PRINTER'S NO. 3506
No. 488 Session of 2000
INTRODUCED BY BENNINGHOFF, HERMAN, HANNA, GEORGE, ADOLPH,
ARMSTRONG, BASTIAN, BIRMELIN, BUNT, CLARK, DALEY, DiGIROLAMO,
DRUCE, GEIST, HARHART, HENNESSEY, HESS, LYNCH, MAJOR,
MASLAND, McILHATTAN, McILHINNEY, MICOZZIE, NICKOL, ORIE,
PHILLIPS, RAYMOND, SATHER, SEMMEL, S. H. SMITH, STAIRS,
STERN, TIGUE, TRUE, VANCE, WILT AND ZIMMERMAN, MAY 9, 2000
INTRODUCED AS NONCONTROVERSIAL RESOLUTION UNDER RULE 35,
MAY 9, 2000
A RESOLUTION
1 Designating the Village of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, as the
2 official birthplace of Memorial Day in the fall of 1864.
3 WHEREAS, Sophie Keller Hall wrote the chapter in the history
4 of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment entitled
5 "The Sister's Story" about Sophie Keller Hall, Emma Hunter
6 Stuart and Elizabeth Myers; and
7 WHEREAS, The Commander of the 148th Regiment, the Centre
8 County Regiment, was Colonel James A. Beaver, a future Governor
9 of Pennsylvania; and
10 WHEREAS, Colonel Beaver wrote a prefatory note to "The
11 Sister's Story" in which he says that he had the pleasure of
12 meeting Mrs. Sophie C. Hall, nee Keller, sister of Corporal
13 Daniel S. Keller of G Company. Colonel Beaver says that "Mrs.
14 Hall gave some account of the manner in which the Company was
15 enlisted and of the scenes which attended that enlistment." He
1 immediately asked her to put what she said in writing, "so that
2 it would give, in some measure at least, an insight into the
3 life of the mothers and sisters who remained at home during our
4 Civil War"; and
5 WHEREAS, The 148th Regiment's Adjutant, James A. Muffly,
6 compiled the stories of the Regimental History and provides a
7 footnote to "The Sister's Story" in which Adjutant Muffly says
8 that: "In Mrs. Hall's letter enclosing the manuscript...called
9 'The Sister's Story,' I find a very interesting contribution to
10 the literature relating to incidents which preceded and led up
11 to the establishment of the Grand Army Memorial Day." Mrs. Hall
12 says that in 1864 Emma Hunter and she went to the Boalsburg
13 Cemetery to decorate her father's grave. "While making a cross
14 of flowers and wreath of same, the idea suggested itself to us
15 that it would be appropriate considering the day to decorate all
16 of the graves of the soldiers buried there"; and
17 WHEREAS, According to Adjutant Muffly, this date of
18 decoration was at least four or five years prior to the
19 ordinance passed by the United States setting May 30th as the
20 day for decorating graves of those duly honored; and
21 WHEREAS, Beath's "History of the Grand Army" states that
22 soldiers' graves were decorated at Waterloo, New York, May 27,
23 1866, and at Cincinnati in 1867. The formal order of Commander-
24 in-Chief Logan of the Grand Army establishing the Memorial Day
25 was dated May 5, 1868; therefore be it
26 RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives designate the
27 Village of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, as the official birthplace
28 of Memorial Day in the fall of 1864.
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