Last week we featured two stories on Civil War Union soldiers, Underwood and Clark who died at the Smallpox Hospital days after being mustered into the army. They never saw a battlefield and died of Smallpox weeks after joining up. Today, our story is about Col. Ellsworth who removed a flag from a building in Alexandria, Virginia. He was shot for his effort and his assailant was bayoneted by a fellow soldier.
The metal coffin reached Jersey City by train at half past three o’clock on May 31, 1861. It was loaded into a hearse and onto a ferry, and when it arrived in Manhattan it was brought to a parlor inside Astor House—at the time New York’s most luxurious hotel, on Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Streets.
For several hours there, the coffin lay under a large draped American flag. Family, friends, and National Guardsmen mourned the man, whose “pallid features,” as the The Sun described them the next day, could be seen through a piece of oval glass. “Few would have recognized in the ghastly features the gallant commander once so full of life and intelligent,” the newspaper wrote.
At 10 pm, the coffin went back in the hearse for the short trip to City Hall, where flags stood at half-mast and black and white crepe hung over the entrance. “Here an immense crowd had assembled on the steps and in front of the building, awaiting the funeral cortege,” wrote The Sun. Politicians, such as mayor Fernando Wood, paid their respects. Soon the public was allowed to enter, and over the next few hours 10,000 New Yorkers passed by the coffin that contained Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, 24, the first Union officer to be killed in the Civil War.
“Remember Ellsworth” was a popular rallying cry among Union supporters during the War Between the States. Today, Col. Ellsworth, who commanded a funeral cortege similar to that of Abraham Lincoln’s four years later, has largely been forgotten. Who was he, and why did the death of this young lawyer from upstate command such an elaborate farewell in New York City?
Part of it had to do with his status as a dashing young law clerk and National Guard Cadet who took a job in the Springfield, Illinois office of future President Lincoln. “The young clerk and Lincoln became friends, and when the president-elect moved to Washington in 1861, Ellsworth accompanied him,” stated Smithsonian magazine.
Ellsworth also had a deep interest in military science. When President Lincoln put out the call for Union troops after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 launched the Civil War, he responded by “raising of the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry, which he dressed in distinctive Zouave-style uniforms, fashioned after those worn by French colonial troops,” according to the NPS.
The 11th New York Volunteers were also known as the First Fire Zouaves, since many members of this unit—with their distinctive flashy uniforms and billowy pants—were recruited from New York’s volunteer fire departments. In May 1861, Ellsworth returned to Washington with his Fire Zouaves. On May 24, the unit went to Alexandria, Virginia to remove a large Confederate flag that had been flying from the roof of a hotel called Marshall House, which could be seen from the White House roof 10 miles away. The next day, “Ellsworth succeeded in removing the flag, but as he descended the stairs from the building’s roof, the hotel’s owner, James W. Jackson, shot and killed Ellsworth with a single shotgun blast to the chest,” wrote the NPS.”
Jackson, a “zealous defender of slavery,” Smithsonian magazine stated, was then shot to death by one of the fire zouaves, Cpl. Francis Brownell.
The death of Col. Ellsworth so shook President Lincoln, he reportedly said, according to a PBS.org article on Ellsworth, ““My boy! My boy! Was it necessary this sacrifice should be made?” Before Col. Ellsworth’s body came New York’s City Hall, Lincoln had it laid in state at the White House.
Col. Ellsworth became something of a folk hero, his image and actions reproduced in lithographs and sheet music. His story stuck in New York City’s memory through the first half of the 20th century. In 1936, an Ellsworth memorial was dedicated in Greenwich Village: It’s the flagpole at Christopher Park, the triangle across from Sheridan Square. (Above, a marker on the flag pole.)
Photograph of Marshall House, Alexandria, VA. The view of Alexandria shows that the town was rather built up. The Marshall House is on the corner surrounded by many other buildings, such as the Dry Good Store, the Bookstore, and the “Great Western Clothing House”. There are a couple women standing outside the shops, which are surrounded by sidewalk.
