During the tour, I talked about Green-Wood’s Civil War Project, now in its 10th year. Since its inception, hundreds of volunteers have identified 5,000 Civil War veterans at Green-Wood (as an example of the scope of this project, early on volunteers checked the names of 172,000 men who enlisted in New York City or Brooklyn against the cemetery’s online database for matches), have written biographies for each of them (and those biographies have been re-checked and supplemented by other volunteers expert in genealogical research), and have applied for more than 2,000 Veterans Administration gravestones for men in unmarked graves.  I showed them some of those gravestones, about to be installed. We visited New York City’s Civil War Soldiers Monument (restored in 2002) and the Civil War Soldiers’ Lot, where more than 100 Union men, many of whom died during the Civil War, were interred free of charge). We also paid our respects to Confederate General Nathaniel Harrison Harris, Union Major General Henry Halleck, Halleck’s chief of staff General George Washington Cullum, and General Schuyler Hamilton (a veteran of the Mexican War whose injury forced his early retirement from service in the Civil War).

Members of the General Meade Society at the graves of Generals Halleck and Cullum. Both were married at one time to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton's granddaughter); she is buried between them. When Halleck died, she married Halleck's chief of stafff, General Cullum.
(Click here to expand)

As we proceeded through the cemetery, I pointed out the grave of General James Allen Hardie. Here’s Hardie:

James Hardie, early in his military career.
(Click here to expand)

Here’s the entry on Hardie in our Ciivl War Project biographical dictionary:

HARDIE, JAMES ALLEN (1823-1876). Major general and brigadier general by brevet; colonel and inspector general, 5^th United States Artillery. Born in New York City, he attended the Western Collegiate Institute at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Poughkeepsie Collegiate School in New York. An appointee of President Martin Van Buren, Hardie graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1843, 11^th in his class, and entered the artillery. He taught geography, ethics, and history at West Point from 1844 to 1846, then commanded a New York Regiment of Volunteers in the Mexican War. After converting to Catholicism, he helped during that war to raise funds to build the first cathedral in San Francisco. Hardie served in garrison, frontier, and Indian service until the onset of the Civil War at which time he was adjutant general of the Department of Oregon. On May 14, 1861, he transferred to the 5^th United States Artillery and served as lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp on the staff of General McClellan accompanying him in the spring of 1862 to the Virginia peninsula as adjutant general of the Army of the Potomac and then to Maryland at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam). He subsequently joined the staff of General Burnside where he assisted at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was appointed brigadier general of volunteers on November 29, 1862, but his name was not submitted to the Senate for confirmation and that appointment was revoked on January 22, 1863. Appointed to major and assistant adjutant general in the Regular Army on February 19, 1863, he served as Assistant Secretary of the War Department and was appointed colonel and inspector general on March 24, 1864. It was Hardie who carried the secret orders at the end of June 1863, on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which replaced Joseph Hooker with George Meade as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. He then served as assistant secretary to Secretary of the Army Edwin M. Stanton, and as judge advocate of the Army of the Potomac. On March 13, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier general of the United States Army for distinguished and faithful service during the War and brevetted major general for faithful, meritorious, and distinguished service in the Inspector General’s Department. In 1866, he was the commissioner who audited military claims of Kansas, Montana, Dakota, California and Oregon. He then was at headquarters of the Army from August 15, 1867, through May 17, 1869, inspector-general of the Division of the Missouri until October 5, 1872, at headquarters of the Department of the Gulf until January 14, 1873, in Baltimore until February 1873, and then on inspection duty. Hardie died while on active duty in the Army on December 14, 1876, in Washington, D. C. George W. Cullum in his tome, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy, said of Hardie, “His thirty-three years in the Army were spent almost entirely in staff duties, although he saw some combat in the Union Army during the War between the States.” Originally interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery, he was reinterred at Green-Wood on March 17, 1877. Section 68, lot 2175.

