WEST FARMS 145 



the cemetery is Captain William J. Rasberry, of Company C, Sixth 

 New York Artillery who was killed during "Sheridan's Ride," 

 at Cedar Creek, Va., October 19th, 1864, while leading his men up 

 the hill. Within the plot are the remains of eleven soldiers, two 

 of them of the War of 1812. 



During the Civil War, many individual soldiers enlisted from 

 all parts of the Borough, while the following companies were re- 

 cruited almost wholly in the places given; Sixth Artillery, Com- 

 pany C, wholly, and Company K, partially, at West Farms; Com- 

 pany H, in Morrisiana; Fifth Infantry (Duryea's Zouaves), 

 Company F, partially, in Fordham; Seventeenth Infantry, Com- 

 pany C, Morrisiana; One Hundred Seventy-sixth Infantry (Iron- 

 sides), Company G, in Pelham. 



When the "Copperhead" element of the Borough read, on 

 July 14th, 1863, of the riotous resistance to the draft on Manhattan 

 Island the preceding day, they banded together, attacked the draft 

 offices at Morrisania and West Farms and destroyed the lists. They 

 then demolished the telegraph offices in Melrose and Williams- 

 bridge and proceeded to tear up the rails of the Harlem and New 

 Haven Railroads in order to prevent the arrival of troops and 

 outside assistance. They did not, however, go the lengths of 

 their rebellious neighbors. The mobs were soon quieted by the 

 appeals of Supervisor Caldwell and Pierre C. Talman. 



On the evening of the fifteenth a meeting was held in the town 

 hall of Tremont where the crowd was addressed by John B. Haskin 

 and Pierre C. Talman. The speakers managed the mass of excited 

 and ignorant men with considerable diplomacy, first flattering them 

 with the statement that they were right in their resistance to the 

 draft, and then appealing to their sense of self-respect and order. 

 The mob was finally pacified by the appointment of a committee "to 

 wait on Moses G. Sheard, Esq., Federal Provost Marshal of the 

 district, to insist that the draft be stopped till the State could de- 

 cide whether it was constitutional." At the same time the news 

 that troops had arrived in New York and discomfited the mobs 

 there also acted as a tonic, and quiet and order were once more re- 

 stored. * 



The Isaac Varian homestead, also known as the Valentine 

 House, at Van Cortlandt Avenue and Woodlawn Road, was erected 



* Stephen Jenkins, The Story of the Bronx. 