A massive, iconic Confederate flag, torn down by a Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a soldier born in Saratoga County and widely remembered as the first Union officer killed in the Civil War, was on display at the New York State Museum.
Ellsworth is buried at Hudson View Cemetery Mechanicville, Saratoga County, New York, USA
THOM HEYER, ED LITCHER, ALEXIS VILLEFAE, LAURA HUSSEY, SUSAN RODETIS, JAY JACOBSON ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Thank you for the wonderful article on Wanda Gag. I loved Millions of Cats since I was a child & first heard it read on Capt. Kangaroo!
I guess that dates me now, doesn’t it? ;^)
I knew nothing about her or her other black & white prints. They’re so beautiful & uniquely her own style. Thanks again for a great article! Have a great weekend– Thom
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
First image: Billy Hathom/Wikipedia photo of a portrait; second image: whitehousehistory.org; third image: Currier & Ives lithograph/Wikipedia; fourth image: Musicology for Everyone; fifth image: Corbis via Smithsonian magazine; sixth image: The Historical Marker Database]
ephemeralnewyork | May 31, 2021 at 3:12 am | Tags: Elmer E. Ellsworth in New York City, Elmer Ellsworth Abe Lincoln, Elmer Ellsworth Civil War NYC, Elmer Ellsworth FIre Zouaves, Elmer Ellsworth Flag Pole NYC, Elmer Ellsworth Funeral City Hall NYC, First Union Soldier Die Civil War | Categories: Disasters and crimes, Lower Manhattan, War memorials, West Village | URL: https://wp.me/pec9m-8Rj
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Wanda Gag’s restored family home (now museum) in New Ulm, Minnesota
WEEKEND, JUNE 5-6, 2021
The 382nd Edition
WANDA GAG
ARTIST AND AUTHOR
WANDA GAG HOUSE & SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
Wanda Gag
Wanda Hazel Gág (1893-1946), author and illustrator of Millions of Cats, was the eldest of seven children in a talented family growing up in New Ulm, Minnesota. A distinguished printmaker, her rural landscapes and homey interior scenes demonstrate a compassion for the ordinary things in life. Her art has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad, bringing her awards and honors. Wanda Gág exhibits continue today.
Wanda Gág, Easter Morning, 1926, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.89
Wanda Gág, Two Doors–Interior, 1926, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1973.24.2
Wanda Gág, Spring (Spring in the Garden), 1927, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Olin Dows, 1983.90.41
Wanda Gág, The Forge, 1932, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1977.7.2
Wanda Gág, Grandma’s Parlor, 1930, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Frank McClure, 1979.98.90
Wanda Gag Wanda
Gag Photo of Wanda GagWanda Hazel Gag (1893-1946),
Author and illustrator of Millions of Cats, was the eldest of seven children in a talented family growing up in New Ulm, Minnesota. This community in the Minnesota River Valley, noted for its German heritage, is about 95 miles southwest of the Twin Cities.
Millions of Cats, considered a classic in children’s literature, is one of several children’s books by the famous artist and author. Among them are A B C Bunny, Gone Is Gone, and Tales from Grimm, which she translated from German and illustrated.
A distinguished printmaker, her rural landscapes and homey interior scenes demonstrate a compassion for the ordinary things in life. Her art has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad, bringing her awards and honors. Wanda Gág exhibits continue today.
Her childhood home is located three blocks west of New Ulm’s downtown shopping and business district. The house was purchased November 15, 1988 by the Wanda Gág House Association of New Ulm for preservation and restoration as an interpretive center. It had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Built in 1894 for the Gág family, the Queen Anne-style home has large windows filling the rooms with light. Unique features include two skylights and an attic artist’s studio. Wanda’s father is said to have painted a blue sky, clouds and cherubs on the dining room ceiling. The house is open for tours by appointment and on weekends during the summer.
