Ezra Clemence, Blue Point Veteran
The following was written by Gene Horton and is reprinted from the Bayport Blue Point Gazette with permission.
Every
November, America honors its veterans. About a dozen veterans of the
American Civil War (1861-1865) are buried in the Blue Point Cemetery.
One
of the Civil War veterans is Ezra G. Clemence. A Blue Pointer, he was
born in 1840 and died in 1921. He was twenty-one years old when the
"Rebellion" broke out. Ezra Clemence was the last Civil War veteran to
die.
Ezra
Clemence was among the first to answer President Lincoln's call and he
enlisted in the Union Army in April, 1861, the month the war broke out.
He served in the NY Scott's Life Guards for two years. Then he
re-enlisted in the 61st Pennsylvania and served until the end of the war
in 1865. He then went to sea for about 15 years and visited nearly
every port in Europe and along our Pacific coast. One voyage, he was
wrecked off the Spanish coast but survived. On another voyage he
experienced another close call off the coast of Ireland. Eventually Ezra
Clemence returned home to his native land and to the home of his
parents in Blue Point.
In
1883, he married Henrietta H. Smith, who was Postmaster of Blue Point
from 1881 until 1886. In Blue Point, Ezra Clemence served as a Deputy
Sheriff for many years and was also the attendance officer of Blue Point
School. He was active in the Blue Point Mutual Benefit Association and
in 1901 was named its Chaplain. Henrietta Clemence died in 1910 at the
age of seventy-seven and is buried in Blue Point Cemetery.
When
Ezra Clemence died in 1921, aged eighty-one, he was one of the last
surviving members of the Richard J. Clark G.A.R. Post of Patchogue. He,
too, is buried in Blue Point Cemetery, an honored veteran and an honored
Blue Pointer.
