the Devil appear in the courtrooms on Long Island and our country for this Halloween lecture by attorney, author, and occult historian, W. Adam Mandelbaum. It will be a holiday treat for those who are summoned. Costumes are optional, but advanced tickets are advised.

Light Refreshments | $10 - Members | $15 - Non-members ​​

fUTURE IN OUR PAST - sUNDAY, oCTOBER 13TH - 1:00 pm
Presented by W. Adam Mandelbaum

Join W. Adam Mandelbaum for an interesting lecture about local innovations in the Angela Koenig Center. Long Island has long been a region of innovative technologies from the Miracle Mop to the MRI. It will be an entertaining and educational way to enjoy your afternoon at the Oyster Bay Historical Society.

Light Refreshments | $10 - Members | $15 - Non-members 

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED!

Legacy award dinner, September 25, 2024
hONORING, aUTHOR, JOURNALIST, & ADVOCATE, bILL BLEYER

SUNday, September 15th 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

CLOUDS WATER CLAY art exhibition opening


​Join us at the Oyster Bay Historical Society on September 15th from 1:00 - 3:00 PM for the opening of "CLOUDS WATER CLAY," a captivating art exhibition showcasing the works of Joan Digby, John Digby, Joan Harrison, and James LaFratta. Immerse yourself in the intricate interplay of nature and creativity as these talented artists explore the elements through their unique perspectives. Don't miss this opportunity to experience the beauty and depth of their work in an inspiring setting.
By John Digby - Fish and Ship
Picture
Joan Digby is Professor Emerita of English, and the former Director of the Honors College and of the Poetry Center at Long Island University-Post. A poet and photographer, she co-founded The Feral Press (2006-2023) with her late husband John Digby, publishing limited editions of illustrated books of poetry from their home and studio in Oyster Bay. They also co-authored The Collage Handbook (Thames & Hudson, 1985), a seminal work on archival collage. Her published poetry has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Korean, Romanian, and Bengali.

Joan began working in ceramics more than 10 years ago. Her instinct was to compose figures of people and animals. Her subjects were frequently friends in their “habitats.” With a background in 18th century British literature, the poets she admired also became a strong theme. Her attachment to horses, cats, and camels also expressed themselves in clay. Other series include the T’ai Chi form which she practices, songs, and dramatic scenes from opera. Her latest series of Alaskan musicians and South African animals emerged from recent trips.
By Joan Digby - Penguin
 Picture
​John Digby (1938-2022) lived and worked in Oyster Bay for forty years. Born in London, he spent his teens as a keeper at the London Zoo, specializing in birds but working with many other animals that became the subject of his collages. His passion for black and white paper collage emerged from his interest in poetry and engravings.

The work we present here, comes from a series called, “Water Voyages,” and when it travelled to London for an exhibition at the Saison Poetry Library in Royal Festival Hall, it was renamed, quite appropriately to John’s Cockney sense of humor, “Fish and Ships.”

His humor is apparent in much of his work, though he was an intense and serious craftsman. In the moon collages, for example, he worked in an intaglio method, carving fine lines with a scalpel, and inserting elements down through layers of image papers backed onto Japanese Okawara paper. A surgeon once called his work, “bloodless surgery”.

In both his abstract and figurative collages, his aim was to create a unified piece that appeared as if it were an “original” image that had never been altered. In his fish (as well as bird and animal collages) he presents elements of nature inside the animate shape, as if the boat full of people were seen from the fish’s perspective.

For John Digby, collage was a form of poetry, and he balanced both media in his artistic life.

Three books of John’s poetry—two illustrated with his collages—were published in England and many more by The Feral Press, that he founded with his wife Joan in Oyster Bay. He illustrated more than 100 small books of poetry from authors around the world.

Over the years, John was represented by 5 New York art dealers and travelled to many cities in the United States as well as in England, Wales, France, Estonia, and Korea. In addition to solo exhibitions, he participated in more than 50 group exhibitions.

His archives are housed in Special Collections at the University of Delaware.


Joan Harrison is a visual artist and writer obsessed with the beauty and history of the North Shore. The chalk pastels in CLOUDS WATER CLAY are aesthetic and documentary records of moments in time and place that have moved her. 

Joan is a Professor Emerita of Long Island University-Post, where she taught art and photography for many years. Her work is included in many publications as well as in public and private collections including those of the Morgan Library in NYC, Bryn Mar College in Pennsylvania and ArtPool in Hungary.  In addition to making pastels, paintings, photographs and collages, Arcadia Press published three visual histories of Glen Cove that she authored as well as a co-written one on Locust Valley.
By Joan Harrison - Cove Neck Marsh
James LaFratta has always been drawn to abstraction in poetry, art, and photography. The hallmark of his photographs is exploration of the relationship between shapes and textures, line and form, positive and negative spaces, and light and shadow. He is an avid photographer of the beach, dunes, and ocean on Long Island’s south shore.