Wanda’s parents, Anton and Lissi Gág, were of Bohemian descent, and the children grew up in an atmosphere of Old World customs, folklore and folk music at home and in the community. Anton was a photographer, an artist of regional renown, and a painter and decorator for homes, churches and buildings. Lissi assisted in his photography studio, posing subjects and retouching photographs.
Anton painted in a second-floor studio until his growing family needed the space for a bedroom. He moved his studio to the attic where a separate room served as a rainy day playhouse for Wanda, her five sisters and one brother, playing dress-up in costumes worn by Anton’s models and reading his German art magazines.
Drawing, painting, reading and music were commonplace in the Gág household. From the time when small fingers could hold a pencil, Wanda and her siblings were encouraged to draw. Kitchen pantry cupboard drawers overflowed with their efforts. The dining room was a family gathering place, and there Lissi rocked her babies. In the parlor were Anton’s guitar and piano.
Wanda was 15, and the youngest child just one year old, when Anton died. A family of modest means, the surviving Gágs were impoverished without his support, and Lissi’s health was failing. At times, Wanda attended high school half days in order to care for her mother and the younger children. To earn a small income, Wanda wrote stories and illustrated them for the Minneapolis Junior Journal and sold drawings to local residents. She won an art award at a young age and eventually received art school scholarships.
After graduating from New Ulm High School in 1912, she taught a term in a rural Springfield, Minnesota school before leaving New Ulm for art study at the St. Paul School of Art and then the Minneapolis School of Art. In 1917 she won a scholarship to the prestigious Art Students League in New York City.
The New Ulm home was sold in 1918, shortly after Lissi’s death, leaving Wanda as head of the orphaned family. Her siblings joined her in Minneapolis to work and finish high school. While studying art, Wanda worked as a commercial artist to support herself and her family. In 1931, with a desire to carry on with her own work, she moved to rural Milford, New Jersey, and in that setting created much of her notable artwork and children’s books.
It was her home until her death in 1946. Wanda was the wife of Earle Humphreys, who died in 1950. The couple had no children.
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag Millions of Cats Millions of Cats Book In 1928 Wanda Gag wrote and illustrated the book Millions of Cats, considered today a classic in children’s literature. The book has never been out of print and is the oldest American picture book still in print.
In Millions of Cats, Wanda initiated the double-page spread, designing two facing pages as one panoramic scene. She had a sense of movement from left to right in order to urge the reader on to the next page. Because of her dislike of machine print, she had her brother, Howard, hand-letter the text. It is an “enchanting tale”, written in folk-art style, with simple black and white illustrations, lyrical language, and a catchy refrain. The book won a Newbery Honor award, one of the few picture books to do so, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Learn more about Millions of Cats here.
CLICK THE LINK AND WATCH THE VIDEO OF MILLIONS OF CATS ON YOU TUBE
Copies are available at the RiHS Visitor Center Kiosk, $35- (members get 10% discount). Kiosk open 12 noon to 5 p.m. Thursday thru Sundays
HIGHBRIDGE, THE ORIGINAL PIPELINE BRINGING CROTON WATER TO NYC. M. FRANK, ROBIN LYNN, LAIRA HUSSEY GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff Roosevelt Island Historical Society
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
WANDA GAG HOUSE HISTORIC HOME AND MUSEUM
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We’re all familiar with at least one tunnel under our Island – our slightly falling down F train tunnel, formerly known as the 63rd St tunnel.
This tunnel is more than it appears. And there are other tunnels, too. So let’s escalator down and see what we can find. Several other tunnels run under our feet. It’s a wonder that buildings don’t shake given the amount of underground traffic.
A word before we descend. It would take a much finer mind to track the changes, re-routing, start-ups and halts of the New York subway system over the past century – even just the small section of it that crosses under our Island. So I have focused on tunnels, not on the system as a whole, or even the Queens segments. If you find errors, they are probably the fault of someone else.
