When Theodore Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919 his body lay in state in the North Room at Sagamore Hill and was then transported a mile down the road to Youngs Cemetery for burial. Today, you can visit the gravesite as it is located approximately one and a half miles south of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. The cemetery is a quiet, serene place overlooking portions of Oyster Bay.
The Youngs family, whose homestead is across the road from the cemetery, were early settlers of the area. The family owned most of Cove Neck in the 18th and 19th centuries and had established their family burial ground as early as the 1660s. Attorney Thomas Youngs was a neighbor and private secretary to Governor Theodore Roosevelt in 1899. In 1901, Youngs chartered his family graveyard, now becoming a local cemetery, as a not-for-profit corporation to provide for its perpetual care.
At President Roosevelt's funeral, a teary- eyed friend and former political adversary, ex- president William Howard Taft was one of the last to leave the grave side. In later years, dignataries, like Chief Scoutmaster Dan Beard, the King of Belgium and the Duke of Windsor visited the grave to pay their respects. On his visit, the Duke recalled TR’s 1910 visit to Buckingham Palace when he, as a young boy, listened to Roosevelt’s stories about hunting lions in Africa.
When Edith died in 1948, she was buried alongside her husband in a private ceremony. In 1923, Emlen Roosevelt, a close cousin who lived next door to Sagamore Hill, purchased a small tract of land adjoining Youngs cemetery to protect it from inappropriate development. Part of that tract was added to the back of the cemetery and used as a burial place for members of the Roosevelt family.
Emlen presented the remainder of the property to the National Audubon Society as a wildlife sanctuary. It was a fitting and appropriate tribute since Theodore had told his cousin that this deep, forested cove had the greatest variety of birds around Oyster Bay. It was the first Audubon Songbird Sanctuary established in the United States.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service