More family connections pieced together at A.A. cemetery, honored for Veterans Day
November 13, 2024 at 11:24 p.m.
Dave Thomas, founder of the Friends of the African American Cemetery, described the graveyard in Rye as the site of an ongoing story.
“In the grand scheme of it, we don’t really know anything about this place and the people buried here. I’ve been here for 14 years and I’m still learning things,” he said following the Town of Rye’s annual Veterans Day ceremony at the historic site on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Every year, Thomas does a deep dive into one or two of the more than 20 veterans who were interred at the cemetery over the 100-year period it was active.
But in the days leading up to this year’s event, Thomas was having difficulty finding the time to dig up research.
“Between work and going to school at nights, I’ve just been swamped,” he told the handful of attendees.
However, he did discuss a new discovery about connections among a few of the 300 people buried in the cemetery after being inspired by hearing a familiar name.
“I was on my computer when I scrolled past something about Buck Rogers,” Thomas recalled. “And I remembered that we have several people named Rogers buried at the site.”
Thomas explained that six people of that name are recorded to be there, but there are only two gravestones accounted for—Valson and Eugene Rogers, the latter of whom served in the U.S. Army during World War I.
Their headstones can be found next to each other. While Thomas assumed the two were related because of their proximity and shared surname, he could not prove it until the day before the Veterans Day ceremony.
Using 1910 census records, he found they lived in the same home on West William Street and that Eugene was listed as Valson’s son.
The elder Rogers was born in 1860 and was a lifelong Port Chester resident. He worked as a railroad porter and had his son in 1880.
Thomas said it’s unclear as to what Valson’s real name was.
The final resting place of Eugene Rogers, who served in the U.S. Army and fought in France during the Great War.By David Tapia
“The name on his headstone is not what we’ve found in the records. The headstone reads Valson, but we’ve found documents for Valston,” he explained. “There’s a lot of confusion regarding that. We don’t actually know which is right.”
Eugene served in the 92nd Division’s 349th Field Artillery Regiment, the first in U.S. history composed almost entirely of African Americans, and fought under the command of the French Army in 1918.
Though records are sparse, Eugene survived the war and returned to the Village. He died in 1950.
Thomas said that Valson must have been highly respected, as his family paid to have a large marble headstone that towers over the rest of his family’s.
“There’s nothing else like it in this cemetery. It’s a very distinctive stone,” he said. “Which is very interesting to me because there is no real record of them being a family with a lot of money or anything like that, but it must have cost them a pretty penny.”
Unfortunately, the century has not been kind to Valson’s final resting place—the tombstone base has deteriorated over time.
“It’s in a really bad state right now,” Thomas said. “We don’t allow people to touch it because it can move. I’m afraid that one day it will topple backwards and break in half. That would break my heart as well.”
According to Gary Zuckerman, the Rye Town supervisor, steps are being taken to improve the state of the cemetery along with headstones like Rogers’ that are in unsettling condition.
“We had a grant from the National Parks Service that resulted in a survey via ground penetrating radar and UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) overflights of this cemetery that resulted in a 900-page report,” he said. “That report was submitted to apply for another grant in the spring.”
The $200,000 grant would fund repairs to existing gravestones, individual numbered markers for unmarked graves, the rehabilitation of the stone wall surrounding the area and the installation of a communal memorial.
Thomas is hopeful the Town will be awarded the money so the over 300 African Americans buried there can be honored with dignity.
“This is the ongoing story of African Americans,” he said. “This is a history dating back to the 1700s relating to people who still live in the Town of Rye today. Yes, it’s hard to dig through it all. Names are wrong and things are misfiled, but we can sort our way through that. Today, we connected two people buried here. Hopefully we can keep making connections like this in the future.”
Comments:
You must login to comment.