60th Street Tunnel
This tunnel under Roosevelt Island is more than a century old. The 60th Street Tunnel carries the N,R and W trains under Roosevelt Island between Manhattan and Queens. It was part of the great expansion of the subway system in the early 20th century, building on contracts between the city and private companies. The original plan put the subways over the Queensboro Bridge, but investigation found that the bridge would be unable to handle the additional weight of the trains. So the tunnel was constructed under our Island just north of the bridge. It opened to revenue service on Sunday, August 1, 1920, at 2 a.m. along with the rest of the BMT Broadway Line. Regular service began the following day. The new tunnel allowed passengers to make an 18-mile trip from Coney Island, through Manhattan, to Queens for a 5 cent fare.
60th Street Tunnel entrance from rooftop, JetBlue HQ, 27-01 Queens Plaza, Street Pinterest
Perhaps of interest to aficionados: The 60th Street tunnel from Queens to Manhattan contains the steepest grade of any tunnel under the East River. The N/W platform at Queens Plaza is an elevated station. When a train leaves, it has to go from the height of the station down to the river bed level and then back up to the level of the Lexington Ave & 60th St station. It is not uncommon for trains to accelerate from 0 to 60mph down this slope. Don’t say I never come up with new intel. 53rd Street Tunnel
This one is almost as old. Construction began on the two tubes of the 53rd Street Tunnel under the East River in spring 1927, and were fully excavated between Queens and Manhattan in January 1929, with a ventilation shaft built on then Welfare Island. The Queens Boulevard Line was one of the original lines of the city-owned Independent Subway System (IND), planned to stretch between the IND Eighth Avenue Line in Manhattan and 178th Street and Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. The tunnel crosses the island just south of the Cornell campus. I believe (but am not certain) that the Strecker Memorial Laboratory is a power substation for this line.
A Forgotten Roosevelt Island Subway Entrance?
“No, the above image is not of a forgotten subway station. It is simply a picture of an emergency exit from the 53rd Street subway tunnel that is beneath Roosevelt Island.” http://rooseveltisland360.blogspot.com/2007/12/forgotten-roosevelt-island-subway.html
And a little extra: The 60th Street Tunnel Connection This is a short subway line connecting the BMT 60th Street Tunnel with the IND Queens Boulevard Line west of Queens Plaza. The 11th Street Connection name comes from the street above the split from the 60th Street Tunnel. The line has no stations, and carries R trains at all times but late nights. Now the one we know best, the 63rd Street Tunnel
The newest of the East River tunnels, and the newest rail river crossing in the New York metro area. In February 1963, the New York City Transit Authority proposed a two-track East River subway tunnel under 76th Street with unspecified connections to the rest of the transit network. The proposed site of the tunnel was switched to 59th Street and then shortly after, Mayor Wagner suggested that a tunnel around 61st Street “be built with all deliberate speed”. This was approved by the City Board of Estimates, but then the site was changed once again to 63rd Street because Rockefeller Institute people feared that heavy construction and later train movements so close to the Institute’s buildings might disturb delicate instruments and affect the accuracy of their research.
Construction began in 1969, and the tunnel was holed through beneath Roosevelt Island in 1972. The expectation of this connection helped make our Roosevelt Island project feasible, given the lack of other access to Manhattan. Completion of the tunnel and its connections was delayed by the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis – which led to the “short term fix”, our Aerial Tramway. The subway was finally opened in 1989 – and called the “tunnel to nowhere” because its Queens end did not connect to any other subway line until another short connector was finished in 2001.
Ventilation structure on Roosevelt Island
But there’s much more to this: East Side Access
East Side Access is a megaproject that connects the LIRR to Grand Central, giving Long Island commuters the option to travel directly to East Midtown, reducing congestion at Penn Station. The project is the first expansion of the LIRR in over a century and it is expected that over half of Penn Station’s peak traffic will be diverted to the new 8-track terminal under Grand Central.