Hardie, likely during the Civil War.
(Click here to expand)

Here’s what makes Hardie a fascinating footnote to history: as Confederate General Robert E. Lee pushed his Army of Northern Virginia up towards Pennsylvania, to bring the War to the North, President Abraham Lincoln decided he had had enough with General Joe Hooker, who commanded the Army of the Potomac. Hooker would be relieved of command; General George Meade, a native of Pennsylvania, would be placed in command, and would defend his home territory. Now, it’s not like Lincoln called a press conference to announce that Hooker was out and Meade was in. Nor did some Washington insider tweet that that was the case. Rather, Hardie, in his capacity as Assistant Secretary of the War Department, carried Lincoln’s secret order to Meade. Meade, of course, took command and made his stand at Gettysburg. During July 1, 2, and 3 of 1863, his army held its lines against repeated attacks; the Confederates, thwarted, retreated south, and General Meade was a hero. In a dark time for the Union, with Confederates marching and riding throug Pennsylvania, Meade rose to the challenge, and the Civil War turned.

Hardie, later in life.
(Click here to expand)

Here’s is the account, in Memoir of James Allen Hardie, Inspector-General of the United States Army, of Hardie’s role in the historic transfer, on the eve of battle, of the command of the Army of the Potomac:

In the latter part of June 1863, while the Army of the Potomac was endeavoring by forced marches to intercept General Lee in his advance into Pennsylvania and General Hooker was hoping by a successful issue to the impending battle to retrieve the reputation he had lost at Chancellorsville, the authorities at Washington determined to supersede him by General Meade, commander of one of his corps . . . . Secretary (of War Edwin) Stanton who seemed to have a special anxiety as to the manner in which these orders should be communicated and executed called Colonel Hardie into the room where he was closeted with President Lincoln and General Hallcck, bade him read carefully the orders and memorize their substance, and then directed him to leave at once by rail for Frederick City at which point the Federal army had arrived on its northward march and finding General Meade without communicating his mission to anybody accompany that officer to the headquarters of General Hooker and see the command transferred to him both formally and actually. . . . Should the railway be cut by the raiding Confederate cavalry, he was directed to avail himself of whatever other opportunity there was of getting to Frederick City, and if necessary to destroy the orders to prevent their coming into the hands of the enemy, he was still, if he could reach Frederick City, to communicate them verbally and insist upon their execution as both his person and his position were well known to the two officers concerned. Colonel Hardie reached Frederick City in safety, though not without several alarms, and found the town and the roads leading to the camps beyond full of carousing soldiery. Ascertaining that General Meade’s headquarters were several miles out of town, he obtained a conveyance with great difficulty, it being long past midnight, and after a slow and troublesome progress past the throng of soldiers returning to their camps, reached General Meade’s headquarters and penetrated to his tent without disclosing his name, rank or business. General Meade awakened from the brief rest he was taking after the labors of the day and night by Colonel Hardie’s colloquy with the sentinel in front of the tent and recognizing his visitor, expressed astonishment at seeing him there and, when informed that it was business from Washington that brought him, was so little prepared for the nature of that business, that his comments showed his fears that calumny and intrigue had been busy with him as with so many other officers of rank in that army. When he had read the order of the President and realized its import he soon made his visitor aware that nothing but his sense of implicit obedience to any lawful command would induce him to obey it, and he shrunk, as did Colonel Hardie himself, from the preordained manner of executing it by going secretly to the headquarters of General Hooker and demanding possession of the chief command instead of permitting General Hooker to be first made aware of the state of affairs so that he might send for his successor and invest him with it in his own time and manner. . . . (A)nd certainly some thoughtfulness was shown in sending Colonel Hardie to supervise so delicate a transaction, he being on terms of intimacy with both officers and known to them both as sensitive and thoughtful in his dealings with his fellow men to the last degree.

If you would like to support our Civil War Project, please do so by purchasing the latest edition of our Biographical Dictionary on CD (the third edition, which has 4,500 biographies and approximately 500 images). It is only $10 and all proceeds go to support publication of our next edition. Just click here to make your purchase. Thanks!

