FEATURES Our Neighborhood: The Way It Was • Interesting People • Local History • Events Around Town And More 21 • TIMES, THURSDAY, MAY 29, 2014 Marking Their Place In History Bk. Cemetery Adds Headstones To Soldiers’ Graves In the left photo, Sean Walsh kneels near the newly placed headstone of his third great-grandfathers, Lt. John Charles Walsh, a Civil War veteran, at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn. The right photo shows members of the Black Veteran's Association, who came to the cemetery on Memorial Day weekend to honor Civil War soldiers from all-black unit, United States Colored Troops, 20th New York regiment, interred there. (photos: Caroline Roswell) E. Elmhurst Concert For Legendary Composer Ragtime tunes filled the air during the annual Scott Joplin memorial concert and barbecue at East Elmhurst’s St. Michael’s Cemetery last Saturday, May 24. The concert paid tribute to Joplin, the African-American composer who created 44 original ragtime pieces, who died in New York City in 1917 and was interred at St. Michael’s. The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra (shown above) performed a variety of Joplin’s melodies before an audience of hundreds. The cemetery and City Council Member Costa Constatntinides co-sponsored a school supply drive at the event, gathering notebooks, pens, pencils and other items for disadvantaged students. (photo: Chris Bishop) by Caroline Roswell The week leading into this Memorial Day weekend, the Cemetery of the Evergreens, which spans the border of Brooklyn and Queens, added three new military headstones to the hundreds of military headstones that have been put there since its opening in 1849 “It was a Memorial Day over a century in the making,” said Sean Walsh, who after salvaging a 165 year old family bible from the trash of his grandparent’s home in Florida, was able to trace his family back to two of his third great-grandfathers, both of whom fought in the Civil War, both of whom were buried in The Cemetery of the Evergreens, and both of whom had no gravestone or marker. They were just empty spaces among a sea of gravestones that, if it weren’t for cemetery worker and historian Danny Daddario, Walsh and his father might not have ever found. With the help of Anthony Salamone, himself a Vietnam Veteran, and who also works at “The Evergreens,” Walsh—who resides in Massachusetts—was able to have two military headstones erected for each of his third great grandfathers this past Friday, May 23, in time for Memorial Day weekend. A former U.S. Marine, awardwinning journalist, and high school English teacher, Walsh—after five years of research—found that in early 1861, Lt. John Charles Walsh enlisted in the Union Army in upstate Lockport, as a private for a two-year term, and subsequently received two battlefield promotions to second lieutenant and then to first lieutenant as an officer in the New York 28th Infantry, otherwise known then as the “Albany Rifles.” His second promotion came after capturing an entire company of Confederates at a battle at Columbia Furnace, Virginia. He also fought at the Battle of Antietam. Eventually, Walsh was discharged in March 1863 and he made his way to Manhattan. Sean Walsh could not help feeling proud as he shared, “And now, 133 years after he was buried in an unmarked grave in the Pleasant Hill section of The Evergreens Cemetery, Lt. John Charles Walsh (1834-1881) of the New York 28th Infantry, has finally been recognized for his service to his country.” But the story doesn’t end there. Daddario also helped Walsh find the grave of his other 3rd greatgrandfather, Charles Louis Haniquet (1845-1910) whose service was slightly more difficult to pinpoint for Walsh. “The Haniquet name—which is French—has been so butchered and misspelled over the last century and a half that finding even the simplest documents using the most available resources seemed impossible,” Walsh said. “But when I found it, it was a gold mine.” What Walsh discovered about Charles L. Haniquet was that he enlisted in the Union Army a few weeks before the infamous Draft Riots of 1863 that nearly decimated Manhattan, and that he was one of the soldiers who was thrust into action to fight against his own fellow New Yorkers. Private Haniquet eventually received a full pension for his service and worked for 20 years for the City of New York. “But when he died in 1910, and was buried in the Mount Hemron section of The Evergreens”, Walsh said, “again, no stone.” Anthony Salamone helped Sean Walsh change that, and twice no less. Last Saturday, Walsh gathered with his family members at each of his ancestors’ grave sites, with cousins he had only met that morning, who shared one of those great-greatgreat grandfathers with him, to finally see the military headstones his ancestors long went without. Amazingly enough, he found those long lost cousins on Facebook, and it was a family reunion more than a century in the making. But if that isn’t amazing enough, Walsh has found through searching his past that he is also a descendant of both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln—hard to believe, but doubters can read Walsh’s book on his family history, due out next year. With family genealogy becoming more and more popular, most likely due to the accessibility and availability of records on the internet, Daddario and Salamone, along with the other staff at “The Evergreens” -SEE HISTORY ON PG. 60-
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