Valcour Island’s Unknown Soldiers Are Finally Laid to Rest

The soldier’s teeth sat on a shelf for 159 years. To whom they belonged — and where the rest of him went — no one knows. But how they came to rest in the wreckage of a Revolutionary War battleship 60 feet below the surface of Lake Champlain is pretty clear.

The gunboat Philadelphia sank on the first day of the Battle of Valcour Island when a British cannonball punched a hole at the waterline. Unable to plug it, the surviving crew jumped onto the American galley Washington. Many were taken prisoner by the British and later released.

Other, less fortunate soldiers went down with the ship or were rescued or went missing. The dead lay on the bottom of Lake Champlain for 159 years, until 1935, when diver Lorenzo Hagglund discovered the wreckage — and with it several teeth, part of a human skull and some arm bones.

The *Philadelphia* raised from Lake Champlain in 1935 Credit: Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution

Over the years the soldiers’ partial remains were scattered or lost. Three teeth ended up at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., along with the Philadelphia, the country’s oldest surviving warship. Others were found at the Science Museum of Oklahoma, though no one is sure how they got there. Military records list all 44 Philadelphia crewmen, but six have never been accounted for until now. They are: Ebenezar Bailey of Bolton, Mass.; John Leach, Moses Stephens, Benjamin Walker and Daniel Whitworth, all of New Hampshire; and Ezekiah Budthomas, whose residence is unknown. What researchers don’t know is what happened to them, or whose remains are whose.

On Tuesday, October 13, at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in Schuylerville, N.Y., the U.S. military, working with the Smithsonian, will honor the unknown with a military funeral dedicated to all those who died on the Philadelphia.

At the ceremony, an honor guard will carry a full-size casket containing only the teeth to the cemetery.

Prior to that, a member of the New Hampshire National Guard will fly to Oklahoma and collect the teeth of the Philadelphia serviceman stored there. The Guard member will then fly to Washington, D.C., to pick up the Smithsonian’s teeth, before flying to New York, where a funeral home will place them all in a silver casket for the ceremony in Saratoga, according to Greg Gardner, chief of the Army’s Past Conflicts Resolution Branch. The Smithsonian has scheduled a news conference to detail this effort on October 8.

At the October 13 ceremony, an honor guard will carry a full-size casket containing only the teeth to the cemetery. Seven soldiers will fire three shots each in a 21-gun salute, followed by taps played by a bugler. The U.S. flag atop the casket will be folded and presented to the cemetery.

A tombstone for unknown soldiers killed on the *Philadelphia* Credit: Courtesy of Gerald B.H.Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery

The Army has prepared a granite headstone reading:

UNKNOWN SOLDIERS
CONTINENTAL ARMY
GUNBOAT PHILADELPHIA
BATTLE OF VALCOUR ISLAND
LAKE CHAMPLAIN NY
OCT 11 1776

“This dignified and honorable interment on the 250th anniversary of the battle in which they fought recognizes their place in our history and ensures their service is remembered with the gratitude and reverence it deserves,” a statement from the U.S. Army’s Human Resources Command said.

Years ago, using technology of the time to preserve the wood and prevent shrinkage, the Philadelphia was painted with liquid nylon, which eventually became brittle and worsened its condition. It is now undergoing a $1.7 million effort to clean and conserve it, a process that requires removing embedded nylon.

The Philadelphia, described by the Smithsonian as a “national treasure,” still radiates its blue-collar glory. Hagglund, the first human to see her 159 years after she slipped to the bottom of Valcour Bay, wrote:

“Compared to our modern vessels, she is little more than a rowboat, yet this was a gunboat of the American Revolution. In her there was life. Underneath those worn jackets were hearts that beat for freedom. There was a willingness to fight and a readiness to die for a cause they believed to be just … Recovered from the bottom of the lake, she is but the shell of the vessel that served with the first American fleet, like the shell of an acorn from which life has gone — but from which an oak has grown.” ➆

The original print version of this article was headlined “The Teeth of Battle | The Battle of Valcour Island’s unknown soldiers are finally laid to rest”