I knew that the Gibbons had been well-known abolitionists of 19th-century New York who are interred at Green-Wood. Here’s what I wrote about them in my book, Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery: New York’s Buried Treasure, in the passage that is devoted to New York City’s Civil War Riots of July, 1863:

The homes of abolitionists and Republicans became prime targets of the mobs. On July 14, at about noon, two men on horseback, shouting and waving swords, lead a mob against the home of abolitionists ABIGAIL HOPPER GIBBONS (1801-1893) and JAMES S. GIBBONS (1810-1892) (a cousin of Horace Greeley) near Eighth Avenue and 29th Street. The Gibbons’s two daughters fled to a neighbor’s house as men with pickaxes stormed in and destroyed what they could. Other rioters joined in, looting and smashing what remained, only to be driven off twice by soldiers and police, and to return a third time to set the house on fire. Neighbors, concerned that the fire might spread to their houses, extinguished the flames.

I don’t think I knew then that their home was also part of the Underground Railroad. But, since then, their home has been recognized as the only documented Manhattan station on the Underground Railroad. It was in the Gibbons’s home that fugitive slaves found a safe place to stay on their journey to freedom.

This is Abigail:

Abigail Hopper Gibbons, Quaker, abolitionist, prison reformer, and Civil War nurse, whose home was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Women's rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton said of her: "Though early married, and the mother of several children, her life has been one of constant activity and self-denial for the public good."
(Click here to expand)

And this is her husband, James Sloan Gibbons:

James Sloan Gibbons, Abigail's husband, was a committed abolitionist. He wrote the words to a Civil War song, "We Are Coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 More"--more troops in the fight to end slavery.
(Click here to expand)

Here’s what the block on 29th Street looked like circa 2009, when construction was still in progress–the home they lived in is the one that is shrouded.

29th Street--the Gibbons's House is under construction in this photograph, taken circa 2009. It was this construction that sparked efforts to research the historical importance of this building and to protect it.
(Click here to expand)

Here’s a YouTube video from 2008 about efforts to protect the Gibbons’s home.

And here is the Daily News’ video of the January unveiling of the historical marker describing the significance of what had been the Gibbons’s home.

For more on the Abigail and James, see my earlier blog posts on their fascinating lives, and the lives of those they touched, including two ex-slaves who are interred at Green-Wood in their lot.

Edward Watters, Historic Fund schedules in hand.
(Click here to expand)

He worked at his job early last week, as he had done for years, greeting visitors to Green-Wood, answering their questions, giving them a map or a schedule. Then he went home, had a heart attack, and died. He was sixty-five years old. He will be missed.

Edward Watters, on the job.
(Click here to expand)

I was interviewed last week by Mark Morales of the Daily News for an article about baseball at Green-Wood. Here’s the article he wrote:

The recent Daily News article on Green-Wood and baseball.
(Click here to expand)

And here’s the link to the article, as it appeared this past Sunday.

Last year, for the opening of the baseball season, I wrote a piece, “Opening Day: Are You Ready for Some Baseball?” on Green-Wood and baseball. In it, I discussed Henry Chadwick, dubbed “The Father of Baseball” by President Theodore Roosevelt for his invention of the baseball scoring system (6-4-3, for example) and his coining of many of the terms at the heart of the game: assist, base hit, base on balls, cut off, chin music, fungo, white wash, double play, error, goose egg, left on base, and even single. I also wrote about James Creighton (America’s first baseball hero, whose monument was visited by the Nationals of Washington and the Brooklyn Excelsiors in 1866, likely the first baseball pilgrimage ever), Charlie Ebbets (who built Ebbets Field in Brooklyn for his beloved Dodgers, and William DeWolf Hopper, who made a career out of reciting the poem he made famous, “Casey At The Bat.” You can find that blog post here.

If you would like to know more about the almost 200 baseball pioneers who repose at Green-Wood, buy Peter Nash’s fascinating book, “Baseball Legends of Green-Wood Cemetery,” here.

This past Saturday, Joe Edgette, who has been studying the Titanic and its passengers for many years, and is also expert on all things cemetery, led a tour of Green-Wood’s Titanic-related sites. Our trolley and caboose were full–this tour sold out weeks ago.

