Headstone arrives for Civil War soldier at Alms House Cemetery
Provided photo: Albion eighth-graders Mary McCormick (left) and Kendall Peruzzini (right) are shown with Craig Lane of the Orleans County Department of Public Works after a headstone was delivered for a Civil War soldier buried in an unmarked grave at the Alms House Cemetery on West Countyhouse Road. The public is invited to a dedication ceremony this spring on May 17 at the cemetery.
ALBION – For more than a century, Daniel Walterhouse has been buried in an unmarked grave at the Alms House Cemetery on West Countyhouse Road.
That will change in the spring when a headstone is placed by at the cemetery for Walterhouse, who served with 4th Michigan Infantry during the Civil War.
Two Albion eighth-graders, Kendall Peruzzini and Mary McCormick, spent part of their summer vacation, researching Walterhouse and preparing the application for a headstone.
Tim Archer, the student’s service learning teacher, was tipped off that Walterhouse served in the Civil War by researcher in Michigan, George Wilkinson. He includes many documents about the 4th Michigan Infantry on a website. Wilkinson came across a news clipping that Walterhouse was living in Western New York after serving in the war.
Walterhouse was wounded in 1862 after being was stabbed with a sword in a battle.
Walterhouse and about 200 other residents were buried in a cemetery not far from the Alms House, which was a home for penniless, destitute, sick and others with infirmities and challenges.
Walterhouse lived there for about a decade. He was 87 when he died in 1910.
Peruzzini and McCormick scoured records from more than a century ago, working with Orleans County Historian Catherine Cooper and Albion Town Historian Sarah Basinait.
They were able to prove Union soldier Daniel Walterhouse was buried in an unmarked grave at the cemetery about 114 years ago. They found a death record and a 1902 ledger from the Orleans County Alms House listing him as a resident.
The Alms House or “Poor House” was open from 1833 to 1960. It closed in 1960 when the county nursing home opened on Route 31 in Albion.
Peruzzini, McCormick and their teacher Tim Archer submitted an application to the National Cemetery Administration, seeking a headstone for Walterhouse. That headstone has arrived and will be set in the spring by the Orleans County Department of Public Works.
There will be a dedication ceremony for the public to attend on May 17, Archer said.
