Vet's mission: Recognition for Civil War veterans buried in North Huntingdon

An Army veteran from Harrison City is on a mission to give four Civil War soldiers buried in unmarked graves proper recognition.

A memorial etched with their names would be part of a restoration of the inactive North Huntingdon cemetery that dates to 1784.

“Somewhere along the way, it hits you. It’s your citizenship obligation,” said William “Bill” Bray, 55, who is spearheading efforts to restore the Brush Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery above Brush Creek on Leger Road.

Bray is vice commander of Trafford American Legion Post 331, which has undertaken the restoration of the cemetery that also contains the graves of 11 Revolutionary War soldiers. Bray, who served in the Army from 1984-92, became aware of the condition of the cemetery gravestones when the Trafford American Legion Post was placing U.S. flags at the graves on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

“We got involved because nobody has done it,” said Bray, a truck driver who grew up in Perry County in southern Ohio and moved to Pennsylvania 22 years ago.

The American Legion Post members have been working this fall to take care of the cemetery — cutting trees that had toppled headstones or were in danger of falling onto markers, cleaning and resetting headstones that had been overturned, either by falling trees or vandalism over the years.

They are doing the work in conjunction with the Norwin Historical Society, which has an agreement with cemetery owner New Hope Presbyterian Church of North Huntingdon to oversee maintenance, said Carl Huszar, president of the historical society.

The historical society has been maintaining the cemetery since 1994, with help from area Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and Eagle Scout projects including a wooden fence along Leger Road, Huszar said. The historical society has done numerous projects at the cemetery over the past decade, including maintenance of the property and removing dead trees, Huszar said. The historical society and local Scout troops also have placed flags on veterans graves at the cemetery over the years.

“It was an opportunity to preserve the cemetery,” Huszar said of the historical society taking on the obligation.

Ownership of the cemetery fell to New Hope Presbyterian Church about 40 years ago, as a result of various iterations of the original Brush Creek Presbyterian church, which eventually became New Hope, said Fred Lau of North Huntingdon, a former New Hope trustee and a historical society member.

Lau commended the efforts “to keep the cemetery respectable” by the Trafford American Legion, the historical society and Boy Scout troops over the years.

“He has been doing be yeoman’s work,” said Andrew Capets of North Huntingdon, a member of Trafford American Legion Post and president of the Trafford Historical Society.

One of those volunteer workers, Barry Frydrych of Trafford, squad commander of the Sons of the American Legion Post.

“I’m doing my part to keep (alive) the memory of the veterans,” Frydyrch said.

While Bray and other American Legion Post members were cutting dead trees to prevent more stones from being toppled, Sue Kochman, president of the North Irwin Borough council, was spraying a biological cleaning agent to remove the buildup of algae on headstones. Some of those headstones had so much algae on them that the names were illegible.

For Kochman, a member of the Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War Chapter 56 of Pleasant Unity, the work was personal.

“I have two ancestors buried here,” Kochamn said.

Her great-great-great-grandfather, Ezekiel Tantlinger of North Huntingdon, is buried at the cemetery and is one of the Civil War soldiers for which Bray is seeking a headstone. He survived the war, but died four years later in 1869 at age 35, she said.

Civil War markers

Bray has sent documents to the Department of Veterans Affairs that verify the military records of four soldiers buried in graves at Brush Creek cemetery, but without a headstone.

The only indication that the four men fought in the Civil War are the small ivory-colored Grand Army of the Republic markers with a number, indicating a Union Army soldier, but no name. They are among 29 Civil War veterans at the cemetery, which has not had a burial since 2005, Bray said.

To learn their identities, Bray said he has worked with Matt Zamosky, director of the Westmoreland County Veterans Affairs. The county has GAR burial cards with the names associated with the numbers on the markers, as well as information about their service. With the original church gone and some descendant churches no longer in existence, Bray said he was unable to find any cemetery records of burials or church records.

But, Bray is a veteran of navigating the VA bureaucracy for getting the Civil War markers. He had done it for his great-grandfather, a member of an Ohio sharpshooting regiment who was buried in an unmarked grave in a Perry County cemetery.

Two of the markers — for Tanglinger and Joseph E. Jones —are expected to arrive next week.

The applications for two others are still in the process of being reviewed by the VA, he said.

“This is my way of paying tribute to these heroes,” Bray said.

Photos of the continuing restoration work are posted on the Brush Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery Facebook page.