Samuel Finkbone was a 44-year-old farmer from Ontelaunee Township.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t a guy who joined the army to join the army like a young guy,\u201d said Civil War historian Ben Varner, standing at Finkbone\u2019s gravesite behind St. John\u2019s Gernant\u2019s Church in Ontelaunee Township. \u201cHe joined the army to keep the nation together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finkbone was in the 128th Pennsylvania, a nine-month regiment composed of support personnel who ended up in the heat of battle, Varner said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The battle at Antietam resulted in 22,000 killed or wounded, Varner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the morning near the cornfield, which is one of the most famous spots in the battlefield, the 128th was placed in what\u2019s called the East Woods,\u201d Varner said. \u201cAs the battle was raging over the cornfield, they were moved forward to flank the Confederates, and found themselves outflanked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where he died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the 51 Civil War veterans buried at St. John\u2019s, Finkbone is the only one who was killed in action.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just an ordinary person who joined and went through extraordinary circumstances,\u201d Varner said.<\/p>\n
Varner will tell the story of Finkbone and many other Civil War veterans buried in St. John\u2019s Gernant\u2019s cemetery during a special program Sunday at 1 p.m. in the church at 13 Gernant\u2019s Church Road.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
![\"St.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/REG-L-GernantCemeteryTour434.jpg\")
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)<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For Varner, a Centerport resident, St. John\u2019s 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,\u00a0 and any other photographs that are available, including portraits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an IT guy,\u201d Varner said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
He has been able to access disparate databases, both digital and analog, and combine them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI and a small group of volunteers go around and try to identify every Civil War soldier buried in Pennsylvania, whether Union or Confederate,\u201d Varner said. \u201cWe go out and confirm that they\u2019re buried where they\u2019re supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, his heritage project has around 35,000 names in its database with another 15,000 to 20,000 more that they\u2019ve been given by historical societies that haven\u2019t been sorted out yet, he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an assumption with the internet that all of the data will always remain available, but that isn\u2019t the case, he said.<\/p>\n
Many researchers\u2019 work on the internet often just disappears after they pass away, Varner said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he also prints out all of his maps and research.<\/p>\n
He provided a bound copy of his work at St. John\u2019s to the church for their records.<\/p>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/REG-L-GernantCemeteryTour429.jpg\")
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)<\/p>\n
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\u2019 graves in the cemetery.<\/p>\n
Clicking on the pin will bring up biographical information and any photograph that was available.<\/p>\n
![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/REG-L-GernantCemeteryTour433.jpg\")
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)<\/p>\n
That aspect of Varner\u2019s work surprised St. John\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy great, great grandfather passed due to typhoid fever,\u201d she said. \u201cI never even knew that. There\u2019s all this information and pictures. It\u2019s such a complete catalog.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d Varner said with a smile. \u201cIt\u2019s a labor of love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samuel Finkbone was a 44-year-old farmer from Ontelaunee Township. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t a guy who joined the army to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,858,1378,28,128,130,129,289,706],"class_list":["post-192182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-ontap","tag-ontelaunee-township","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}