When you step into the Amawalk Friends Meeting House on Quaker Church Road, you can smell the history. Sit down on one of its wooden pews, its cushions filled with horsehair, and in the silence, you can feel it.
History is all around Yorktown. It lives in the town’s historic buildings, street names, stories passed down through generations and places that have stood for centuries. Yorktown has a history of its own, but it is also woven into the larger story of the nation.
Later this month, visitors will have a chance to step into that history themselves.
The Amawalk Friends Meeting House will host a Living History Experience Sept. 26-27, with presentations at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. and a trivia challenge on Colonial Westchester and the Revolutionary War at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m.
At the center of the program is Sarah Underhill, a Yorktown mother of 11 who served breakfast to a British spy, rode horseback to recover stolen cattle and kept her family together through the chaos of war.
Renee Fogarty, an attendee of the Meeting House and self-described amateur historian, became fascinated by Underhill. She found records detailing her life, including the theft of cattle from her family during the Revolutionary War. Underhill traveled to negotiate for their return while remaining committed to her Quaker beliefs.
“I just want to get her story out,” Fogarty said, adding that she sees the portrayal as Underhill’s “coming-out party.”
The program will also examine the Quakers’ role before and during the Revolution, Westchester’s time as the “neutral ground” between British and American forces and the hardship faced by residents.
The third structure, completed in 1831, is where Quakers have gathered since the 1760s. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with adjoining properties.
“History, heroes and bravery is not just for back then, it’s for now,” Fogarty said. “We are living history. History is now.”
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