Flags wave proudly and red flowers honor those who died in service of the nation as Memorial Day approaches.
Flags wave proudly and red flowers honor those who died in service of the nation as Memorial Day approaches.
Early observances on Decoration Day are rooted in the rich history of Geauga County, where generations of ancestors served and gave all.
Three years after the Civil War ended, the Grand Army of the Republic established Memorial Day as a time for the nation to decorate veterans’ graves with flowers, according to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
“GAR quickly became the preeminent veterans’ organization formed at the close of the Civil War with membership reaching its peak in 1890, with over 400,000 members,” local historian Bari Oyler Stith said. “By then, the GAR had well over 7,000 posts, ranging in size from fewer than two dozen members in small towns, to more than a thousand in some cities.”
In 1971, Memorial Day was declared a national holiday and officially observed on the last Monday in May. It is well believed the date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom across the country.
“Almost every prominent veteran was enrolled in GAR, including five presidents — Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Harrison and McKinley,” Stith said.
Park Ranger Alan Gephardt, at James A. Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, shared Garfield’s connections to Geauga County.
The county was part of the former president’s congressional district for 17 years while Garfield was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — from Dec. 5, 1863 to Dec. 1, 1880.
Being a politician, Garfield was called on to speak to various groups in many places, including citizens of Geauga County.
“In the fall of 1877, for example, he spoke at a meeting held at ‘the Opera House,’ in Chardon, where his speech ‘was well-received,’” Gephardt said. “The most significant connection Garfield had to Geauga was the school he attended at Chester, the present-day Chesterland, from 1849 to 1851, called the Geauga Seminary, a Baptist school that offered James Garfield his first taste of formal education.”
Congressman Garfield was the honored guest at the first Decoration Day — now Memorial Day ceremonies — at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868, and gave the first annual Decoration Day address.
He “set the standard for explaining what Memorial Day is about, and why it should be commemorated, with his address titled, “Strewing Flowers on the Graves of Union Soldiers,” he said, sharing the following passage:
“If ever silence is golden, it must be here beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung… I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost; that the characters of men are molded and inspired by what their fathers have done…”
“The citizens of Geauga County, like the citizens from all over James Garfield’s congressional district, must have been proud of their representative,” Gephardt added. “Here was a man able to express his thoughts and feelings, his reverence for his country and countrymen — his fellow soldiers — so tenderly, so touchingly and with such devotion.”
Early Memorial Day Observance
Stith often wonders if participants in Memorial Day observances realize how timeless this method of observance is.
“I am struck and moved by the similarity of how we honor all veterans during today’s Memorial Day celebrations,” Stith said.
In Hambden Township, around 1868 services were held at the Methodist Church, now Freedom Alliance Church, and included addresses, choral selections, reading of the roll of honor and a procession to the cemetery, Stith said.
Mary Ann Dottore, Hambden Township’s Cemetery Sexton administrator, said according to Freedom Alliance’s Pastor Andrew Beorn, his church building was built around the Civil War.
At Hambden Township Cemetery, nine soldiers with wreaths and their ladies with bouquets placed colors on the graves of veterans, followed by citizens with flowers to further decorate the graves, Stith said, adding in 1920, two Civil War veterans survived to attend the services, with other visitors attending from Chardon, Huntsburg, Chagrin Falls, Painesville and Cleveland.
“The township continues to support the Memorial Day observance and honor the veterans of their township, as well as all veterans that served our country,” Dottore said.
“Viewing the historical records in the town hall is very interesting. The records go back to the 1800s. It is exciting to know I have the opportunity to add to those historical records — that someone in the future will find as interesting as I do.”
Hambden Fire Chief Scott Hildenbrand said the fire department began the tradition of having a parade, then a speaker at the Hambden Congregational Church, followed by the reading of veterans’ names in the township park and a pancake breakfast back at the fire station.
“We must never forget,” he said. “It is very important to continue this tradition and it is a great opportunity for the community to come together to remember those who served our country.”
Civil War Veteran Edward Payson Latham
“When I think of Memorial Day, I think of the Grand Army of the Republic and Civil War veterans, especially ‘Pace’ Latham, who was severely wounded, but returned to Geauga to lead a very fulfilling life full of public service,” Stith said.
Born March 1839, Latham became commander at the Pool Post (Troy Township) of the GAR.
“On June 19, 1862, after the victory at Cumberland Gap, Kentucky … troops celebrated by firing three rounds from cannons — a spirited contest to see which cannon could fire the most rounds. While loading for a second charge, Latham’s cannon discharged prematurely, throwing Latham about 20 feet,” Stith said.
His arms were so badly shattered, they had to be amputated to the elbow and he lost sight in one eye. His obituary suggests he spent the remainder of his life in continual pain and required amputations, which took both of his arms off nearly to the shoulder.
He drove a wagon with reins looped around his neck and shoulders, and wrote with pen between his teeth.
According to the Geauga Republic, Latham gave a following speech on Decoration Day, 1876, on the price of liberty, to his comrades and fellow citizens in Troy:
“The subject before us is fraught with interest to us all. And why? Because we are each and all the recipients of those blessings which are secured to us through the patriotic efforts of those whose memory we have met today to perpetuate. This is not a gala day. We have not gathered here for mere pastime or amusement, but we have gathered here to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of those who died that their country might live…
Comrades and fellow citizens, after concluding the exercise here, we shall, with slow and solemn tread, march to yonder churchyard, where lie the remains of some of our noble comrades, and, as gentle hands take those vernal flowers, fit emblems as they are, of the purity of the principles to maintain which our comrades gave their lives…”
A Geauga County Commissioner, Latham moved to Burton and built Latham House, now part of the Burton Village Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places on the southeast corner of Burton Square.
“According to local lore, there are handles rather than doorknobs so that Latham could use his arms to open doors,” Stith said.
Chardon’s Dan Best said Latham’s prosthetic apparatus is displayed at Geauga County Historical Society’s Century Village in Burton.
“Payson/Pace was evidently a very independent, determined and ambitious fellow,” Best said. “Story goes that when a stiff breeze blew his brimmed hat off his head, a passerby went to pick it up for Pace. Latham waived off the would-be good-deed doer. With the flick of his boot toe, Pace flicked the hat upside down, bent over completely at the waste, and placed his crown inside the hat’s bowl and came up wearing it.
He died at age 82 and is buried at Troy Cemetery.
Veterans continued to remember their fallen comrades through the development of the GAR Highways, running cross country and following U.S. Route 6 through Chardon, Hambden and Montville townships.
“One of the most important displays of respect we can do on Memorial Day is to remember,” Stith said. “Find a way, no matter how small, to remember all those who have fought and sacrificed for the blessings we have today and for this beautiful country that shelters and nurtures us.
“Whether we attend our heartwarming community celebrations or gather with family and friends, or fly our American flag and plant flowers in red, white and blue — this is a day for thoughtful remembrance, gratitude and joy,” she continued. “And, involving our children is paramount so that they take these lessons about sacrifice and cost and consequences into the future.”
