Cemetery & Columbarium
The USS Jeannette
One of the first Monuments I came across was the tribute to the USS Jeannette dated 1881.
Knowing this wasn't taught in my history classes in school, I went digging.
The USS Jeanette was an expedition intended to make America the first country on the North Pole. But they encountered ice that sunk the Jeannette, and walked over 1000 miles to Siberia.
There's a great interview by the National Geographic who interviewed author Hampton Sides who wrote a book about it.
Lt. Commander Charles Williamson
His stone was low to the ground and very degraded. But he obviously was someone important enough to be here. So who as he? He died during the Civil War in the Battle of Plymouth. It was a battle between the USS Southfield and USS Miami and the ironclad CSS Albermarle. He personally fired a 10 second fuse cannonball at the Albermarle, and it bounced off the metal back onto the deck of the USS Miami and exploded killing Flusse and others.
Following Flusse, the next memorial that caught my eye was the tombstone of Commander William Cushing. It seems that while the CSS Albermarle had killed Flusse, it was Cushing who was the brains behind it's demise. They were trying to figure out a way to take down the iron clad Albermarle. The Southfield (see above) had already sunk, and the Confederacy had snipers near the remains of the Southfield. Cushing took 2 picket boats, fixed a 12 pound Dahlgren howitzer to each one, and under stealth of night, sailed the picket boats so it was practically touching the Albermarle and remotely detonated the Howitzer. The explosion threw everyone overboard and blew a "wagon sized hole" in it's side at the waterline, sinking the mighty Albermarle. His stone has his uniform, hat and sword atop, and on the other side instead of his name is the word Albermarle.I'm kicking myself for not photographing the other side
The first hint of her I found was from the Army and Navy Register dated February 13, 1915. She was the wife of Captain Chester Knepper who was retired. I couldn't find any reports of what the USS Niagara was doing at that time and being World War I was in full swing, but that doesn't explain why she was on the ship being a civilian.
But then I reached out to The Knepper Family Tree on Facebook. They said they didn't think she was related, but they had come across her and had the answer. The article ran in the Washington DC Evening Star on February 15th, 1915.
I had fun finding out about some of these wonderful people, and these are just a few stories of the hundreds of people buried there. So take a stroll, admire some of the beautiful artwork, give thanks for the people who gave our lives for us, and learn some of their stories. You'll be glad you did.