TOOKER DAY

Eastern Long Island Indian artifacts that have not been seen here since 1898, when the historian and ethnographer William W. Tooker sold his collection of many years to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, will return to Sag Harbor on Saturday.

In a one-of-a-kind event to benefit the restoration of the Old Burying Ground at the Sag Harbor Presbyterian Church, selected objects from the Tooker collection will be put on public view from 3 to 5 p.m., in the library of the very house where Mr. Tooker spent much of his later life.

The owners of the house, at 67 Hampton Street (Route 114), are Robert and Joy Lewis.

A reception and talk by John Strong, a professor of history at Southampton College who has written extensively on the Algonquian peoples of Long Island, will follow, at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum.

Among other things, W.W. Tooker made the first inventory of graves at the Old Burying Ground, which will be open to visitors throughout the afternoon, and discovered the foundations of the ancient Algonquian village of Wegwagonock, not far from today's Bay Street on the site of the Sag Harbor American Legion. He is perhaps best known, however, for his 1911 "Indian Place-Names on Long Island," now considered a classic (and a mainstay of this page's "What's In a Name?" feature).

Tickets for Tooker Day are $25, $10 for children under 16, which will admit holders to both the exhibit and the reception. They will be on sale Saturday at the door of the house and the museum.