Samuel Finkbone was a 44-year-old farmer from Ontelaunee Township.
“He wasn’t a guy who joined the army to join the army like a young guy,” said Civil War historian Ben Varner, standing at Finkbone’s gravesite behind St. John’s Gernant’s Church in Ontelaunee Township. “He joined the army to keep the nation together.”
Finkbone was in the 128th Pennsylvania, a nine-month regiment composed of support personnel who ended up in the heat of battle, Varner said.
Halfway through his enlistment with only minimal training, Finkbone and the rest of his regiment were dispatched to Antietam, near Sharpsburg, Md., on Sept. 17, 1862.
The battle at Antietam resulted in 22,000 killed or wounded, Varner said.
“In the morning near the cornfield, which is one of the most famous spots in the battlefield, the 128th was placed in what’s called the East Woods,” Varner said. “As the battle was raging over the cornfield, they were moved forward to flank the Confederates, and found themselves outflanked.
“That’s where he died.”
Of the 51 Civil War veterans buried at St. John’s, Finkbone is the only one who was killed in action.
“He was just an ordinary person who joined and went through extraordinary circumstances,” Varner said.
Varner will tell the story of Finkbone and many other Civil War veterans buried in St. John’s Gernant’s cemetery during a special program Sunday at 1 p.m. in the church at 13 Gernant’s Church Road.
Lara Thomas will speak about the 11 Revolutionary War soldiers buried there, including John Gernant, who deeded 23 acres for the church and graveyard in 1795.
St. John’s Gernant’s Church historian Mary Jean Kauffman, left, and Pastor Fran Merkel stand at the gravesite of John Gernant, a Revolutionary War veteran who deeded land on which the church and cemetery would be located in Ontelaunee Township. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
There will also be demonstrations on how to properly clean old tombstones, and participants in the program can walk the cemetery to see the graves of the soldiers, which will be marked.
For Varner, a Centerport resident, St. John’s was the beginning of a Civil War Heritage project he started four years ago to document the graves of every Civil War veteran in Pennsylvania and create a database of each one that includes biographical information, a photograph of the grave, and any other photographs that are available, including portraits.
“I’m an IT guy,” Varner said with a laugh.
He has been able to access disparate databases, both digital and analog, and combine them.
“I and a small group of volunteers go around and try to identify every Civil War soldier buried in Pennsylvania, whether Union or Confederate,” Varner said. “We go out and confirm that they’re buried where they’re supposed to be.”
Right now, his heritage project has around 35,000 names in its database with another 15,000 to 20,000 more that they’ve been given by historical societies that haven’t been sorted out yet, he said.
The project has 400 cemeteries researched in the state so far, with most of Berks, Schuylkill and Lebanon counties finished. York, Lancaster and Pike counties along with some out to Pittsburgh are still a work in progress.
There’s an assumption with the internet that all of the data will always remain available, but that isn’t the case, he said.
Many researchers’ work on the internet often just disappears after they pass away, Varner said.
That’s why he also prints out all of his maps and research.
He provided a bound copy of his work at St. John’s to the church for their records.
Ben Varner of Centerport holds a copy of the report he compiled on the Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery at St. John’s Gernant’s Church. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Visitors on Sunday will be able to access a special app with their phones that Varner created with pins that will locate all of the Civil War veterans’ graves in the cemetery.
Clicking on the pin will bring up biographical information and any photograph that was available.
Ben Varner created a mapping app that locates all of the Civil War veteran gravesites in the St. John’s Gernant’s Church cemetery that when clicked will reveal biographical information on the veteran. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
That aspect of Varner’s work surprised St. John’s Church historian Mary Jean Kauffman, who clicked onto the gravesite of one of her ancestors who was a Civil War veteran and is buried in the cemetery.
“My great, great grandfather passed due to typhoid fever,” she said. “I never even knew that. There’s all this information and pictures. It’s such a complete catalog.”
“Yeah,” Varner said with a smile. “It’s a labor of love.”