CEDAR GROVE CEMETERY
Established 1832
Cedar Grove Cemetery is the first public cemetery in Portsmouth, VA.
Resting here are many notables, including veterans of the Revolutionary War through WWII. Two hundred and forty of these are soldiers and sailors who fought for the Confederate States of America.
The cemetery fell into disrepair through neglect and vandalism during the years since 1960. It was restored in 1995-1998 primarily through the efforts of the Stonewall Camp #380, Sons of the Confederate Veterans, with the help from Portsmouth Sheriff’s Work Release Program. Security lights and cameras have been placed around the perimeters to deter loitering and vandalism.
Cedar Grove Cemetery is on the National and Virginia Registers of Historic Places. In addition to its historical significance, it is an exemplary model of the nineteenth century funerary art.
Historical markers placed throughout the cemetery allow for self-guided tours – many you will visit doing this cache.
Be sure to do this cache in tandem with GC5PZJF – Notables At Cedar Grove Cemeter
N 36 50. TUV W 076 18. XYZ
Below we give the coordinates for 12 graves, where you will find the information you need to determine the location of the physical cache
A N 36 50. 387 W 076 18.470 PVT Columbus W. Hudgins
Matthews Light Artillery was formed in July 1861, with men from Mathews County. It first served at Yorktown, then assigned to General Wise’s command saw action at Seven Days’ Battles. Later it was stationed at Chaffin’s Bluff. The battery was then attached to A.W. Starks’s Battalion of Artillery, Department of Richmond, and for some time was on duty at Chaffin’s Farm near Petersburg. It was active north of the James River and surrendered with the Army of Northern Virginia. On April 9, 1865, the unit contained 70 men. Captain Andrew D. Armistead was its commander.
A = James & Eliza have _A__ kids buried next to them.
B N 36 50.386 W 076 18.435 August Buff
August Buff was a Hospital Steward in the 16th Virginia Infantry. The 16th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment was raised in Virginia for service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The 16th Virginia completed its organization in May, 1861, with ten companies. The men were from Suffolk and Portsmouth and the counties of Nansemond, Isle of Wight, Sussex, and Chesterfield.
Charles wife, Ellsworth, is nearby.
B = The Third (3rd) digit in her birth year.
C N 36 50.368 W 076 18.432 CORPL HARRY DAVIS
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR Although the United States did not declare war against Spain until 25 April 1898, fourteen Virginia sailors were killed or listed as Missing in Action as a result of the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898. “Remember the Maine” became the battle cry for those Americans who held Spain responsible for deaths of American sailors. Two months later the war officially began. Virginians served in four volunteer regiments, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th Virginia Regiments. The Virginians who volunteered expected to see active service as a part of the Volunteer Army of the United States, but few of them ever reached Cuba. Of the four regiments, only the 4th Regiment was sent to Cuba, and only for a short time following the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the war.
At Rest nearby is Lorenna.
C = The day of the month she was born.
D N 36 50.291 W 076 18.438 CAPT William Tee
He was the first lightship Captain in the United States and his ship was stationed about one mile northeast off of Craney Island in VA. During the war of 1812, he was Master Pilot of a small fleet.
Find Little Joe and his lamb.
D = Number of letters in the month he was born.
E N 36 50.287 W 076 18.459 William H. Cocke
Lt. Cocke was a career naval officer, commissioned as a midshipman in 1809.
During the War with West India Pirates the U. S. Schooner Fox, commanded by Lieutenant Cocke, was part of the “Mosquito Fleet”.
The “Naval Affairs” volumes of the “American State Papers’ contain the correspondence in connection with this affair, and it is there conclusively shown that the Spanish authorities deliberately planned to fire on the first American vessel to follow the Greyhound into the harbor of St. John’s, Porto Rico.
The U.S. Schooner Fox was fired upon as it entered the harbor toward Moro Castle on March 6, 1823.
