Prospect Cemetery to honor Civil War soldiers buried in Brackenridge

Harrison resident Eric Schmitt was well aware of his family’s unique lineage growing up.

The 55-year-old is a descendent of two Civil War soldiers: one who fought for the Union and its desire to abolish slavery and one who stood with the Confederate Army and its hope to expand slavery into the west.

Both of the men, his great-great-grandfathers, are buried in Prospect Cemetery in Brackenridge.

“It was a pretty important part of our family heritage growing up,” Schmitt said. “We heard a lot about it. We’d go up to the cemetery every Memorial Day and clean the graves.”

His ancestors will be among those honored during a program at 7 p.m. July 24 at the cemetery along 10th Avenue.

Hosted by Tarentum historian Cindy Homburg, the free event marks the 160th anniversary of the end of the war, the bloodiest of American conflicts.

The Civil War, from 1861-1865, recorded at least 620,000 deaths, according to the nonprofit American Battlefield Trust. The numbers of Civil War dead were not equaled by the combined total of other American conflicts until Vietnam, according the group’s website.

Homburg, director of Prospect Cemetery, said it’s important to remember the local soldiers who fought in the war.

“I’m hoping people attend to remember how the states fought against each other,” she said. “I hope people come to realize what it was like. Almost every local man went and fought. They didn’t get drafted, they just signed up when the war started.”

In total, 269 Civil War soldiers are buried at the 13-acre Prospect Cemetery.

The event will feature a 21-gun salute followed by members of the Brackenridge American Legion reading names of the deceased veterans. Commander Frank Svitek will ring a bell after each group of names.

Among the soldiers buried at Prospect is a man who marched in the funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln, Homburg said. Another one was shot and killed the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, a three-day conflict that was the deadliest of the entire war, she said.

Schmitt said he’s been able to trace his family tree enough to paint a fairly full picture of both men.

Union solider Peter Schmitt was born in Germany and came to America in the early 1850s. He served a year at the end of the war and escaped unharmed, returning to the Alle-Kiski Valley and settling in Harrison’s Natrona section, where he worked for Penn Salt.

James Marshall Trenary, who fought for the Confederacy, hailed from Winchester, Va. He traveled north after his service in the Army and settled first in Ohio, where he learned to be a silversmith.

Trenary then settled in Natrona, where he also worked for Penn Salt. His daughter married Peter Schmitt’s son.

Tarentum resident Barbara Diller only recently learned that she has three ancestors who fought in the Civil War and who are buried at Prospect.

“My second-great-grandfather, Jacob Walter, was a photographer in Natrona,” Diller said. “That’s all I knew about him until (Homburg) told me about his war history.”

He and his brother, William, came out of battle successfully but a younger brother, Alexander, died of disease while in a Virginia hospital during wartime.

“I don’t know if he was captured or what happened,” Diller said. “I’m going to need to do more research on all of them.”

Brackenridge Mayor Lindsay Fraser will be the guest speaker at the ceremony.

“They say that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” Fraser said.

The event will be an opportunity to commemorate and honor the sacrifices and contributions that were made, she said.

“It’s also an opportunity to reflect on the forces that brought us to that point and to consider the responsibilities that we all have in the hard work of keeping our nation united and moving forward,” Fraser said.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a chair and to park at Trinity United Methodist Church across the street. Everyone will be welcome to stop at the Alle-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum in Tarentum afterward for refreshments and a free tour of the facility on E. Seventh Avenue.

To reserve a spot, call Homburg at 724-612-0076.