Community Corner

Hidden Gems of Hartford and Tolland Counties

The latest trip to a hidden gem takes us to a true history lesson tucked inside a cemetery.

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The Civil War monument in Vernon.
The Civil War monument in Vernon. (Chris Dehnel/Patch)

VERNON, CT — This week's trip to a hidden gem in Hartford and Tolland counties takes us to one of the best-kept secrets in Vernon — a Civil War textbook unto itself.

But just finding is a battle unto itself.

It's the Civil War monument at Mt. Hope Cemetery. The cemetery sits off Main Street in the Talcottville section of Vernon, an area off Route 83 just over the Manchester line whose roots run deep in the town's history of manufacturing.

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The Talcott family owned one of those mills (since converted to housing) and, in 1867, set up a cemetery tucked into a corner of the village near what is now 100 Main St. Trouble is, the tucking was done so well it can take several swoops in a car to figure out where it is, even though a historical marker designates the spot.

The driveway to Mt. Hope runs between two houses, but then opens up to green pastures, rolling hills and monuments — a lot of monuments. And one monument stands out — the Civil War memorial, erected in 1869.

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(Chris Dehnel/Patch)

The soldiers whose names appear on the stone structure represent a Civil War textbook from the bloodiest day in American history to the most infamous prison camp of the conflict.

Take a look at who is on the monument:

  • Capt. Frank Stoughton, Company D, 14th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. He's the ranking soldier on the monument and he died on Jan. 1, 1866. He lived for nine months after Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox. The regiment was involved in 34 major battles and skirmishes, and there is a display noting its record of service on a wall at the New England Civil War Museum at the Vernon Town Hall. The battles the 14th fought include Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor.
  • Horace Hunn, Company B, 16th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Hunn died in a hospital in Maryland on Oct. 12, 1862, two days shy of a month after the Battle of Antietam. According to a feature on the monument on stonesentinels.com, the regiment engaged 779 soldiers and suffered 43 killed and 161 wounded at Antietam.
  • Philip Foster, Company B, 16th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Foster died at the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, considered the bloodiest day in American military history. The Civil War Trust places the casualty total at 22,717 as 87,000 Union troops slugged it out with 45,000 Confederates.
  • Henry Loomis, Company B, 16th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Loomis drowned in the Potomac on April 24, 1865. It was a day when troops were dispatched up and down the river in search of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Booth was located and killed by Federal troops two days later.
  • Alonzo Hills, Company B, 16th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Hills died in a Charleston, SC, prison camp on Oct. 6, 1864. In April 1864, the 16th was defending the garrison at Plymouth, NC, and, vastly outnumbered, was forced to surrender.
  • James Bushnell, Company B, 16th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Bushnell died on Nov. 15, 1862, nearly two months after Antietam. The troops had loaded their muskets for the first time the day before the battle.
  • Orrin Brown, Company A, 106th Regiment, New York Volunteers. Brown died of typhoid fever on April 22, 1863, according to a history of the regiment on dam.ny.gov, disease ravaged the troops during the war.
  • Francis Brantley, Company H, 6th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. Brantley died at the notorious prison camp in Andersonville, GA. He was one of about 45,000 who perished there because of disease, starvation and abuse.

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The Hidden Gems series features out-of-the-way mom and pop restaurants, small specialty stores you may have never heard of, little-known historical markers or beautiful nature spots that may be a bit off the beaten path, all located within Hartford and Tolland counties. Do you have a favorite "hidden gem" in the area that you wish to see featured in this column? Email your ideas to tim.jensen@patch.com.
Other columns in this series:

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