This is where the stories vary. One book states that five guns loaded with solid shot and scrap iron were fired at her and Lt. Cocke was struck in the shoulder and died ten minutes later. Other reports say he was cut in half by a cannon ball that was shot from Moro Castle.
They do agree that he was brought back to Portsmouth on July 25, 1832 aboard the U. S. Schooner Porpoise.
Chambers & White’s reside next door.
E = Number of bricks in the top row of their door.
F N 36 50.292 W 076 18.456 John Guthrie
Captain Gutherie became a midshipman in 1834
He served in the Mexican war and in the attack on the barrier forts in Canton river, China, in November, 1856, where he displayed gallantry. He pulled down the Chinese flag, which he presented to North Carolina as a trophy, and received the thanks of the legislature, in 1861, at the beginning of the civil war, he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate service.
He was on active duty in New Orleans, and also commanded the "Advance," running the blockade between Wilmington and the Bermudas. At the close of the war he moved to Portsmouth, Virginia, and in 1865 was the first officer of the regular service who had joined the Confederates to be pardoned by the president. His Disabilities were removed by a unanimous vote of congress.
He was appointed in 1870 superintendent of the lifesaving stations from Cape Henry to Cape Hatteras, and was drowned while endeavoring to succor the passengers and crew of the United States steamship "Huron" in a storm off Cape Hatteras.
On Captain Gutherie’s flat marker –
count up 4 lines and over 4
F = Number of letters in the word.
G N 36 50.309 W 076 18.460 Ellsberry Valentine White
Author of “The First Iron Clad Naval Engagement in the World”
Copyright 1906
White enlisted April 20, 1861, as sergeant; company A, 2nd Battalion Georgia Volunteer Infantry (City Light Guard).
White’s command, the City Light Guards, designated as Co. A, 2nd Battalion, Georgia, arrived in Portsmouth on Monday morning, April 21, 1861. The Navy Yard was burned and destroyed on April 19, 1861. White visited the Navy Yard on the day he arrived and there looked upon the smoking, smoldering remains of the “Merrimac”, upon whose hull was subsequently erected the great naval wonder of the world, the Iron-Clad “Virginia.”
Early in December 1861 he applied for a position on the “Virginia” and on January 18, 1862 he was accepted into the naval service and commissioned as the Jr 3rd Engineer in charge of the speaking tube and the gong on the deck of the ship. It was White’s job to convey orders from the officers in charge back to the engine room. He remained with the “Virginia” until her tragic end.
White participated in the engagement at Hampton Roads; the battle at Drewry’s Bluff, VA and served on the CSS Baltic, Mobile Squadron.
White resigned from the Naval service on August 29, 1862. He was a member of the United Confederate Veterans.
After the war White returned to Portsmouth and became president of the Tidewater Insurance Company in Norfolk and a founder of the Norfolk National Bank.
G = Sum of his neighbor’s gate number.
H N 36 50.366 W 076 18.494 Antonio Sylvestre Bilisoly
Born in Civita Vecchia, Italy-Ajjacio, Corsica. He was a Sailing-master in fleet of Count de Grasse that came to Virginia during the Battle of the Capes in 1781.
Bilisoly was naturalized “US Citizen” in Baltimore in 1795. He arrived in Portsmouth in 1799 with a wife and daughters. He engaged in shipbuilding in Portsmouth, prospered and acquired property, including several vessels engaged in the coasting trade.
Revolutionary War Veteran
The three grave stones that are leaning on the cemetery wall, were moved from St. Paul’s Catholic Church after the church burned in 1897. The contents of the graves were not moved – only the stones.
H = The day of August that Mary was born.
I N 36 50.290 W 076 18.482 John Luke Porter
John Porter was a naval constructor in Portsmouth, the son of a shipwright. In 1859, after passing the naval constructor’s examination, he became a naval constructor for the U.S. Navy. He was stationed at the U.S.Navy Yard at Pensacola, Florida and witnessed the Confederate takeover when Florida seceded from the Union. He served at the Washington Navy Yard and Gosport Navy Yard. He resigned from the U.S. Navy when the Confederate forces took over control of the Gosport Navy Yard and offered his services to Virginia. He played a major role in the refloating and converting the USS MERRIMAC into the CSS VIRGINIA. (see photo)
After the war, Porter worked in the industries of civilian and naval ship construction and ferry operations.
