CHERRYFIELD, Maine — The Saturday before Veterans Day, the members of Narraguagus American Legion Post 8, Cherryfield, gathered to honor another Cherryfield veteran.
Civil War veteran Pvt. Benjamin D. Willey received full military honors, thanks to Civil War re-enactors, during a ceremony dedicating his new gravestone.
Willey’s grave is located in the William Willey Jr. family plot, off Bion Willey Lane and Ridge Road in Cherryfield. It is not accessible by car. Legion members and others attending the ceremony had to walk about a half mile into the woods.
“That cemetery was seriously overgrown,” said Legion Adjutant Peter Duston.
Legion member Jonathan Gay got volunteers to clear it for the ceremony, Duston said.
“Every single stone in the cemetery had been knocked down,” said Gay. “That’s when we noticed the Civil War stone [Benjamin Willey’s grave marker] just crumbled.”
Duston said the site of Willey’s grave had a flag holder but no gravestone.
“It always presented itself as a mystery,” he said.
He researched the cemetery for two years and obtained a replacement gravestone from the government.
Duston received the new stone “a couple of months ago,” he said. At that time, he began working to organize a ceremony. Almost a dozen re-enactors from Company B, 20th Maine Infantry, came to provide Willey with full military honors.
Gay said he placed the new stone in the cemetery Nov. 5, carrying it to the site in a backpack.
According to research done by the Legion members, Willey enlisted Oct. 10, 1861, at the age of 18. The Cherryfield native joined Company C of the 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry.
He was wounded the first time May 31, 1862, at Fair Oaks, Virginia. He re-enlisted as a veteran volunteer on Jan. 4, 1864.
He was wounded again Aug. 14, 1864, at Deep Bottom, Virginia. He left the service April 20, 1865, and died a year later from his injuries.
One of nine children, Willey had two brothers, Loring and Alonzo, who also were killed in the war.