Last updated: November 10, 2020
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Veterans Day Recognition, 2020, St. Paul's Church National Historic Site
St. Paul’s Church National Historic Site
897 S. Columbus Avenue Mt. Vernon, New York 10550
914-667-4116; www.nps.gov/sapa
Veterans Day, November 11, 2020
Self-guided tour exploring the lives and service of nine of the veterans buried in the historic cemetery at St. Paul’s. Note: Veterans graves on this self-guided tour are marked by tall American flags. Tour map, drawn by John R. Wright, is included on this web page.
1. Alfred Thomson served in the Merchant Marine in World War II. Born in Canada, he emigrated to America in 1919, and settled in New York, working in a professional position for Con Edison and as an independent insurance broker. Thomson 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, and suffered high casualty rates. 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.
2. 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, and gaining employment on the docks. He volunteered for the Navy in 1862 and helped maintain the steam engines on the USS Genesee. That ship participated in the blockade of the Confederacy on the North Atlantic and in the pivotal siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River in 1863. After Union victory, McLaughlin settled in New York. He married Pauline Tigh, whose family had long ties to the St. Paul’s parish, although the marriage represented a rare inter-religious union for the 19th century -- Michael was Catholic and Pauline was baptized in the Protestant Episcopal faith. They raised a large family in Brooklyn. The Navy veteran lived until age 75, followed by burial here.
3. Samuel Pell was an officer in the Continental Army, serving throughout the Revolutionary War. Son of the prominent Pell family of Pelham, New York, he enlisted as an Ensign in the American Army for the invasion of Canada in 1775. The young officer from Westchester County remained in the service for the next eight years, surviving the crucible of the infamous 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; he was also engaged at the climactic Battle of Yorktown in October 1781. Following American victory, Pell was enrolled in the Society of the Cincinnatus, the prestigious but controversial veterans’ association of officers of the Continental Army. A fatal accident while riding a horse on a winter day in 1786 led by Pell’s untimely death at age 32. He never married.
4. Edward Patterson, served as a carpenter in the Revenue Cutter Service, forerunner to the Coast Guard, during the Mexican American War of the 1840s. Born in Ireland, he was working in South Carolina, on the docks, in the 1840s, when he entered the service of the revenue cutters, serving on the schooner, USS Van Buren, The ship participated in blockade duty in the Gulf of Mexico and provided support of the invasion of Vera Cruz in 1847. Patterson moved to the Westchester County area later in the 19th century. He worked for many years as a successful carpenter, probably a skill he learned in the service. The former revenue cutter seaman also held several appointive and elective positions in local government and civic associations in Pelham, New York.
5. James Hyde, served in two Zouave regiments, with the Union Army, in the Civil War. These were colorful and charismatic regiments, modeled on the legendary Zouaves of North Africa, with fez turbans, baggy red pants and open blue shirts. Following an urgent recruitment drive for the Union Army, Hyde enrolled in the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry in 1862 and was engaged at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Following the expiration of his original regiment, Hyde transferred to the 146th New York Infantry, with other veterans of the 5th, which also adopted Zouave uniform, and was engaged at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1863. He served for the duration of the Civil War, including a few brief assignments with the vast bureaucracy of the Commissary Department, perhaps because of his pre-war employment as a store clerk. Hyde worked on construction projects, including some of the original highways of the metropolitan area, and lived in the lower Westchester County area into the 1920s.
6. Ralph Panno, who was born in Mt. Vernon, served in the United States Navy, in the Pacific theater, during the final year of World War II. Tragically parentless before his first birthday because of the deaths by disease of his father and mother, he was raised by his grandparents, and resided for a time in a local orphanage. Following the death of an older brother in service, Ralph enlisted in the Navy, at age 18, in 1944. The hazel eyed Mt. Vernon native served on mine sweepers, including the USS Kingfisher, in the Pacific, with a Navy rating of Fireman 2nd class, carrying below-deck responsibilities for the ship’s electrical circuits. He gained post-war employment as an engineer for many years, married and raised a large family, passing away in Texas this year at age 93. His interment a few months ago marked the most recent burial at St. Paul’s.
7. Jacob Ham, saw extensive combat in his three years in the Civil War, serving with the Union Army’s 128th New York Volunteer Infantry, recruited from the upper Hudson Valley in New York. The regiment was nicknamed “Old Steady,” because of its extensive combat record battling Confederates in Louisiana, Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. Enlisting at the rural town of Acram, Columbia County, Ham married just before his departure and his wife Melinda delivered their first child while the private was at the front. The 128th experienced particularly difficult combat in Louisiana for a year and half, slugging it out in swamps and riverbeds in two of the tougher engagements of the war. Following the war Jacob worked as a blacksmith, and with Melinda raised their family of nine children. He was living with a granddaughter and her husband in Mt, Vernon when he passed away in 1925, at age 85.
8. Morris Link, a Corporal in the famed 369th Infantry, the all-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, with no children, living in Mt. Vernon at the time of his enlistment. The 369th 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 credible 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 were returned to America in 1921, followed by interment with full military honors at St. Paul’s.
9. Michael Fragasso served as a private with the 41st Infantry Regiment, U.S. Volunteers, of the United States Army. This included service during what is often called the Philippine insurrection, which followed American victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898. Born in Italy in 1880, Fragasso reached America as part of the great wave of Italian immigration in the early 20th century. At a time of considerable prejudice against newcomers from southern and eastern Europe, Fragasso occasionally used the last name Formes, probably to disguise his ethnic identity. He was employed as a stone mason and died of tuberculosis in Mt. Vernon at age 38 in 1919.