How does this involve us? The LIRR tunnel is the bottom half of our 63rd Street tunnel. Same tunnel. The basic East Side Access plan dates to the 1950s, but nothing happened, except the construction of our 63rd St tunnel. Plans for the LIRR connection were revived in the late 1990s. The project received federal funding in 2006, and construction began the following year. The tunnels on the Manhattan side were dug from 2007 to 2011, and the connecting tunnels on the Queens side were completed in 2012.
Major construction is complete. The 15-year long, $11 billion terminal and concourse is seven stories underground, and will allow Long Island Rail Road trains to pull into Grand Central Terminal and shave up to 40 minutes off commutes into Manhattan. Crews are now doing the finishing touches on the station, and Governor Cuomo promised it will open to the public sometime next year, carrying Long Islanders under our Island.
Inside the East Side Access’s eastern cavern JAKE DOBKIN / GOTHAMIST
Water Tunnel No. 3
New and Old. Inside new Shaft 13B of City Tunnel No. 3, 2013 TOD SEELIE FOR GOTHAMIST Inside the old Croton Aqueduct, July 31st, 2017 NATHAN KENSINGER FOR GOTHAMIST
But still more. The biggest, deepest and most expensive tunnel under the Island doesn’t carry subways. Rather, water.
New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 is the largest capital construction project in New York City history, conveying water from the Croton Reservoir into Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. It’s more than 60 miles long, travels 500 feet below street level in sections, and costs over $6 billion. It serves as a backup to Water Tunnel No. 1, completed in 1917, and Water Tunnel No. 2, completed in 1936. Roosevelt Island is the key point where the eastward spur of the tunnel coming from Manhattan branches off to Queens. The Manhattan section is complete, but the spur eastward depends on finishing three shafts built to hold chambers with valves and flowmeters to direct, control and measure the flow of water in sections of the tunnel. Shaft 15B, under Roosevelt Island, between Jack McManus Field and The Octagon, is the last before water can flow into Astoria and beyond.
Wonderful mid-century modern painting signed H. Watkins at the reception desk at Graduate Hotel.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Neil Hamamoto — the founder of the arts nonprofit Worthless Studios — often drives his pickup around the city looking for discarded materials to use in his practice. Last summer, all the plywood that was boarding up Soho storefronts and the scraps left on the curb grabbed his attention. “It was dollar signs in my eyes,” Hamamoto says, pointing out that the cost of plywood has tripled since last year. “To see major stores, without blinking, purchase tons and tons of material just made me say wow. Artists don’t have that luxury.” It got him thinking: Eventually, all the plywood would have to come down, and it could have a second life as an artistic medium.
So last July, Worthless Studios posted hundreds of flyers in lower Manhattan neighborhoods that had lots of boarded-up storefronts; they asked businesses to call when they were ready to take down the wood and offered to pick it up. It was the start of the Plywood Protection Project, which invited five artists to make public art installations across the city with the donated and discarded boards.
Now, nearly a year after Hamamoto came up with the idea for the project, the sculptures are installed in five city parks, one in each borough. The artists — Behin Ha Design Studio, Tanda Francis, Tony DiBernardo, KaNSiteCurators and Caroline Mardok, and Michael Zelehoski — transformed the materials almost beyond recognition, but the themes of each piece reference the summer of reckoning and the protests that took over the city’s streets.
“The idea of recontextualizing the wood and installing it a year later is to try and sort of transport people to that time to think about the feelings they were feeling — if it was fear, sadness, anger, whatever it was — and how we can reevaluate those feelings in a different time,” Hamamoto says.
The boarded-up storefronts are mostly gone, and Soho is no longer a ghost town. But the social and economic dynamics that led to the stores putting up the plywood in the first place remain: Corporations still have lots of money to burn, policing is unchanged, and inequality is worsening. “I feel more joy as I walk around the city these days with things reopening. It feels like normal New York again,” Hamamoto says. “But on the other hand, I think metaphorically the [plywood] barrier gets taken down and the news dies down, and maybe people forget that there are some very large issues that continue to exist in our country.”