Across the path is another part of the Bilisoly Family
I = The number of Bilisoly’s that are facing John Luke Porter?
J N 36 50.299 W 076 18.482 Col James Gregory Hodges
This is a Cenotaph (a monument erected in honor of a dead person whose remains lie elsewhere) because the burial location is unknown other than in the field at Gettysburg.
Hodges was educated at once family Literary, Scientific and Military Academy of Portsmouth. He obtained his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1856 and 1857 he was elected mayor of Portsmouth and colonel of the 3rd Virginia Volunteers.
On April 20, 1861, the Federal Navy burned and abandoned the Gosport Navy Yard. Col. Hodges took charge to restore order then turned it over to the civil and naval offers of the State.
During the battle on Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862 every man in his color guard was wounded. The regiment battle flag which they carried into the fight had forty-seven shot holes in it.
Col Hodges 14th Regiment was placed in the newly formed division of General Pickett, at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. He was shot to death with a bullet to the head, he had only a sword in his hand.
J = Essie Died in 196 _J_
K N 36 50.280 W 076 18.468
Captain Arthur Emmerson
In 1798, his ship was captured during the Napoleonic war by the French and taken to France, where he was detained for one year.
In 1809 Captain Emmerson organized and commanded the town’s artillery was actively engaged at Craney Island.
After the war he returned to land surveying and spent years charting the wastes of the Great Dismal Swamp.
He helped found and was president of the first railroad from Portsmouth to North Carolina in 1832; Portsmouth & Weldon railroad. Later in life he was Chief magistrate and president of the town’s Board and Trustees.
He was an elected vestryman and warden of Trinity Episcopal Church. The church has a stain glass memorial window in his honor. In the stain glass are Captain Emmerson’s words of June 22, 1813:
“Now my brave boys, are you ready?”
Captain Hugh Nelson Page
Hugh Page entered the US Navy as a midshipman, Sept. 1, 1811 and assigned the gunboat squadron in Norfolk for the protection of the harbor. He was then assigned to duty on board the schooner Tigress. He took an active part in the Battle of Lake Erie, in which he was wounded in the hand. For his brilliant services he was presented with two swords, one from the United States and one from the United States Congress. He retired in 1855 as rank of Captain. He served in the US Navy for 44 years.
Lieutenant William Lyne
Lieutenant Lyne of the USS Pennsylvania fell overboard and drowned on April 29, 1841. His shipmates purchased an elaborate monument containing effigies of cannons and eagle wings, both symbolic of the military.
Find LT William Lyne’s monument.
K = The number of Stars on LT Lyne’s Monument
L N 36 50.304 W 076 18.466 James Cooke
Commodore Cooke, the Confederacy’s most successful ironclad commander, was appointed to the US Naval Academy at age 15 and at the age of 16 he was appointed a midshipman in the US Navy. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and served in this capacity until the beginning of the War Between the States. At which time he resigned his commission to join the Confederate Navy. He rose to the rank of Commander and before the close of the war to that of Commodore.
The high point of his career was his involvement with the construction of the RAM Ironclad, CSS Albemarle. He was the ironclad’s first captain.
Commodore James Cooke was North Carolina’s ranking officer in the Confederate Navy and the highest ranking military officer buried here in Cedar Grove Cemetery.
To the left is a “reserved” spot for a WWII Korean veteran.
L = The month of his birth minus 3 (-3)
N 36 50. TUV W 076 18. XYZ
T = A – B X = G – H
U = C – D Y = I + J
V = E – F Z = K – L
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.
☆☆ Thanks TreasureTrovers(Va) for Beta-Testing ☆☆