The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-05-19
One VILLAGE
And the Flag


New Hampshire. in Cheshire county,
there Is a village called Nelson. 1t has
231 Inhabitants. When the war Of Sc
cession was going on. however. 1t sent
124 men to the front There is law
yer here In New York named Henry
Melville, says the New York Times,
and awhile ago II seemed to him-he
was Nelson man-that 1t might be
just as well to present to the village
tablet concentrating its rather un-
usual record in the time of war. So
he did, and 1t was unveiled not long
ago near q little old Yankee church.
Not many folks there, most likely.
Melville could not have got from 1t
the satisfaction Of having big crowd
and a hurrah. Any pleasure he got
from 1t must have been internal.
But he or somebody else in Nelson
was not content with this celebration.
and q pamphlet was published show
ing the record of these New Hamp-
shire soldiers. Easy enough TO do, for
there were only 124 Of them. Nelson,
though, had given its best, its young
men and its old ones, and there were
husbands, fathers and maybe grand
fathers In that list. Born in Nelson"
Is the brief sentence appended TO al
most all of these biographies. There
was one man not with a Yankee name
He came from Patagonia. of all places
in the world, and his name was
Castone. Nelson Is rather proud Of
him. He was its foreigner. HE was
not very strong, but he could knock
men down as fast as they came TO him
till he had them In a pile" says Olin
n. Wardwell, his camp buddy" who
writes few regrettably brief lines
about him for the record
Even Castone enlisted from Nelson"
There was a boy from Harrisvile, but
he ran away from home so that he
could enlist, being under the legal age,
and picked Nelson out as place where
nobody would know him. Andrew
Jackson Beal his name was. The Con-
federates added him to their bag when
they took Harpers Ferry in 1862. but
the boy was exchanged or escaped, for
he stayed In the army, was promoted
and was not mustered out until two
months after the war was over.
Born In Nelson" is true, too. Of
Thaddeus Angelo Barker, not a war
rior. but musician. Still. guns go off
just the same when musicians are ad,
vancing at the head Of their compa-
MES. and there was day In the Will
derness when they ordered Thaddeus
Angelo Barker to the operating table.
He would not go. He lay there I'm the
scrub oak all day long with his broken
hand In brook and after all did not
lose 1t. "But 1t was never OF much
musician. There was Granville S. Der
by, born i'm Nelson" who was one Of
the men who ran down Cemetery ridge
after Pickett's lines collapsed and
chased the Confederates across the
stricken valley. Something a little
apologetic has to be said about Joseph
~ Day. He was not "born In Nelson"
He was an alien from Massachusetts.
but he had taken the blame off by liv.
ing In Nelson "for many years" He
was shot and severely wounded the
day that Sheridan made that celebrat.
ed ride to Cedar creek.
Sergeant Partridge was shot one day
In September, 1864. and Private J. F.
Foster. enlisted from Nelson" hap
pened to be near by" SO he took
hold Of him to give him a lift" he
says. Giving the sergeant lift was
and the Confederates came
across the field and took Foster prison.
er. Foster tells Of Il without any emo.
ton or any apparent comprehension
that there was anything out of the or.
binary about this lift giving.
Grave. serious minded men they
were. When the Sumter news came
to Nelson George G. Hardy turned to
Edwin z. Hunt and said, Zone Of us
Will have to CO." There was nothing
light minded about the way Nelson
went into the war with its 1874 men.
Hunt was the first man to enlist from
Nelson. He was young, but Hardy
was middle aged and married. Hardy
went, just the same. and died in the
Geld.