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Last Surviving Mahanoy City Civil War Veterans, 1925
Posted By Norman Gasbarro on November 14, 2018
A 1925 photograph of the last surviving Civil War veterans of Mahanoy City, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, as it appeared in the “Glimpses Into Yesteryear” column of the Pottsville Republican and Herald, 10 January 1979.
The photo caption reads:
The proud-looking troupe of old soldiers pictured in 1925 represented Mahanoy City’s last surviving Civil War veterans, members of Severn Post 110, Grand Army of the Republic. With the conflict then some 60 years in the past, the old-timers must have been in their 70s and 80s when they posed for this portrait, but the stately manner of the Boys in Blue shines through the white hair, beards and mustaches. Most of them are now at rest in the cemeteries overlooking the Valley of Mahanoy from the upper slope of Broad Mountain. There, the granite statue of a bugler, erected by their post in 1892, sounds silent “taps” o’er landscape where the old vets spent their lived as pioneers helping to build the area’s mining towns.
Front Row (seated): Theodore Humes; Charles “Punch” Brownmiller; John Williams.
Back Row (standing): Joseph Lord; John Blaine; John Holman; and Levi Brownmiller.
Not Pictured: Anthony Ferguson; and Dallo VanHorn, who was the last survivor.
Although Mahanoy City was still a frontier town when the Civil War broke out, the men of Mahanoy answered President Lincoln’s call and were among the first to go to the defense of the union. A tent was pitched at the northwest corner of Centre and Locust Streets to be used as an office for enlistment, recruiting and drafting. After the war the returning veterans continued their camaraderie and established the G.A.R. post in 1868, naming it after one of their officers, Captain Isaac Severn.
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From the Pottsville Republican and Herald, series entitled “Glimpses Into Yesteryear,” 10 January 1979, via Newspapers.com.
It is quite thrilling and hard to believe to see my great grandfather in the picture for real,,,,,,,I have some bits an pieces of information collected over the years but, again, it blows my mind to comment in this manner. My grandfather, George Holman, did have some ofhis son’s uniform buttons but they got lost over the years. I have information that he was wounded in the Petersburg siege and obviously survived or I WOULD NOT BE HERE, something else!,,,