Green-Wood has both Titanic survivors and those who perished in the disaster. Little (Robert) Douglas Spedden, six years old, managed to survive with his parents and nurse, clinging to his beloved bear, “Polar,” a purchase from the toy store of all toy stores, F.A.O. Schwarz (who is himself interred at Green-Wood). Douglas’s mother, Margaretta Corning Spedden, who is also interred up on Battle Hill with him, wrote and illustrated a book about his beloved bear and presented it to Douglas as a gift on Christmas Day, 1913. It recently has been published by Leighton Coleman III, who found it in his family’s papers. Several months ago, Leighton came on one of my tours, showed me Douglas’s grave, and sent me a copy of the book. For Leighton’s introduction to the book click here. Douglas met a sad ending; in 1915, still but nine years old, he ran into the street after a tennis ball near his family’s Maine estate and was hit by a car. He died, the first fatality from an automobile accident in the history of that state.

Douglas Spedden, holding his beloved "Polar" bear.
(Click here to expand)

Joe Edgette telling the story of Douglas Spedden and his bear at the Corning Family Lot on Green-Wood's Battle Hill. Douglas's gravestone is to the right.
(Click here to expand)

We also visited the Harder Mausoleum. Sidney Whalen, whose mother was the sister of George Harder, a Titanic survivor, generously opened it up for all on the tour to visit.

George and Dorothy Harder, aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, console Clara Jennnings Hays, whose husband, president of the Grand Trunk Railway, was lost.
(Click here to expand)

Sidney also read from his uncle’s Senate testimony about what he had witnessed and told about the nightmares George had for the rest of his life as a result of what he had seen and done to survive.

Sidney Whelan, reading from the Senate testimony of his uncle, George Achilles Harder, about the Titanic disaster.
(Click here to expand)

Sidney Whelan inside the Harder Mausoleum, next to the marble carvings marking the places of interment of his uncle, George Harder, and George's wife Dorothy, both of whom survived the sinking of the Titanic.
(Click here to expand)

As I was preparing for this tour, I received an e-mail from Fold3, an online National Archives database that I subscribe to. It wrote about the Titanic and included links to World War II registration cards for four of the Titanic survivors. One of them was for George Harder; here’s his registration card, dated April 27, 1942 (just over 30 years after the Titanic’s sinking) on its back.

George Harder's registration card for World War II.
(Click here to expand)

Wyckoff Van Derhoef lived at 109 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights, just west of its intersection with Henry Street. He was the secretary of the Williamsburg City Fire Insurance Company. Vanderhoef was lost on the Titanic. But four days after its sinking, when his fate still was unclear, a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Times contacted the president of Williamsburg City, asking for comment; it was reported that the president was “still holding out hope that Mr. Von Derhoef (sic) is alive; that he may have been picked up by another steamer and that he may eventually turn up.” But that was not to be; Wyckoff Van Derhoef’s body was pulled from the sea and his remains were interred at Green-Wood on May 3, 18 days after he had died.

Wyckoff Van Derhoef's gravestone.
(Click here to expand)

Wyckoff Van Derhoef's body was the 245th body brought out of the icy waters by the crew of the ship Mackay-Bennett. Here is the information the crew recorded about him.
(Click here to expand)

We also visited the cenotaph (a cemetery monument for someone whose body is not present there) memorializing William Augustus Spencer, a wealthy New Yorker (part of the Spencer family that intermarried with the fabulously-wealthy Lorillards of tobacco fame and fortune) who died when the Titanic went down, “Where Manhood Perished Not.”

The cenotaph at Green-Wood to William Augustus Spencer, who, according to the inscription, "Bravely Met Death At Sea."
(Click here to expand)

Note that that last line on this stone, “Where Manhood Perished Not,” is in quotations. That is a reference to the poem of that title, written in 1912 by Harvey P. Thew, which reads:

Where cross the lines of forty north and fifty-fourteen west,

there rolls a wild and greedy sea with death upon its crest.

No stone or wreath from human hands will ever mark the spot.

Where fifteen hundred men went down, but Manhood perished not.

Old Ocean takes but little heed of human tears or woe.

No shafts adorn the ocean graves, nor weeping willows grow.

Nor is there need of marble slab to keep in mind the spot.

Where noble men went down to death, but manhood perished not!

