Burial of returned Civil War vet Jewett Williams will shift from Togus to Hodgdon

 

The convoy transporting the cremains of Pvt. Jewett Williams of Hodgdon and the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment rolls toward the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea at 1 p.m., Monday, Aug. 22. Volunteers from the Patriot Guard Riders transported the cremains from Oregon to Maine. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

The convoy transporting the cremains of Pvt. Jewett Williams of Hodgdon and the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment rolls toward the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea at 1 p.m., Monday, Aug. 22, 2016. Volunteers from the Patriot Guard Riders transported the cremains from Oregon to Maine. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Apparently abandoned by his immediate family after his death in 1922, Maine Civil War veteran Jewett Williams has been commandeered by distant relatives prior to his burial in 2016 …

… and the volunteers responsible for respectfully transporting his cremains from Oregon to Maine are unhappy about the bombshell dropped during today’s ceremony honoring Jewett’s arrival at the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea.

Jewett was the oldest son and child of Hodgdon farmers Jared and Rosaline Williams. Born in Hodgdon in 1843, he was 21 when he was simultaneously drafted and mustered into the army — Co. H, 20th Maine Infantry Regiment — on Monday, Oct. 12, 1864.

A scrawny fellow standing 5-6½ inches tall with a farmer’s lean, muscular frame, Jewett gazed at the world through hazel eyes. He had dark hair and sported a dark complexion.

He participated in the Appomattox Campaign, mustered out with the 20th Maine, and returned to Hodgdon in summer 1865. After his first marriage ended in divorce in 1871, Jewett voted with his feet to leave Maine; moving to Minnesota, he later married a woman who bore him six children.

After Jewett Williams died in the Oregon State Hospital in 1922, his body was cremated. The urn containing his ashes was transported to Maine this month by Patriot Guard Riders; Jewett was slated to be buried with the other Civil War veterans buried in Togus National Cemetery. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

After Jewett Williams died in the Oregon State Hospital in 1922, his body was cremated. The urn containing his ashes was transported to Maine this month by Patriot Guard Riders; Jewett was slated to be buried with the other Civil War veterans interred at Togus National Cemetery. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Jewett and his wife, Nora, lived in Washington State by the early 1890s, and he later moved to Portland, Oregon. Admitted to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem in April 1922, he died there of “cerebral arteriosclerosis” on Monday, July 17, 1922.

No relatives claimed the body, which was cremated. The ashes went into a copper urn forgotten until discovered along with approximately 3,500 other cremain-filled urns at the Salem hospital in 2004.

In 2015, Maine Civil War historian Tom Desjardins found the online records about Jewett’s 1922 death at the Oregon State Hospital for the Insane. The discovery led to the efforts to bring Jewett home.

Starting at Salem on Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, volunteers from the Patriot Guard Riders escorted Jewett’s cremains across country to Maine. The goal, as understood by everyone involved with the project, was to deliver Jewett to Maine for burial in the Togus National Cemetery in Chelsea on Saturday, Sept. 17.

Five Maine members of the Patriot Guard Riders officially transferred the cremains of Jewett Williams to state custody at Togus VA Hospital on Monday, Aug. 22. The volunteers were (from left) Steve Littlefield of Topsham, Bob LaBrie of Bangor, Will Lagasse of Greene, Mike Edgecomb of Spruce Head, and Don Duplessis of Augusta. Edgecomb holds the flag-wrapped box containing Jewett's cremains. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Five Maine members of the Patriot Guard Riders officially transferred the cremains of Jewett Williams to state custody at Togus VA Hospital on Monday, Aug. 22, 2016. The volunteers were (from left) Steve Littlefield of Topsham, Bob LaBrie of Bangor, Will Lagasse of Greene, Mike Edgecomb of Spruce Head, and Don Duplessis of Augusta. Edgecomb holds the flag-wrapped box containing Jewett’s cremains. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Seven members of the Maine Patriot Guard Riders — President Mike Edgecomb of Spruce Head, Cathy Fiske and Steve Littlefield of Topsham, Robert LaBrie of Bangor, Don Duplessis of Augusta, Edgar “Skip” Hanes of Hartford, and Will Lagasse of Greene — met at the south-bound Kennebunk Travel Plaza on the Maine Turnpike on Tuesday, Aug. 16 and rode south together to “meet” Jewett at Appomattox Court House National Historic Park.

These seven Mainers and other Patriot Guard Riders escorted Jewett home through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

At 1 p.m., Monday, Aug. 22, some 40-50 motorcyclists and several escort vehicles turned from Route 17 onto Togus Road and rode to the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea. Parking their bikes on Pond Road in front of the VA medical center, the Patriot Guard Riders participated in the moving ceremony that officially returned Jewett’s cremains to the possession of his home state.