‘Be Heard,’ by Behin Ha Design Studio, in Thomas Paine Park, Manhattan
Photo: worthless studios/Brett Beyer
From the beginning of the project, Worthless knew the artists would want to choose specific plywood boards, so the studio meticulously catalogued each one. Behin Ha chose pieces with graffiti, artwork, and posters on them and collaged them into an octagonal cone that looks like a megaphone. “It’s a physical object to help amplify your voice and be heard, but the shape allows you to put your ear up to it and actually helps to listen as well,” Hamamoto says.
‘In Honor of Black Lives Matter,’ by KaNSiteCurators and Caroline Mardok, in Poe Park, the Bronx
Photo: worthless studios/Brett Beyer
This installation of life-size wood cutouts of protesters reconstructs the experience of last summer’s uprisings. It was developed with an art class for teens that Worthless Studios and KaNSiteCurators led at the Bronx River Arts Center. Caroline Mardok’s original proposal involved pasting photographs from her documentary project NY Strong onto the figures, but for the final installation, students in the class made their own cutouts and layered them with their own photographs and images of themselves.
‘Miguelito,’ by Michael Zelehoski, in McCarren Park, Brooklyn
Photo: worthless studios/Brett Beyer
In Ancient Egypt, obelisks were usually built in pairs, but in American monuments, they often exist on their own as symbols of power. Michael Zelehoski’s sculpture transforms them into symbols of protest by using their toppled forms to make a caltrop, a spike that protesters use to deter police cars. “Michael’s work is about reuniting the two obelisks together and sort of appropriating the appropriation,” Hamamoto says.
Set designer Tony DiBernardo’s installation references the loss that Broadway performers experienced during the shutdown. “Tell a writer to create without a page. Try and make a movie without a camera. Taking away our stages is taking away our art,” he says in his artist’s statement. His sculpture, shaped like a proscenium, is meant to be used as an actual stage for performers who need space. DiBernardo built spiraling, helix-shaped columns to flank the stage and used the original bright colors of the plywood boards, which had graffiti on them, as ornamentation.
‘RockIt Black,’ by Tanda Francis, in Queensbridge Park, Queens
Photo: worthless studios/Brett Beyer
Brooklyn-based sculptor Tanda Francis makes monumental African heads that have been installed in Fort Greene Park, Riverside Park, and Socrates Sculpture Park. Her contribution to the Plywood Protection Project references Oshun, a Yoruba river god. The sculpture, which uses plywood for the armature and body and has a sculpted face at the center, symbolizes healing energy. “She is a cleansing spirit for this world on fire,” Francis says in her artist’s statement.
LET’S DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS EYESORE
This lopsided kiosk is an affront to the eye and it is on the West Promenade just north of the new Graduate Hotel and Cornell Tech Campus.
It seems to be well stuck in the ground, so please come up with a design to enhance it and make it an attraction.
The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch is a triumphal arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York City, just north of Prospect Park. Built from 1889 to 1892, the arch is dedicated “To the Defenders of the Union, 1861–1865” HARA REISER THOM HEYER MITCH HAMMER ARON EISENPREISS LAURA HUSSEY ED LITCHER JAY JACOBSON BILL SCHMOLER GLORIA HERMAN SUSAN RODETIS ANDY SPARBERG NINA LUBLIN ALL GOT IT RIGHT!!!!
Sources
CURBED NEW YORK (C)
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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THEY SIGNED UP TO SERVE AND DIED TOGETHER WEEKS LATER ON BLACKWELL”S ISLAND
THE STORY CONTINUES
After speaking to Richard Robbin, who had informed me of the Blackwell’s Island death and burial of Horace Wood, he told met that there were other deaths and burials listed on Blackwell’s Island.
