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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2016
Civil War vet’s ashes are on motorcycle ride across America
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — Jewett Williams
served in the 20th Maine Regi-
ment in the Civil War. When he
died in 1922 at an Oregon insane
asylum, he was cremated and his
ashes were stored and forgotten
along with the remains of thou-
sands of other patients.
With a color guard in Civil
War-era uniforms present, Ore-
gon State Hospital oficials
handed over Williams’ ashes to a
group of motorcycle-riding mili-
tary veterans for a journey across
the country to his home state.
“He was a son, a brother,
a husband and a father. At the
end of his life, however, he was
alone and institutionalized here,”
Oregon Senate President Peter
Courtney said at the ceremony.
“When he died, nobody came.
Nobody came to honor him.
Nobody came to take him home.
Nobody came. Until today.”
Members of the Patriot Guard
Riders, a group that attends the
funerals of U.S. military veter-
ans, ireighters and police, then
solemnly received the ashes,
started their Harleys and began
the long journey to Maine. Wear-
ing leather vests festooned with
patches describing their branches
of service and American lags
lapping from their bikes, the
group will escort the remains in
relays across America.
The ashes of hundreds of
other patients remain at a memo-
rial on the grounds of the hospi-
tal made famous in “One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a ilm
starring Jack Nicholson and
adapted from a novel by Ken
Kesey. It was in 2004 that Court-
ney, on a tour, found the ashes
of more than 3,600 people who
died at the Oregon State Hospi-
tal and other institutions, stashed
away in a shed in corroding cop-
per cans.
In 2014, the memorial was
opened with the remains of
patients unclaimed by relatives
kept in urns labeled with names,
birth and death dates and embed-
ded in a wall. A gap now exists
where Williams’ urn had been.
Over 300 other remains have
been claimed.
“Here we are in this honored
spot with all these unclaimed
souls,” Geno Williams, a U.S.
Army special forces veteran and
Patriot Guard Rider from Van-
couver, Washington, murmured
to a reporter after blinking away
tears. “It is an emotional moment
for me.”
The 20th Maine famously
prevented a Union defeat at Get-
tysburg with a bayonet charge
at Little Round Top. Williams,
of Hodgdon, Maine, joined in
October 1864, more than a year
later, but many engagements
remained. His regiment was
at the siege of Petersburg, Vir-
ginia, and in battles with the reb-
els right up to Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee’s surrender at
Appomattox, Virginia, in April
1865, said Maine historian Tom
Desjardin.
“The New Englanders were
actively engaged with Grant’s
army in the long siege of Peters-
burg and the running ight with
Lee to Appomattox,” said James
I. Robertson Jr., retired profes-
sor of Civil War history at Vir-
ginia Tech.
Jewett shared a tent with his
cousin, Albert Williams, who, in
a letter relecting his rudimen-
tary education, described long
marches in bad weather and
sleeping in the open, accord-
ing to a family history published
online in 2005 by Barbara Ann
Estabrook. He also described a
scorched-earth campaign.
“i didnt have a chance to get
a shot at a reb when we on the
rode but i made the Cattle and
Sheep and hogs suffer. You bet
we killed every thing that we
see and burnt every thing as we
went,” Albert Williams wrote
on Dec. 18, 1864, less than four
months before he died of fever at
age 21.
Jewett Williams was married
and divorced, then remarried and
moved to Michigan, then to Min-
nesota where he was a carpen-
ter. His irst child died after only
19 months. He and his wife had
ive more children and moved
to Washington state, where the
couple separated. In the 1920
census, Williams was listed as a
widower in Portland, Oregon.
In April 1922, Williams was
admitted to the Oregon State
Hospital for the Insane in Salem,
as the hospital was then known.
He died on July 17, 1922, at 78,
of cerebral arteriosclerosis.
‘When he died, nobody came.
Nobody came to honor him.
Nobody came to take him
home. … Until today.’
Patriot
Guard
Riders,
from left to right, Steve
West, Milt Harden and Dan
Halverson salute the cre-
mated remains of Maine
Civil War soldier Jewett
Williams in Salem, Mon-
day, before the ashes are
handed over for a motor-
cycle journey across the
country to Williams’ home
state where he will be bur-
ied with military honors.
Williams served in the
20th Maine Regiment and
died in 1922 at an Oregon
insane asylum.
Peter Courtney
Oregon Senate president
None of Jewett’s descendants
has been found.
His remains are scheduled to
arrive in Maine on Aug. 22 and
will be buried with military hon-
ors in Togus National Cemetery
in Maine on Sept. 17. A peri-
od-correct white marble veter-
ans headstone will mark the spot,
said Dave Richmond, deputy
director of the Maine Bureau of
Veterans’ Services.
“He will rejoin his com-
rades-in-arms in Maine,” said
Greg Roberts, the superinten-
dent of Oregon State Hospi-
tal. Also buried at Togus are
ive other 20th Maine veterans,
including one from Williams’
Company H.
AP Photo/Andrew Selsky
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