Harwich Gained More Than 100 Revolutionary Soldiers After 2022

HARWICH · EVERGREEN CEMETERY

The town counted 284 veterans in 2022. Its roster now runs to RW 449, and one note shows how hard the counting gets.

4 min read · A Celebrate Lower Cape spotlight

Bangs Atwood, Elkanah Bangs, Edward Covell, John Davis, Josiah Ellis, Joseph Freeman, Giles Hopkins, Isaac Laha, Daniel Phillips, Thomas Ralph, Enoch Ross, Ebenezer Snow, Edward Snow, Samuel Snow, Herman Tobey, Crocker Young, John Young.

Those are the 17 Harwich men who died fighting for independence between 1775 and 1783, according to Cemetery Administrator Robbin Kelley, in a list the Chronicle printed in July. They are a small part of a much longer roll. On Oct. 24 Harwich dedicated a memorial to all of its Revolutionary veterans on the Walk of Remembrance at Evergreen Cemetery in East Harwich.

About 125 people came, and the Chronicle's report says the memorial honors more than 400 soldiers. A town record from 2022 says 284. How does a war that ended in 1783 gain more than 100 soldiers in under four years?

Every letter of 284 names carried a charge

The first number comes from Kelley herself. On Dec. 8, 2022, she took the project to the Community Preservation Committee, and the minutes describe the work. The veterans agency and the DAR set the rules for who could be listed, and she "followed the trail in the handwritten documents, going through name changes, location changes, etc.," to reach "some 284 veterans from the Revolutionary War, and 146 veterans for the Civil War."

The same minutes note what stood in town at the time: "a small memorial plaque honoring veterans, but no names are listed."

On Feb. 9, 2023, the committee voted 7 to 1 for $256,282.40, covering the Revolutionary and Civil War memorials together, and the count went into the record a second time, attached to a price: "each letter of the 284 memorial names will be a charge." Voters approved the money that May.

Brewster can't close the gap alone

Your first guess may be Brewster. Until 1803 Brewster was Harwich's North Precinct, and Sally Gunning wrote in the Chronicle this summer that over 40 of its residents fought in the war.

The minutes speak to that without settling it. Right after the 284, they say "Brewster was a part of Harwich during the Revolutionary War, so those veterans will be included on our memorial." They don't say whether those men were already in the count. Even if none were, "over 40" leaves most of the gap open.

The higher numbers arrive later, without an explanation attached. In May 2025, historian Lynne Zalesak of the Harwich Historical Society put the figure at about 450, North Precinct men included. This Memorial Day, moved indoors by rain, she spoke of more than 400. So did the guest speaker.

Someone left a note in the rank column

The town's memorial site keeps a public roster. As of this week it runs from RW 1 to RW 449, and by our count 444 of those rows carry a name. Beside RW 290, in the column meant for rank, someone left a working note: "Check this one might be 2 Thomas Mayo."

There are two Thomas Mayo rows, one who died in 1778 and one in 1825. One name can hide two men, and two entries can hide one. Every number in this story sits on that problem.

It reaches the 17. All of them are on the roster, but the roster has an Ebenezer Snow who died July 7, 1803, twenty years after the peace, and a John Young who lived until 1829. Neither record says whether those are the men Kelley counted among the dead or namesakes who outlived them. A row for John Chase, born in 1775, says he "died Battle of Chrysler Field" on Nov. 11, 1813, the date of the War of 1812 battle at Crysler's Farm.

None of this says the work was careless. The minutes call the research "extensive." Paper this old only goes so far. The town's memorial site says granite pillars are planned to carry the names, and what we couldn't confirm from anything posted online is how many names they carry.

The column with 237 blanks

The roster's last column is burial location, and in 237 of the 449 rows it's empty. Kelley told the committee in 2023 that more Harwich veterans lie in Dennis and that a number were buried at sea. The filled-in rows go further: Maine, Indiana, a Brooklyn prison ship for Elkanah Bangs in 1777. Thomas Ralph's reads Old Mill Prison, England, Jan. 21, 1782, and his birth year on that row, 1722, would have made him about 59. The Chronicle says he is listed as "Indian Yarmouth." He is one of at least 12 Harwich men of African or Native American descent Zalesak has named, and she said at Memorial Day that they are "a segment that is very rarely thought of."

Harwich has lost paper before. The Exchange fire of 1876 took many early town records with it.

Kelley's own description of the project is the plainest. "This project is about more than memorials," she told the Chronicle before the dedication. "It is about remembering the people who came before us, preserving their stories, and making sure future generations understand the sacrifices that made our freedom possible."

The memorial at Evergreen is dedicated. The roster, as of this week, still carries five rows with no name, a Thomas Mayo who might be two men, and RW 8, Bangs Atwood, whose burial column reads "Reported Deceased."

KEEP READING

Other towns went looking for their soldiers too

Two more towns' Revolutionary paper trails, and the fire that cost Harwich some of its own.