We found them in the listing from the town of Dryden in Tompklins County. (17 miles from Ithaca, the home of Cornell)
Two young me signed up and joined the 32nd Infantry.
The town of Dryden
JAMES S. UNDERWOOD (STANLEY UNDERWOOD)
LISTING IN THE 32nd INFANTRY
There are no census records for Underwood. He lived in Dryden, Tompkins County.
ALONZO CLARK
The information derived from this document and from Robbins was that From the New York State 1855 US Census we learned that Alonzo was the youngest of two children living in Greenbush, Rensselaer County. We know little of these two young men who enlisted together and never left New York before being struck down by Smallpox and dying on Blackwells Island. They are just two of thousands who were treated, survived or perished here.
Had they survived their 32nd Regiment saw action at Fairfax County, Va., Blackburn Ford, Va., Bull Run, Va., Bailey;s Cross Roads, Va., and many other sites including Antietam and Fredericksburg in 1862.
Reading the Listing of Deaths brings the horrors of war front and center. It is sobering to read of the horrors that were rendered on these young souls.
BLUE DRAGON SCULPTURE BY GUSTAV KREIST SOUTHPOINT PARK ENTRY
VICKI FEINMEL, ALEXIS VILLEFANE, GLORIA HERMAN, VERN HARWOOD & CLARA BELLA GOT IT RIGHT!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
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Today, Memorial Day I received an interesting series of e-mails:
I am looking for information on the Smallpox Hospital, and the possibility of graves around that ruin.
My 3rd Great Grandfather died in the Smallpox Hospital in 1864, and reportedly was also buried there.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Richard Robbins
I responded that I knew of no burials on Blackwell’s Island/
This was the response I received:
I do have a record of where he was buried, states Blackwell Island as his burial spot. At the time that this happened, 1864, I would imagine that the disposal method was a mass grave. I would pick the Four Freedoms park as an option for burial, but I don’t think bodies would be removed to the usual spot on Hart Island at that time.
Richard Robbins sent me to the link for: “DEATHS OF OFFICERS AND ENLISTED MEN which have occurred while in the military or naval service of the United States or from wounds or disease acquired in said service since April 1, 1861, reported by the families to which the deceased belonged when at home”
The Place of Death is listed as Blackwell’s Island and the Place of Burial is also listed as Blackwell’s Island
14th Regiment Artillery Heavy, New York Volunteers 1863 1865
WHO WAS HORACE WOOD?
The information derived from this document and from Robbins was that Horace Wood was born about 1821 in Antwerp, Jefferson County , New York. His muster date was December 21, 1863 His rank was Private His regiment was the 14th Heavy Artillery He died of Typhoid at the Smallpox Hospital, Blackwell’s Island on March 20, 1864. Wood was housed at Park Barracks in NY proper before being sick. He AND his son both tried to join, son was too young, being 16. They were drawn in by the large bounties offered for volunteers. After he died, the farm was paid for, undoubtedly by the bounty. His widow remarried a few years later.
The NYS Battle Flag Collection includes two camp colors attributed to the 14th Regiment Artillery. The wool camp colors are printed in the US national pattern (34 stars in 7-7-6-7-7 pattern) as prescribed in General Order No. 4, Headquarters of the U.S. Army, dated 18 January 1862.
We do not know of any burials on Blackwell’s Island and that there was limited space for any interments. We note that the information provided on the DEATHS OF OFFICER AND ENLISTED MEN was provided by the families. Many errors could have occurred and further research would have to take place to find if another burial site is available.
We honor Pvt. Horace Wood and state that the Smallpox Hospital is a Memorial to him.
NEW ELEVATORS UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT MANHATTAN TRAM STATION THOM HEYER, ALEXIS VILLFANE, NINA LUBLIN GOT A LIFT FROM THE SITE THAT WE WILL “SOON” HAVE BETTER RIDES TO THE TRAM.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