For more than two decades he framed John Digby’s collages. They worked together, as is depicted in Joan Digby’s ceramic figurine showing them at work. LaFratta’s precise,

delicate support system elevated the flat surfaces to three dimensions. 

SUNday, AUGUST 25th 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

​History on the Harbor Lecture Series

The Oyster Bay Historical Society in partnership with The Waterfront Center
​Elizabeth Roosevelt and John Hammond, Lecturers
​Sign up for a two-hour cruise on Sunday, August 25th on the WaterFront Center’s replica oyster dredge Ida May to hear Ms. Elizabeth Roosevelt, one of the last members of her illustrious family living in the area, will recount her family’s story and how she has utilized Oyster Bay for recreation most of her life as a member of Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. Ms. Roosevelt will be joined by Oyster Bay's town historian John Hammond and the cruise will be from 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm.
​
The cruises were conceived of by Oyster Bay Historical Society Executive director Denice Evans-Sheppard, who said “I wanted to introduce a new concept of exploring history on the harbor lecture tours in collaboration with the WaterFront Center for the community to learn about historical components through the perspective of history, recreation, and culture. I felt there was a need to become more educated and aware of how the Indigenous people, such as the Matinecock Tribal Nation, utilized the harbor during pre-and post-European contact.”

saturDAY, AUGUST 10TH, at 1:00 pm
​
COMMUNITY HISTORY LECTURE SERIES: hEIDI sCHEFFLER rUAULT

Heidi Scheffler Ruault, a French/American dual citizen, has been a passionate amateur genealogist since she discovered her family’s lost loyalist ties to Canada, the New Haven Colony, and Oyster Bay, Long Island. More recently, her family hails from Cape Cod where she has been teaching French and studying theology, her preferred way of making sense of the world. Her 8th great-grandmother was Mercy Wright Coles of Oyster Bay and The Place. Mercy and Heidi were born on the same day and resided in the same town. Mercy in East Sandwich and Heidi in West, known three centuries later as Monument Beach, Bourne, Massachusetts. Heidi is excited to share the story as she understands it and hopes it will open up a wider conversation of multiple perspectives and truer reality.

Friday, July 26th, 3:00 - 5:00 PM

​History on the Harbor Lecture Series
The Oyster Bay Historical Society and The Waterfront Center are collaborating with our first "History on the Harbor Lecture Series."
History Cruises Scheduled on Oyster Bay Harbor

Sign up for a two-hour cruise on July 26 on the WaterFront Center’s replica oyster dredge Ida May to hear historian, author and former Newsday reporter Bill Bleyer recount the maritime history of Oyster Bay.
 
On the 3 p.m. trip co-sponsored by the Oyster Bay Historical Society and the WaterFront Center, learn about historic Jakobsen Shipyard, how creation of the Congressman Lester Wolff National Wildlife Refuge saved the bay from being destroyed by the Oyster Bay-Rye Bridge, Theodore Roosevelt’s connection to the harbor, the history of shellfishing, the brick industry on Centre Island, the Cold Spring Harbor Lighthouse, Fort Hill and Billy Joel’s ties to the bay, among other topics.

Bleyer, who is also president of Friends of the Bay, was a prizewinning staff writer for Newsday for 33 years, specializing in history and maritime issues before retiring in 2014 to write books and freelance for the newspaper and magazines. He is co-author with Harrison Hunt of Long Island and the Civil War and author of Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House; Fire Island Lighthouse: Long Island’s Welcoming Beacon; Long Island and the Sea: A Maritime History; George Washington’s Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide, and The Sinking of the Steamboat Lexington on Long Island Sound. The Hofstra University graduate has taught economics and journalism there and history at Webb Institute, the naval architecture college in Glen Cove.
 
Space is limited to 30 guests. The fee is $65. Information can be found at https://www.thewaterfrontcenter.org. Click here to book a spot.
 
The rain date is September 13.

On Sunday, August 25, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., there will be an additional tour on the Ida May. Elizabeth Roosevelt, one of the last members of her illustrious family living in the area, will recount her family’s story and how she has utilized Oyster Bay for recreation most of her life as a member of Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club.
The cruises were conceived of by Oyster Bay Historical Society Executive director Denice Evans-Sheppard, who said “I wanted to introduce a new concept of exploring history on the harbor lecture tours in collaboration with the WaterFront Center for the community to learn about historical components through the perspective of history, recreation, and culture. I felt there was a need to become more educated and aware of how the Indigenous people, such as the Matinecock Tribal Nation, utilized the harbor during pre-and post-European contact.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 7TH: 6:30 - 7:15 pm
​
History of Recorded Sound: A Lecture by archivist and collections manager, Thom Hoffman

​A musical journey of sights and sounds tracing the development of technologies used to capture and preserve sound from Edison’s tin foil experiments of the 1800’s to the digital formats of tomorrow. Century old phonographs will be shown and demonstrated. Musical samples will showcase the various stages of phonography from the acoustical era, through the electrical era and into the digital era. The changing formats and musical styles presented via wax, shellac, vinyl, and computer codes offer an audible travel through time itself. $10 - Members | $15 - Non-members