2021 Memorial Day Commemoration at St. Paul's

Visitors should use this map to help locate the graves of the 11 soldiers and a sailor featured in this self guided tour of the historic cemetery at St. Paul's on Memorial Day, Monday, May 31, 2021.  It was drawn by John R. Wright

National Park Service

St. Paul’s ChurchNational Historic Site
897 S. Columbus Avenue
Mt. Vernon, New York 10550 914-667-4116 www.nps.gov/sapa

Memorial Day, Monday, May 31, 2021

This self-guided tour explores the lives and military service of eleven veterans buried in the historic cemetery at St. Paul’s, including several who died in service. Veterans graves marked by tall American flags. See map on reverse side. Additional information and video programs about these soldiers are available on the site’s Facebook page and website. This guide is also available through the St. Paul’s website: https://www.nps.gov/sapa/planyourvisit/guidedtours.htm

1. Joseph Shardlow died of disease, apparently dysentery, at a Union Army hospital in Fortress Monroe in Virginia, on Sept. 13, 1862. A farmer from upstate Livingston County, Shardlow enlisted as a private on May 21, 1861, Company E. 33^rd New York Volunteer Infantry. The unit fought in the Peninsula Campaign, and Shardlow had been promoted to corporal by the time of his illness. Upon the return of his remains to New York City, Shardlow was buried on a plot at St. Paul’s with other family members who lived in lower New York.
2. Alfred Thomson served in the Merchant Marine in World War II. He entered an officer training program for the merchant marine, graduating in 1943, and serving through the war’s final two years. Merchant marine officers provided vital services in the American effort. They commanded ships that transported the material resources of war through hostile combat zones in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean theaters of operation. Thomson remained in the merchant service following American victory, achieving the rank of Lt. Commander. Stricken with pneumonia on a voyage, he died in Sweden in 1947.
3. Peter Bertine, who was born less than a mile from the church, served with the 11^th New York Cavalry, rising to the rank of quartermaster sergeant. Beginning in February 1863, he was confined to Camp Relief, a soliders’ hospital in Washington, where he died on September 29, 1863. Cause of death was listed as “delirium tremens,” or seizure caused by withdrawal from alchoholism, even though his family insisted the sergeant died of typhoid. This was an important distinction since the Army’s official casue of death meant that Sarah Bertine, his wife, was denied a widow’s pension.
4. Theodosius Fowler, who was born in 1753 into one of the town’s leading families, compiled an extensive combat record in the Revolutionary War, serving throughout the conflict, in several of the major battles, and rising to the rank of captain. He fought with several New York regiments of the Continental Army. After the war, Fowler enjoyed a successful enterprise as a merchant and was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the officers’ veterans’ organization, living until 1841, age 89.

5. Stephen Hunt served in the Civil War with the 8^th New York Heavy Artillery, experiencing extensive combat in the Overland Campaign in Virginia in 1864. A carpenter by trade, Hunt was a devoted, life-long congregant and eventually lay leader of the parish at St. Paul’s. He was active in local Republican Party politics in the late 19^th century, received a veterans’ pension, and lived until age 81 in 1910.

6. Michael McLaughlin served as an assistant engineer in the Union navy during the Civil War. Born in Ireland, McLaughlin reached the United States in the mid 1850s, settling in Boston. He volunteered for the Union Navy in 1862 and helped maintain the steam engines on the USS Genesee. That ship participated in the blockade of the Confederacy along the eastern seaboard and in the pivotal siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in 1863. After Union victory, McLaughlin settled in New York, found employment with the Ward steam ship line, and raised a large family with his wife Pauline in Brooklyn.

7. Samuel Pell was an officer in the Continental Army, serving throughout the Revolutionary War. He enlisted as a second lieutenant in the American Army for the invasion of Canada in 1775. The young officer remained in the service for the next eight years, surviving the Valley Forge winter of 1778, and fighting in most of the major engagement in the Northern part of the Revolutionary War. This included a note in his records about distinguished service in the American victory at Saratoga in October 1777, and at the climactic Battle of Yorktown in October 1781. His grave is marked by an impressive sandstone marker, featuring a Trophy of Arms at the top.

8. Ramsey Flynn was a Captain in the 79^th Division in the American Expeditionary Force, serving in France in 1918, during World War I. He suffered from, but survived, a gas attack in early November, a week before the Armistice, and returned home. After the war, Ramsey married, and he and his wife Mary raised a son. He lived briefly in Louisiana, and then returned to Mt. Vernon, working in the transportation sector, and serving as a Deputy Sherriff of Westchester County, dying in 1947 from a gas leak at his home.

9. George Carter was born into slavery in Virginia in 1841. He escaped to freedom early in the Civil War, and in 1863 joined the 10^th United States Colored troops, (USCT), regiments comprised of black soldiers and white officers. His 10^th USCT served in Virginia in 1864-5 and was among the first units to enter Richmond upon the fall of the Confederate capital in April 1865. With his wife Rosa and their children, he moved north after the war, and settled in Mt. Vernon about 1880, finding employment as a gardener and janitor.

10. Edward Patterson served in the Revenue Cutter Service, forerunner of the Coast Guard, during the Mexican War of the 1840s. Born in Ireland, he was living in South Carolina when he enrolled for duty on the USS Martin Van Buren in 1846. The schooner participated in blockade duty and supported the American invasion at Vera Cruz in 1847. Later in the 19^th century, Patterson moved to Pelham, New York, where he was active in civic affairs and worked as a carpenter.

11. Morris Link, a Corporal in the famed 369^th Infantry, the largely black Harlem Hell-Fighters, was killed in action July 15, 1918, at the Second Battle of the Marne, in France, during World War I. Link was born in North Carolina. Married to a woman named Lizzie, with no children, living in Mt. Vernon, Link was employed as a teamster at the time of his enlistment. The 369^th endured considerable prejudice in recruitment, training and especially in the war theater in France, where American military authorities refused to let them into combat commands, preferring to use them as service troops. Instead, the Hell-Fighters fought with the French Army, compiling an admirable combat record. Corporal Link was killed in a Germany artillery assault, and awarded the Croix de Guerre, a French medal. Originally buried in a French military cemetery, Link’s remains, upon his widow’s request, were returned to America in 1921, followed by interment at St. Paul’s with full military honors.