Crab Island: A tribute to veterans

PLATTSBURGH | Crossing a white-capped lake from the Peru docks to Crab Island, skipper and volunteer caretaker Roger Harwood angled the bow against the waves. He settled it skillfully on a pebbled edge of shore. Even in late October, the island's thick forest was a vivid green. "It's warmer here," Harwood said of overdue autumn color. He and a few partners have mowed and tended to the island's historic paths and lawns for over 20 years. The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation owns and interprets it as Crab Island State Park. Unlike Valcour Island, it is not part of the Adirondack Park. Harwood clears a trail system revealed on old maps. He uses mowers and a saw brought by boat to cut back brush, remove blown down trees and hold poison ivy at bay. He keeps the lawn neatly mowed around the 100-foot flagpole dedicated to veterans and the memorial stones with the names of men known to be buried here. He keeps a swath of open space around the 50-foot granite obelisk that honors them. Slowly, the property has emerged as a sanctuary for veterans and for those laid to rest here. The first flag pole was raised in 1903. The granite obelisk was commissioned by the U.S. Army Plattsburgh Barracks command in 1908, six years shy of a century after the Battle of Plattsburgh. Both had been left untended as ownership shifted through the mid-1900s. Harwood has been resolute in his quiet effort to help reclaim the park. He fished the missing wrought iron gate for the monument's fence from the lake years ago, repaired it and set it back in place. "I was going by here every few days," he said of what inspired him. "I wanted to do it. It's a special place." ONCE A NATIONAL PARK Forest covers the island like a cloak. The trail rises slightly in elevation toward its center where open woods are scrubbed with yew. The landscape flattens there and might once have been a field. The island's first resident, Caleb Nichols, an early Plattsburgh attorney, farmed four acres of Crab Island, according to Clinton County Historical Association records. Nichols used another three acres as pasture for his cow. His island farm was seized by the military in 1814 for use as a field hospital, giving the land a military name: Hospital Island. Perimeter and middle trails on Crab Island negotiate unmarked burial grounds and an unidentified site of the early U.S. Army field hospital. Harwood has placed a few, plain markers on trees to help people find their way. Paths follow remnants of gravel walkways built when the obelisk went up and, for about seven years, was maintained as Macdonough National Military Park. "You can see what's left of the gravel here," Harwood said, pointing to the stony ground underfoot. The federal government auctioned the island as surplus in 1967 without mentioning the burial site. It sold to a private owner for a low bid of $40,200. About two decades later, another private owner planned development on Crab Island. At the urging of its citizens, the Town of Plattsburgh added land-use zoning on the 40-plus acres to preserve its history. Area veterans, residents and City of Plattsburgh Historian James G. Bailey pressed the state to take ownership. New York State purchased the island by eminent domain in 1988. In "The Forgotten Graves of Crab Island", Bailey noted for posterity: "At 11 a.m. on Jan. 11, 1988 -- 174 and 1/2 years to the hour from Macdonough's victory -- papers for state ownership of Crab Island were filed in the County Clerk's office." State Parks has added interpretive signage that outlines the monument and flag poles were built and repaired. Hints of various stewardship efforts on Crab Island are visible from the trails: The square foundation of a caretaker's cottage, its chimney still upright; a weather-worn ice house; an old U.S. Air Force campfire pit. Short lengths of narrow gauge rail near the shore tell of a temporary railroad built to move stone for the memorial obelisk. For Harwood, each artifact is a page in Crab Island's hidden story. "Crab Island is unique because mankind's sporadic intervention over the last couple centuries have shaped the natural vegetation to what it is today," he said. "The trails now allow us to enjoy it. I know when I go up the trail toward the monument, I'm jolted when it appears." A MILITARY HOSPITAL Past the monument, the perimeter trail skirts a swampy stretch of shoreline before reaching the northern rocky point overlooking Cumberland Bay. Harwood placed a small sign on a tree to indicate where a two-gun battery defended the field hospital in September 1814. Walking east around the battery and turning south, the forest becomes less dense. It's hard to envision how or where dozens of U.S. Army tents might have been arranged for the sick and wounded. But military records show over 700 men needing immediate medical attention were brought to Crab Island before and after Sept. 11, 1814. U.S. Army Doctor James Mann described field hospital conditions in a report written in 1814 to help the U.S. Army improve medical response near battlefields. Some 720 men sick from an outbreak of typhus and dysentery were moved to Crab Island as the British began to sail south from Canada. Hospitals in Plattsburgh were burned to prevent enemy occupation. "In consequence of the precipitate removal of the sick (from