Location: Town Common, corner of South Road and East Main Street, Heath
Coordinates: 42°40’24.3″N 72°49’17.0″W
Date dedicated: November 4, 2017 (an earlier plaque was dedicated July 14, 1949)
Design/Sculptor/Manufacturer: Unknown
There is, intriguingly, a bit of mystery surrounding Heath’s early wars memorial. The current plaque on the Heath Common honoring the town’s veterans of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish–American War is clearly of recent manufacture, and newspaper accounts from 2017 describe the installation of what they present as a new early-wars tablet. Those same 2017 articles make no mention of any previous early-wars memorial. And yet numerous newspaper reports from 1949 are explicit that the town installed an early-wars veterans’ tablet that year. At some point between 1949 and 2017, the original memorial must have been removed, lost, or damaged, though the circumstances remain obscure. What stands on the Common today is therefore both a continuation of, and a replacement for, the mid-20th-century tradition of honoring Heath’s war service.[1]
Like many of the Bay State’s small towns, Heath did not install public memorials to its war veterans until after the World Wars. On Thursday, July 14, 1949, the townspeople gathered on the Heath Common for the dedication of new veterans’ plaques. One bronze tablet honored those who served in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Spanish–American War, while another plaque listed residents who served in the World Wars. Although not a Civil War monument in the strictest sense, it did include the names of the forty-six Heath men who enlisted during the Civil War, and so it is included in this project.
The ceremonies in 1949 opened with a parade from the Center School to the Town Common which included members of the American Legion from Charlemont and Heath. On the Common, remarks were given by several with the principle address being given by Attorney Sebastion Ruggeri of Greenfield who served as a major during World War II.[2]
On November 4, 2017, Heath dedicated a new set of Veterans Memorials on the Town Common after four years of planning and fundraising. When the Veterans Memorial Committee was formed in 2013, the only existing monument on the common honored World War I and II veterans, and committee members said no one knew who had created even that memorial. They also found older veterans’ plaques stored in Community Hall but did not know their origins (could one of these have been the 1949 early wars plaque, perhaps damaged and removed to storage?). The new memorial placed five stones in a semi-circle to honor all Heath veterans from the Revolution to the present, with one blank stone reserved for future names.[3]
The first contingent of Heath men to answer the call to arms enlisted in the 10th Massachusetts Infantry, the earliest western Massachusetts regiment raised for three-year service. Five volunteers from Heath joined the 10th Massachusetts when it was organized in Springfield in the summer of 1861. The 10th Massachusetts served from 1861 to 1864 and fought in nearly every major Eastern-Theater campaign with the Army of the Potomac. They were mustered out in July 1864.
The largest single contingent from Heath—eleven men in all—served with the 52nd Massachusetts Infantry. This was a nine-month regiment organized in the autumn of 1862, composed largely of volunteers from Franklin and Hampshire Counties who assembled and trained at Camp Miller in Greenfield before departing for service in the Department of the Gulf. Sent to Louisiana under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, the 52nd took part in operations along the Bayou Teche and was engaged at Plains Store and during the Siege of Port Hudson, enduring oppressive heat, disease, and harsh field conditions before returning home in the summer of 1863.
The human cost to this small town was exemplified by the fate of the Gleason brothers. Capt. William Gleason, a pre-war local militia leader, sent four sons to serve, and tragically three of those four young men were either killed in action or died of illness during the conflict.[4] Another Heath family deeply affected was the Bolton family. Private Lemuel M. Bolton, only 17 when he enlisted, endured nearly four years of combat service. He fought with Company F of the 10th Massachusetts and later (after reenlisting) with the 37th Massachusetts, experiencing some 28 battles in all. In an especially poignant turn, Bolton came home on furlough in early 1865 to marry his sweetheart, then returned to the front, only to be killed in action at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek, Virginia on April 6, 1865, just days before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.[5]
Stories like these highlight the sacrifices behind the names inscribed on Heath’s memorial. While the town’s Civil War plaque may be simple in design, it stands as a lasting tribute to the courage and service of Heath’s sons who fought to preserve the Union.
[1] The Recorder (Greenfield, MA), July 16, 1949, 7.
[2] The Recorder, July 16, 1949, 7.
[3] The Recorder, November 1, 2017.
[4] Centennial Anniversary of the Town of Heath, Franklin County, Mass., August 19, 1885 (Greenfield, MA: E. A. Hall & Co., Printers, 1885), 63.
[5] “1861–3: Lemuel Martindale Bolton, Jr. to Family,” Spared & Shared 10, January 22, 2016, https://sparedshared10.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/1861-lemuel-m-bolton-to-mother/