Our Forgotten But Notable Neighbors: Private George Brower New City Civil War Veteran

Each year millions of motorists, all on their way to someplace else, drive by the intersection of Little Tor and Collyer Roads in New City. It is likely that many of them have noticed that on the other side of the adjacent sidewalk, several feet above street level, and behind an imposing fence, there is a cemetery that is the final resting place for hundreds of people.

However, it is highly unlikely that more than a bare handful of the passersby ever glanced at a small cluster of eight isolated gravestones located just outside the fence, but which are obscured from view by a utility pole, a fire hydrant, and a green electrical transformer box.

According to a nearby historical marker, the fenced-in cemetery is known as the Martinus Hogenkamp Cemetery. Many buried inside are of old Dutch ethnic stock including some who were among the earliest European settlers of Rockland County,

Although the outside graves are devoid of a similar identifying marker, they also have a historical relevance. Their story is not only part of the chronicle of Rockland County but also part and parcel of the great American story. As such, it demands our attention.

According to a number of reliable sources, including one dating back to the 1880s, the outside graves occupy an area that seems to have once been the local slave burial grounds. There are no existing tombstones from that era, nor do we know any specific details about the slaves buried there, even their names. However, we do know that those buried outside the fence, whose eroded gravestones still exist, were people of African descent. We cannot be sure whether any of them were ever enslaved, but at the time of their death they almost certainly were free. On the other hand, it is fair to assume that they were descended from people who had, indeed, been slaves.

The only gravestone outside the fence with discernible engraved inscription belongs to Private George Brower, who died on August 6, 1886, at the age of 62.

A lot of the information we have about George comes from census documents that were conducted every 5 or 10 years, and which only give us snapshots of specific moments in time. We don’t have accurate day-by-day, month-by-month, or even year-by-year details about his life. Thus, in order to try to understand what happened in between the censuses, we have to interpolate based on an educated guess basis.

Although we do not know George’s exact date of birth, it appears that he was born in Orangeburg in 1825. Therefore, it is fair to assume that he will be celebrating his 200th heavenly birthday during 2025.

Census documents show that as a youth, George lived with a man, William Brower, who was born around 1795, and a woman named Jane Brower, who was 17 years George’s senior. They may well have been his parents. (The records don’t specify their familial relationship). However, in a later census, we see George living with a lady named Jane Brower who was only 1 year older than him, so she may have been his wife. None of the available information indicates that George Brower had children. His occupations over the years included laborer, waiter, and farmer. George was 5 feet six and a half inches tall, and he is listed as illiterate.

In 1799, the State of New York passed a law stipulating that anyone born thereafter to an enslaved woman would be considered free, proving that George was born a freeman. The caveat to this law was that those people already enslaved would continue as slaves. Then, in 1817, a follow-up law was passed which stated that ten years hence all existing slaves would statutorily receive their freedom. On July 4, 1827, slavery in New York was completely abolished.

It seems that by 1827, prior to the July 4 emancipation, many African Americans in Rockland were already freemen, some having been granted freedom by their owners, while others had been able to purchase their own freedom. To give some insight into this, according to records from 1810, only 25 families in Clarkstown, including Ackersons, Coes, DeClarks, Demearests, Polhamuses and Lydachers, are listed as slave owners. Nobody with the name Brower appears on that list. Based on this, it also seems very likely that George’s parents were free at the time of his birth, in 1825.

At some point, he moved from Orangetown to New City, where he grew up and would spend most of his life. As a member of the community, he would have interacted, if for no other reason than employment, with his white neighbors. Then, on January 11, 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, and at the age of thirty-eight, he volunteered for Company A of the Union Army’s 26th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Color Troops (USCT), a segregated unit comprised of black enlisted men, with white officers. There is an indication that a $300 bounty was rewarded to each enlistee.

As part of General Sherman’s March to the Sea, the 26th USCT was involved in heated action on the South Carolina coast including the battles of Bloody Bridge, suffering significant casualties. The unit’s commanding officer, Col. Silliman of nearby Cornwall, NY died of wounds sustained in December 1864.

It should be noted that besides George Brower of the 26th there were a number of other black residents of Rockland who volunteered to serve in the Union Army, one of whom was another man also named George Brower. That George Brower was a Private who served in a different unit, the 20th Infantry Regiment, USCT, who, sadly, did not survive the war. He died in the regimental hospital, most likely from disease. There is no record that his remains were brought back to Rockland for burial.

When the war was over, New City’s Pvt. George Brower of the 26th Regiment came home to Rockland. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization comprised of veterans of the Union Army and was a member of the segregated William C. Silliman Post, whose members had served in USCT units. According to the Silliman post’s logbook, at age 50 George’s occupation was listed as farming. Several of the Post’s other members, including some who fought with the 26th, are today buried in the Mt. Moor Cemetery, in West Nyack, by the Palisades Mall.

The emotional bonds that bind old soldiers are strong, and one can well imagine that on a hot day in August of 1886 a contingent of George Brower’s fellow USCT veterans and Silliman GAR post members gathered to pay their respects at his funeral. He was buried with a very substantial and dignified tombstone which boldly highlights his military rank and unit.

George and those other Rockland USCT veterans who had lived during a time when they were marginalized and discriminated against by much of society, played a role in preserving the Union and abolishing slavery. He may have seemed to have been an ordinary, nondescript, type of person, but George was anything but that. It can be said that in his own way, he had played a small but significant role in bringing the very concepts upon which our country is founded — “all men are created equal” and “equal justice in the eyes of the law” — closer to reality.

Now that you know the whereabouts of the eight graves outside the fence of the Martinus Hogenkamp cemetery and the story of Private George Brower, when you pass by the intersection of Little Tor and Collyer Roads, cast a glance toward those excluded graves, and maybe even give a quick, respectful salute to Private George Brower the 26th Infantry Regiment, USCT, Company A.