NOT FORGOTTEN
Black Civil War Veterans
Black Civil War veterans buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Youngstown, Oh. are being honored on Memorial Day.
Historian discovers yet another Valley connection to Civil War
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
YOUNGSTOWN
Memorial Day is a day when all veterans should be honored.
Among those veterans in Mahoning County are 28 black men who fought in the Civil War, 25 of whom are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, said Steffon Jones, local amateur historian.
“They served their country and are a part of the Youngstown area’s history,” Jones said.
Through his research this year, Jones said he was blessed to discover a living ancestor of a local Civil War veteran, Martin VanHoosen, whose name later became VanDuesen.
This is the fourth and most recent local family connection to the 25 black Civil War soldiers whom Jones, 48, has found.
VanHoosen’s great-great-grandson is Lawrence Pettiford of Youngstown, whose grandfather is Dr. Charles Pettiford, who Jones said was the first black doctor to live and work in the Youngstown area during the early 1900s.
Lawrence Pettiford’s father is Maurice Pettiford, whose first marriage was to Cora VanDusen, the great-granddaughter of Martin VanHoosen (VanDusen), Jones said.
Lawrence said he remembers his grandfather Fred VanDuesen, Jones said. Fred was Cora’s father. Fred’s father was Daniel, whose father was Martin VanHoosen.
According to his obituary in The Vindicator, Fred VanDuesen was a “theater employee in Youngstown for many years ... and was past exalted ruler of the Colored Elks.”
Jones, who grew up in Youngs-town and also lived in Campbell and Struthers, said his interest in general history began as a young boy, and then he became focused on the Civil War.
He began focusing on blacks who fought in the Civil War when he read an article about the 5th U.S. Colored Troop, which was a Civil War re-enactment group in Cleveland.
Jones said his interest became consuming when he saw the movie “Glory,” about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first black Civil War regiment to be formed.
Jones eventually became a member of the 5th re-enactment group, but after it became inactive in 2008, he began participating in the 7th Tennessee Dismounted Cavalry, Co. M, in which whites and blacks fought together for the Confederacy.
Jones, who works for Vector and Shane Security, does most of his research in local libraries and on the computer. He then sends for pension and military records from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to confirm what he has discovered.
He said a journal kept by George Washburn of Youngstown, whose father fought in the Civil War, provided the names of the Civil War soldiers buried in Mahoning County cemeteries.
The black soldiers are identified by the military units on their headstones, where they are listed, for example, as members of U.S. Colored Infantry, Calvary, Heavy Artillery and Light Artillery units, Jones said.
Born in Barrington, Mass., in February 1817 or 1822, VanHoosen joined the 29th Connecticut Infantry Co. H on Dec. 26, 1863, and mustered out in New York on Oct. 11, 1865. He had married Betsy Minkler on Nov. 15, 1847. Once he was out of the Army, they lived in Erie and Union City, Pa., before moving to Youngstown in 1882, where he did labor work. He had been a Teamster in New York. Betsy also is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery along with their children, Jones said.
A memorial service conducted by Tod Post 29 in Youngstown, a “Roll Call of the Dead for 1897,” detailed VanHoosen’s military exploits during the war.
VanHoosen, whose name was spelled VanHousen in the Tod Post program, participated 40 days in the Wilderness Campaign in Northern Virginia and was involved in “holding the breast works” in front of Petersburg near Appomattox, Va., with “stubborn resistance.” He helped repulse a raid at Prince George Court House on July 30, 1864, and fought at the Battle of the Crater, which was part of the siege of Petersburg.
VanHoosen became known as a sharpshooter when he located and killed with one shot a Confederate sharpshooter who had killed eight Union soldiers.
At Bermuda Hundred Campaign outside Richmond, Va., he is credited with rescuing the regiment by “killing rebels at long range until they cried to us if we would stop firing, they would,” according to the Tod Post program.
“It’s important that we remember our history; and we don’t have to go to Gettysburg or Williamsburg to find it. There is so much history in the city of Youngstown, you never run out,” Jones said.