Those men who looked on death and smiled, and trod the crumbling deck.

Have saved much more than precious lives from out that awful wreck.

Though countless joys and hopes and fears were shattered at a breath,

Tis something that the name of Man did not go down to death.

Tis not an easy thing to die, e’en in the open air.

Twelve hundred miles from home and friends in a shroud of black despair.

A wreath to crown the brow of man and hide a former blot

Will ever blossom o’er the waves where Manhood perished not.

Ben’s current book project (no title yet) is about William Niblo, who owned Niblo’s Garden, the entertainment hot spot of New York in the mid-19th century. Niblo is, of course, interred at Green-Wood. Here is Ben’s guest blog post on Niblo:

Summer is coming sooner than we expected this year and thus our thoughts turn to hot-weather activities and respites therefrom. Beach-going, bicycling, sailing on New York Harbor: all will be wonderful as the days wax hotter. But what to do for a respite when the sun beats down? Today we seek air-conditioned comfort, but in 1863 that option wasn’t available. Famed Green-Wood permanent resident William Niblo had a pleasant habit. What better place to rest in the shade but Green-Wood Cemetery’s leafy paths?

William Niblo.
(Click here to expand)

Down by the shores of Green-Wood’s Crescent Water stands a magnificent mausoleum, erected in 1852 by Niblo, the famed early and mid-19th century NYC tavern keep and theater entrepreneur, to house the remains of his wife Martha King Niblo, her parents, and his mother, among others.

William Niblo's hillside mausoleum at Green-Wood. This is one of the most spectacular spots for fall foliage at the cemetery. Niblo would picnic with his friends on the grass here. Crescent Water is directly in front; Niblo stocked it with goldfish to entertain his visitors.
(Click here to expand)

The interior of the Niblo Mausoleum.
(Click here to expand)

Martha had left William Niblo a widower in 1851, and he remained bereft for the remaining 27 years of his life. One part Toots Shor and one part Sol Hurok, Niblo led a storied career as proprietor of the Bank Coffee House in the 1820s where everyone who was anyone came to wine and dine from Niblo’s famous larder. In 1828 Niblo turned to larger game, acquiring control of a former circus grounds and equestrian facility out in “the country.” The easterly Broadway block front between Houston and Prince Streets was gradually turned into the pre-eminent genteel outdoor and indoor entertainment venue in the city, competing with other so-called pleasure gardens for the carriage trade.

Niblo's Garden was on the east side of Broadway, between Houston and Prince Streets.
(Click here to expand)

A stereoptic view, circa 1865, of the interior of the theatre at Niblo's Garden.
(Click here to expand)

So inconvenient was the destination that Niblo purchased six shining, made-to-order, horse-drawn omnibuses to ferry customers back and forth from his brother John’s hotel at Broadway and Cedar Streets. The enterprise was a tremendous success. Any performer who sought fame and fortune in New York mounted its stage, which lasted through three burn-downs and finally closed in 1894, some thirty-three years after Niblo retired from its management, though leaving his name on the marquee to the end.

Niblo was a devout Episcopalian, and during his long tenure at Calvary Episcopal Church near Gramercy Park, served as warden and vestryman for decades. His wife’s tragic death after a childless marriage only served to strengthen his bonds with Calvary, and seek solace in visiting his wife’s tomb (reportedly daily when he was in New York, and not traveling overseas). Niblo’s friends were invited to join him and picnic on the grounds of the mausoleum, where he ultimately was placed to rest.

One summer day in 1863, though, poor William was given a foretaste of the mausoleum experience, up close and personal. Take a gander at this article from the August 30, 1878 edition of the Batavia, New York, Daily Morning News, (reprinted from New York City’s weekly Sunday Mercury) that Green-Wood I recently stumbled upon in my research for my upcoming biography of Niblo. You’ll think twice about door stops the next time you visit inside a mausoleum…

News of one of William Niblo's extended visits to Green-Wood.
(Click here to expand)

Shady places abound at Green-Wood on hot summer days, so if you lack air-conditioning this coming summer and need relief, or simply want some outdoor air in a balmy place, come visit Green-Wood and meander up to Crescent Water. Bring a novel. Sit and relax. But if the door creaks open, think twice before entering. Know which way the wind blows, and try to take care.

