“Washington’s Unknown Tuckahoe 1776”

Editor’s Note: All passages in italics are excerpts from an article titled “Washington’s Unknown Tuckahoe 1776,” which ran in The Eastchester Citizen Bulletin on Wednesday, February 28, 1923. All additional information was provided by Alice and Phil White of the Tuckahoe Historical Society, who were extremely welcoming, helpful, and instrumental to the creation of this piece.

This story begins in very much the same fashion that it ends – cloaked in mystery and uncertainty, obscured and confused by rumors, folklore, and the unavoidable eraser of facts and verifiable records: Time.

It’s starting point, however, is fairly certain. Tuckahoe, 1908. Workmen in the area of Cronin’s Hill and Winter Hill unearth bones, approximately twenty skeletons in all. After considerable speculation, it is decided that the skeletons are those of Revolutionary War soldiers. Two of the remains are of children, leading to the conclusion that these were not army regulars, but members of the local militias that took part in the numerous skirmishes around the nearby Ward House. All accounts point to the fact that these bones were not immediately buried, but instead stored in various locations – including Village Hall – before ultimately being handed over to the Bronx chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who buried them at St. Paul’s Church in Eastchester. This was 1910.

Fastforward 12 years, and in 1922, another skeleton is found, this time by workers excavating a site near Midland Place. With World War I still very much alive in the minds of Americans, Tuckahoe Village leaders decide a spectacular and ceremonial burial was is order.

The patriotic people of Tuckahoe instantly took notice of the fact that one of Washington’s soldiers had his grave taken away from his and was graveless.

The soldier – no more than a boy when he was killed – was celebrated as “Washington’s Unknown,” and honored the following year on February 22, 1993, President George Washingon’s birthday.

By that ceremony in which all Tuckahoe participated in full view of the nation, Tuckahoe has assumed a national responsibility. A grave must be found for the graveless boy who personifies the rank and file of the army of the War or Independence. A funeral must be provided worth of this nation’s hero. A suitable monument must designate his final resting place as testimony of a nation’s devoted love and as earnest that he will not again be cast out of his resting place by the march of commercial progress and the forgetfulness of his beneficiaries. Tuckahoe must and will see that these things are done, and that they are done befittingly to the nation’s pride and its enduring patriotism.

On that day, thousands flooded the streets of Tuckahoe to pay homage to Washington’s Unknown. The papers called it the Greatest Public Assemblage in Village History.

The Village Hall was draped in American flags, every business house and every residence in Tuckahoe hung out a flag. General John J. Pershing, General of the United States Armies, sent two officers of his staff with a wreath, as a tribute of the army of today to the first army of the Republic.

Representatives from the 48 states of the Union also sent flowers, and the four hour ceremony was attended by a number county and state officials, as well as members of all the major patriotic organizations, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Daughters of the American Revolution, who acted as grand patronesses of the arrangements. John Francis Hylan, Major of New York City, sent his regrets for not being able to attend the ceremony.

For three hours and a half the silent procession winded its way slowly and reverently through the rotunda of the Village Hall. Wreaths and flowers were heaped on the casket and on the floor around it. Then along the walls of the rotunda wreaths were placed on top of wreaths for lack of space.

Every head was bowed…Many eyes were dimmed with tears but no word was spoken. Tears for an unknown who had been dead for six generations of time. He may have been a farmer boy, half clad, half armed, half fed, when he fell. Now he personifies the Army of the Revolution.

He was one of the rebels who made Tuckahoe Hills bloody but glorious in the long, bitter struggle for Independence. He died on Tuckahoe Hill, one of the many that fought and fell there in every one of the seven years of war, He, with the rest, was buried at the foot of the hill, almost in the centre of Tuckahoe, today.

On the boy’s coffin, inscribed on a silver plate, read the words:

Washington’s Unknown Soldier

Tuckahoe, New York.

1776.

After the ceremony Thursday, the remains of the Unknown were placed in the vault in the basement of the Village Hall. There they will be enclosed with masonry, to remain until the day of the funeral.

That day, unfortunately, would not come for many years to follow. How many exactly, still remains a mystery. Following the ceremony on Washington’s birthday, and unable to agree on a proper burial place for the boy, village officials seemed content on keeping the bones in the basement of Town Hall. A little over a decade later, they were no longer there. 

According to a number of accounts, Washington’s Unknown did in fact receive a proper burial, although his grave – most likely located in the vicinity of the World War I monument built near Winter Hill in 1930 – was yet again left unmarked. What a number of accounts also reveal is that wherever he was laid down, Washington’s Unknown, and Tuckahoe’s young hero, was buried with the very same object and symbol he, and countless others, died for some 230 years ago: an American flag.