Plattsburgh) to Crab Island, in conformity to the orders of General Mc'Comb of the 5th of September, the day previous to the investment of Plattsburgh by the British army, no straw was procured for their accommodation," Dr. Mann wrote. "The sick were consequently lodged under tents upon wet ground, during two or three days of wet weather." Hundreds of those same troops were then evacuated by bateau 25 miles across Lake Champlain to Burlington Hospital. The last few crossed the lake on the morning of Sept. 11, 1814 as ships anchored for a fight. The field hospital on Crab Island then became essentially what is now called a MASH unit, a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. "The wounded of both fleets, as well as the army, were ordered to Crab Island encampment, under my immediate charge. Within four days more than thirty amputations were performed on the United States' troops and seamen, and the British prisoners of war. A variety of gun-shot wounds came under my observation," Dr. Mann wrote in Sketches of the Campaigns of 1812, 13, 14. American and British soldiers and sailors who didn't survive were buried in three trenches on Crab Island, south of the hospital, according to historic accounts. There is no formal archaeological record to mark the location. Bailey's research cites the journals of Dr. David Kellogg, who in 1886 interviewed people that witnessed events in 1814. Simeon Doty's accounts of the hospital have factored heavily in reconvening history: "Inside the tents the scene was terrible. ... Men were constantly carrying out the dead on rude biers made of poles to the burial grounds south of the tents." Doty said the burial trenches were dug north to south. "Americans and British together," he said, "were placed, some rolled in blankets, others only in their ordinary clothing, their heads placed to the west and their faces downward." No written accounts tells how the makeshift surgical unit was built. But Doty's description suggests two long buildings each held two rows of cots for the wounded. Caleb Nichols' billed the government $615 for damages to his land, including costs for dismantling his cabin, presumably to build the surgical facility. A line in his bill sought $150 "for burying 150 men on the island." The trails kept trim on Crab Island venture through the island's still center. Old oaks and maples, some more than four feet wide, shade the forest floor. It's a challenge to imagine how far into Crab Island a cannonball could reach. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT The importance of the unmarked hospital site is noted in an Archaeological Assessment done in 2019 for the City of Plattsburgh by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. The research was funded through the American Battlefield Protection Program run by the National Park Service. The report assessed numerous historic military sites in Plattsburgh and surrounding towns, including Plattsburgh Bay, Crab Island, Valcour Island, and Forts Brown, Scott and Moreau. Archaeologists noted the significance of a military hospital site on Crab Island and its link to the unmarked graves. "It is unclear how many of those people survived their surgeries and from other written accounts of wounded and dead, how many more of those wounded also died and were buried on Crab Island in the days after the battle," the report says. "The commonly reported figure of 150 burials and the short lists of names of dead soldiers accounted for should be interpreted as a very conservative estimate." BATTLEFIELD MEMORIAL For Harwood, the entire island is hallowed ground. "I'm not a veteran," the retired Industrial Arts teacher said. "But these soldiers, like in other wars, never got to go home to their families, to see their kids grow, have more children, or even fight for their country another day. "That's why I come here: to honor them in the best way I can." Crab Island's trails are tied into plans for the Battlefield Memorial Gateway Park, which is designed to connect past and present and to honor all veterans of every American war. The first three phases of the park are expected to be complete by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Phase One to clear and lay a framework for the inland area in the Town of Plattsburgh began this year and is nearly done, according to Supervisor Michael Cashman. The town, state elected officials and the Clinton County American Legion are actively raising funds to continue the work. Phases Two and Three will build sites for reflection, trails and waterfront recreation on the mainland shore of Lake Champlain, about a mile from Crab Island. Phase Four connects the gateway to historic sites on Crab and Valcour islands. "In particular, the Battlefield Memorial Gateway project is looking to draw attention to Crab Island and the veterans that are buried there," Cashman said. "We're looking for it to become a living tribute, a bridge between the past and the present, a gateway." There's so much history in our back yard, he said. "The Battlefield Memorial Gateway is about people coming to show respect for our veterans and to encourage people to explore and experience all of the places that connect us."

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Crab Island: A tribute to veterans

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