A 1922 photo of Jewett Williams and the flag-wrapped box containing his cremains lie on a table outside the Togus VA medical center on Monday, Aug. 22, 2016. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

A 1922 photo of Jewett Williams and the flag-wrapped box containing his cremains lie on a table outside the Togus VA medical center on Monday, Aug. 22, 2016. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Togus personnel, Maine National Guard personnel, Civil War re-enactors, and employees of the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans & Emergency Management also took part in the ceremony, held on the lawn opposite the VA medical center’s main entrance. Including participants, around 200 people gathered to watch as Mike Edgecomb placed the American flag-wrapped box containing Jewett’s cremains on a table set up on the lawn.

Adria O. Horn, the director of the Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, spoke about Jewett and the collaborative efforts that had brought him home to Maine. Among the people watching the ceremony was Brig. Gen. Doug Farnham, the adjutant general of the Maine National Guard.

Adria O. Horn, the director of the Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, speaks during the Aug. 22 ceremony honoring the arrival of the cremains of Jewett Williams at the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea. Horn stunned listeners when she announced that Williams will be buried in his parents' plot in a Hodgdon cemetery rather than with other Civil War veterans at Togus. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Adria O. Horn, the director of the Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services, speaks during the Aug. 22 ceremony honoring the arrival of the cremains of Jewett Williams at the Togus VA Hospital in Chelsea. Horn stunned listeners when she announced that Williams will be buried in his parents’ plot in a Hodgdon cemetery rather than with other Civil War veterans at Togus. (Brian F. Swartz Photo)

Everything went well until Horn revealed that rather than Jewett being buried with the other Civil War veterans at Togus as planned, “family and descendants” in Aroostook County wanted him to be buried “with his parents, Jared and Rosaline Williams,” in the family’s plot in a Hodgdon cemetery.

The state has concurred with that request.

Jewett’s cremains will be transferred to the Williams’ distant relatives at Togus on Sept. 17. Until then, the cremains will be housed at the Maine Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Augusta.

Horn’s announcement visibly stunned many listening Patriot Guard Riders, who had believed since Aug. 1 that, as Bob LaBrie of Bangor explained, “He (Jewett Williams) was going to be buried with the 20th Maine boys here at Togus.

“I think it’s terrible,” LaBrie said, referring to Jewett being buried in Hodgdon rather than at Togus.

An Oregon researcher could find no living direct descendants of Jewett Williams. During today’s ceremony, no other descendants of Jared and Rosaline Williams stepped forward and identified themselves.

“I think it’s so terrible that if they’re (Williams’ relatives) so inspired” to insist that Jewett be buried in Hodgdon rather than at Togus, “why aren’t they here?”

Another Maine member of the Patriot Guard Riders wondered aloud if the Williams’ relatives would reimburse the Riders for their expenses incurred in bringing Jewett back to Maine. Many of the motorcyclists scheduled their vacations and spent considerable personal funds to help him get home.

From the conversations taking place among the Patriot Guard Riders after the ceremony, one fact became clear: the state’s decision to let Jewett be buried elsewhere than Togus had left the Riders feeling hoodwinked.

Their feelings are possibly justified; a Facebook post put up last Friday by a Hodgdon resident indicated that people in that town already knew that Jewett would be buried there.

Why state officials chose not to share that information with the volunteers transporting Jewett to Maine at their personal expense remains a mystery.

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If you enjoy reading the adventures of Mainers caught up in the Civil War, be sure to like Maine at War on Facebook and get a copy of the new Maine at War Volume 1: Bladensburg to Sharpsburg, available online at Amazon and all major book retailers, including Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble.

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Brian Swartz can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net. He loves hearing from Civil War buffs interested in Maine’s involvement in the war.

Brian Swartz

About Brian Swartz

Welcome to "Maine at War," the blog about the roles played by Maine and her sons and daughters in the Civil War. I am a Civil War buff and a newspaper editor recently retired from the Bangor Daily News. Maine sent hero upon hero — soldiers, nurses, sailors, chaplains, physicians — south to preserve their country in the 1860s. “Maine at War” introduces these heroes and heroines, who, for the most part, upheld the state's honor during that terrible conflict. We tour the battlefields where they fought, and we learn about the Civil War by focusing on Maine’s involvement with it. Be prepared: As I discover to this very day, the facts taught in American classrooms don’t always jibe with Civil War reality. I can be reached at visionsofmaine@tds.net.