24 JANUARY 31, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
The Civil War in Greater Ridgewood
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
Our Neighborhood has many
memorials dedicated to the local
soldiers who gave their lives
in defense of our country in the First
and Second World Wars. However,
nearly two centuries ago now, many
local residents in what would become
the Greater Ridgewood area fought for
the Union in the bloodiest confl ict in
American history.
Little has been documented about
local contributions to the Union’s
eff ort in the Civil War. In 1976, the
Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
did touch upon some local Civil War
history in its book, “Our Community:
Its History and People.” The book is out
of print now and hard to fi nd, but fortunately,
The Old Timer has a copy and
is happy to share some of its contents
with you from time to time.
So here’s an excerpt of what the
Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
wrote about The Civil War in Our
Neighborhood:
When the Civil War burst loose in 1861,
it’s not to be presumed that the North
was entirely in favor of war. Especially
during the early months of the war, there
were men in the north — including the
Queens community of Newtown, the
predecessor of the modern-day Greater
Ridgewood area — that were either sympathetic
to the Southern cause, or who
simply advocated non-involvement.
But as the Union casualties poured
in from the various fi elds of battle, and
as the reality of the grim struggle slowly
revealed itself, it became dangerous to
be anything but a staunch Union man.
In his “History of Queens County,”
published in 1882, W. Munsell wrote,
“A Union meeting was held at Newtown,
when a huge coffi n mounted on wheels
was trundled through the streets,
labeled ‘Newtown Secession died out
on Aug. 29, 1861,’ southern rebels and
northern traitors are all denounced.”
Hundreds of Newtown men then
joined various military units in the State
of New York, and hundreds of them were
either killed or wounded on almost all
Civil War battlefi elds. Since Ridgewood
was part of Newtown, we know that it
sacrifi ced its share of manhood toward
the saving of the Union. Its men were
draft ed into the various New York State
regiments. It might be interesting to
note that only one Queens area formed
its own distinct military group, that
marched as a unit on the fi elds of war,
the Flushing Battery.
The boys of Greater Ridgewood, who
went off into those far-off strange lands
called Texas and Pennsylvania to fi ght
for the government, were not “city-slickers,”
but mostly farm boys themselves.
Greater Ridgewood in 1861 was certainly
farmland, though perhaps crowded
farmland. There were some 14,000
people living in Newtown.
The names Cypress Hills and Cypress
Avenue appear oft en in relation to Ridgewood’s
Civil War history. It is mentioned
in past chronicles that East New York
(which lies south on the other side of
the Ridgewood hills), became a tent city,
where soldiers were trained before their
journey south. At the same time, Cypress
Hills, then full of dense forests, became
sort of a meeting ground, where sharptongued
orators tried to make an almost
evangelical crusade of the war, inducing
men to enlist into the Northern armies.
Kreuscher’s Hotel at Cypress and Myrtle
Avenues was already six years old
when the war began. This hotel was put
to use by the government to aff ord board
to Union offi cers, who were training for
army service.
In a letter dated Sept. 10, 1959, Fred C.
Kreuscher, who was born in this hotel
in 1883 and later became its manager,
mentioned that his grandfather Frederick
Stroebel was paid one dollar a day for
each of the men he gave bed and board.
William Denton, a Ridgewood
farmer long dead, with a family name
in the Newtown area that goes back
to 1704, once spoke of “wagonloads of
coffins containing soldiers who had
been wounded and sent north, and
who died in New York hospitals. They
were buried in the National Cemetery
at Cypress Hills, where they lie in peace
today.”
He was referring to a procession of
wagons that took place almost daily
up Cypress Avenue. Not far from where
offi cers and men trained for battle, some
were returned to be buried. ...
If one looks at the old gravestones in
some of our old Queens cemeteries, such
as the Lutheran Cemetery, one will fi nd
the resting places of many Civil War
veterans. A Ridgewood resident need
take but a short ride south over Cypress
Hills Street and he will fi nd, in this vast
complex of burial grounds, a National
Cemetery. In it are buried the dead of
many wars, including the War between
the States.
There aren’t any huge Civil War monuments
in Greater Ridgewood; none of
the great battles were fought here. But
the record is clean and clear: The boys of
old Newtown did go off to Gettysburg and
Petersburg, and they were wounded or
died there, aft er they had been trained
on Newtown fi elds and drilled in its
smoky halls. Some died later from their
wounds in Manhattan hospitals, and
were shipped in simple, wooden coffi ns
in horse-drawn wagons up Cypress
Avenue to the Union Cemetery.
Like William Denton said, “they lie in
peace today.”
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood:
The Way It Was” that you would like to
share with our readers, please write to
the Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-
15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send
an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com. Any print photographs mailed to
us will be carefully returned to you upon
request.
Wikimedia Commons/Kevin Fitzpatrick
Some of the gravestones of Union soldiers who fought and died during the Civil War and were interred at
Cypress Hills National Cemetery
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