Martin's Station Chapter Combines with the Ohio and West Virginia SAR to Save and Honor the Remains of a Revolutionary War Soldier in Kentucky

12 May 2017                                                       Loyall, KY

report by Jerry Phillips of the Martin's Station Chapter

Link to television report on the ceremony here.

     Private Samuel Howard was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War who served in the Virginia Line in Captain Mayo Carrington’s Company. It was said that he was with General Washington at the Battle of Yorktown during the surrender of the British in 1781. After the war Howard moved with wife Chloe to what is now Harlan County, Kentucky and becoming the first white settler in the area. Samuel Howard passed away in 1840 at the age of 78.
     Samuel, his wife Chloe and an infant child were buried in the Highbank Cemetery near Baxter, Ky. In the1970s the Howard family graves were relocated to the Wix Howard Cemetery in Loyall, Ky. due to highway construction.
In the summer of 2016 there was a landslide at the Wix Howard cemetery, which threatened to push the graves into the Cumberland River. A defect in a flood control project that had been constructed next to the cemetery by the United States Army Corps of Engineers was the causing factor of the landslide.  After hard work by Howard descendants, local politicians and US Rep. Harold Rogers the USACE agreed to relocate the graves again to the Resthhaven Cemetery at Loyall, Ky.  The remains were exhumed in 2016 and stored until the re-interment.
     The USACE had a Re-interment Ceremony for the Howards on May 12, 2017. Participating in the service was United States Army Corps of Engineer officers, The 3rd United States Infantry Regiment, traditionally known as “The Old Guard,” descendants of Samuel Howard, and Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.

Brigadier General R. Mark Toy, USACE Commander of the Great Lakes and the Ohio River Division, presents Sharon Osborne with the US Flag.

The United States Infantry Regiment , “The Old Guard,” SAR Members L to R- Larry Collins, Cincinnati Chapter Ohio Society, Rev. Dennis Kinzer, Chaplain, General Hugh Mercer Chapter West Virginia Society, John Henry Bredenfoerder, President Cincinnati Chapter, William “Bill” Cheak ,Vice President, Martin’s Station Chapter Virginia Society, Thomas Coker, President, Martin’s Station Chapter, Chris Hamlin, Cincinnati Chapter, Jerry Phillips, Martin’s Station Chapter