Section 42 is the original Civil War Veteran burial
ground – Forest Hill Cemetery, Oneida Street, Utica, NY. German
emigrant Corporal Wilhelm "William" Moegling had no
gravestone. If a gravestone did sometime exist following his
untimely 1869 death, it was probably a wooden grave marker as many there were, destroyed or
weathered by the ravages of time or perhaps vandalized at his first
burial site in Utica's single municipal internment ground at Potter
Street Cemetery, then located at Water and Potter Streets in
downtown Utica. Potter Street Cemetery was totally exhumed and
removed in late 1916 by City of Utica administrators, as permitted under a May
1916 Act of New York State Legislature. We know from local period
newspaper reports that many unclaimed grave-markers were removed and
likely destroyed by city-contracted cemetery sexton Mr. Henry Hartman
in June 1917. This unclaimed monument removal followed the mass cemetery exhumations at Potter
Street Cemetery completed in late December 1916. A large percentage
of the skeletons removed Potter Street Cemetery were re-interred in a presently unmarked mass grave
at Forest Hill Cemetery, where over eighty percent of these skeletons
then classified as unidentified. The remains of Corporal Moegling are certainly one of these "unknown" persons. As a U.S. Army Veteran of two
U.S. wars, Corporal William Moegling rates a memorial headstone. And
in early 2015 this memorial headstone was furnished by the fine people at the Memorial Programs Office of the U.S.
Veterans Administration to honor Corporal Moegling's memory. Perhaps the bones of as many as 10,000 early Utica residents were reinterred in this aforementioned unmarked mass grave at Forest Hill Cemetery. This mass grave, otherwise known as Section 58B, is located about 250 yards southeast of the site where Corporal Moegling's Memorial Headstone is now installed -- honored here at last among his Civil War comrades at the Forest Hill Cemetery Section 42.
The bright white
headstone just to the right side of Section 42 Flag Pole is the
Memorial Headstone of Corporal William Moegling, late of Company H,
97th Infantry Regiment of New York State Volunteers (a/k/a “The
Conkling Rifles” or “The Third Oneida”), an American Civil War
Union Fighting Unit directly engaged at many Civil War battles
including, but not limited to: The Second Battle of Bull Run, The Battle of Antietam and
The Battle of First Fredericksburg.
Corporal William Moegling was here with his regiment: Click The Battle of Antietam
Corporal William Moegling was here with his regiment: Click The Battle of Antietam
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