Shimoda high schoolers paying their respects to Townsend Harris.
(Click here to expand)

So what is that all about? Why would anyone travel halfway around the world to New York City, with all of its attractions, and choose to spend time at Green-Wood, paying their respects to Townsend Harris? Well, it turns out, this is part of an annual pilgrimage by Shimoda’s residents. They just can’t get enough of Townsend Harris.

You may ask, “Who is this Townsend Harris?” And you would not be alone–he is a man lost in the fog of American history. He was a mover and shaker in New York City and the world. But, today, he is much better known in Shimoda than in Queens or New York City.

Though he had little formal education, Townsend Harris (1804-1878) was a well-educated man who rose to the presidency of the New York Board of Education and almost singlehandedly founded the first tuition-free college in America, what ultimately would be known as the College of the City of New York, despite the opposition of local colleges that charged tuition. He also was one of the founders of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere.

Townsend Harris, a great hero of Shimoda, Japan.
(Click here to expand)

And, in 1855, he was appointed America’s consul general to Japan, where he hoisted the flag of the first foreign consulate in Japan–in Shimoda–the next year. His influence in Japan was tremendous: he negotiated the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Japan in 1858, opening up that country to foreign residents and to world trade. Harris resigned due to ill-health in 1862 and returned to New York, spending his remaining years there supporting temperance and Christian missions. It has been said of Harris that he understood the Japanese better than any other foreigner has ever known them. Harris’s memorial at Green-Wood, which includes a Japanese cherry tree, a Japanese lamp, and his gravestone, was dedicated at Green-Wood in July of 1986 by Japanese organizations, individuals, and City College. And residents of Shimoda have been paying their respects to Townsend Harris at his final resting place in Green-Wood ever since.

Townsend Harris's gravestone at Green-Wood.
(Click here to expand)

For more about Townsend Harris, click here for a 2008 article in The New York Times about an earlier visit of Shimoda residents to pay their respects to him at Green-Wood.

Thanks to Ken Taylor for his photographs and his help with this.

The inscription on the front of the monument.
(Click here to expand)

In response to that earlier blog post, I recently received an e-mail from Donna Allendorf Wahlert. Donna was a college student at the time of the crash. Her friend, Theodora (“Dodie”) Tiska, was on United flight 826, and died when it crashed. Now, as Donna’s 50th college reunion approaches, here are her recollections:

The night before “Dodie” caught the disastrous flight, she came into my dorm room, had tea with me, gave me a photo of her and her cat, and we said good-bye. Little did I know that it would be our last. I think that Dodie had some sort of premonition. The night before her flight, she asked a campus priest to hear her confession….she who was bright, sweet, humble, gentle….and funny…and never said a negative word. She was loved by all and now will be remembered by all.

Dodie boarded in Chicago, leaving from Rosary College (now Dominican University) to go home for Christmas break. She was on the United flight 826, headed to New York. Not only was it the “deadliest U.S. commercial aviation disaster,” at that time, but it was the first time that a “black box” had been used to chart an airplane’s course. As it turned out, there was faulty equipment on the United plane, and it was 12 miles off its course. When United 826 collided with TWA266, they were one mile above the earth.

Theodora ("Dodie") Tiska, who died in the 1960 plane crash.
(Click here to expand)

Dodie would have graduated in 1962 and her picture was in that 1962 graduation yearbook as a special memoriam. . . . That picture of Dodie and her cat was quite recent then. She evidently gave that same picture to others because I was not there two years later when they published that yearbook. I had left Rosary College by then to get married. In fact, I left the college the the day after Dodie left for the Christmas break. I never returned; I did not get to grieve with my other classmates. It has always been an unfinished story for me.

 Maybe this explains why the Green-Wood story and memorial are so important to me.

This bronze, on the back of the monument, memorializes all of those on board the two planes, as well as those on the ground, who died as a result of the airplanes colliding.
(Click here to expand)

The inscription to Theodora, as it appears on the monument.
(Click here to expand)