By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The Greens Farms Upper Cemetery was filled Friday with the living, the dead, and a few in between — characters from colonial Westport who “returned from beyond” to recount their life stories to visitors of today.  

It was an “Illuminating the Past Cemetery Lantern Tour,” sponsored annually by the Westport Museum of History and Culture for Halloween weekend.

During the program, visitors encountered several 19^th Century Westporters, including  Rebecca Thorpe (portrayed by Zuzana Daure), who liked to watch ships unload goods along Main Street; Capt. Frederick Sherwood (played by Michael Lukas), who was a mariner for 50 years along with his two other identical triplet brothers, and Lucy Rowe (portrayed by Kimberly Wilson), who had five children and whose husband was the sexton at Greens Farms Church adjacent to the cemetery. 

“I think it’s so important to share history, especially with newcomers to town,” said Sara Krasne, who took the role of Sara Adams during the lantern tour. “It’s the everyday history of people — not the history you find in history books.”

Wilson agreed. “I believe that these stories need to be told,” she said. Her character from history, Lucy Rowe, a black woman, worried about her son sailing to southern ports to deliver goods. “I am worried about slave catchers down there,” she told the tour. Slavery was not abolished in Westport until 1848, she said. 

Wilson, a volunteer, is also an actress and vividly portrayed her role as the wife of the church sexton, and a member of the minority community in Westport. “Connecticut was not friendly to freed slaves,” she said. “It needs to be told.”

Some newcomers to Westport, Audrey and Thayer Fox, took the graveyard tour to learn more about the history of their new home. They moved to Westport from New York City three months ago and said the have found the community to be open and friendly. 

“We want to try to do as many things here as possible,” Audrey Thayer said. They were joined on the tour by several friends visiting from their home in the Catskills.

The lantern tour has been conducted for 14 years, with the event held virtually last year because of more restrictive pandemic health protocols.The museum’s tours take place in different cemeteries, and this year was held for the first time in the Greens Farms Church’s “Upper” cemetery, according to Ramin Ganeshram, executive director of the museum. 

Having museum volunteers pose as Westport residents from the past “creates a sense of connection,”  she said. “They embody the spirit of people who have passed away.”

The museum — recently reopened after closing during the pandemic — offered several “Spooktober” themed events during the month of October. 

The last one, the Westport Sanitarium Tour, was originally planned Saturday, Oct. 30, but has been postponed to Monday, Nov. 1, because of rainy weather. The 5:30 p.m. tour will be held at Winslow Park on the site of one of the two sanitariums that once existed in Westport.

The other sanitarium was located on Long Lots Road on the former Hall-Brooke property, now the site of a St. Vincent’s medical facility. Both sanitariums  provided “bucolic treatment,” including farming and crafts that were believed “to help cure disorders of the mind,” the museum’s director explained.

Tickets for the sanitarium tour cost $10 and are available via the museum’s website here. Registration is required.

For more information, contact the Westport Museum of History and Culture at 203-222-1424.