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Simon Douglass Gravestone
Simon Douglass Gravestone

 

On December 20, 2018, George Toriello researched the U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records 1863-1865, and found that Simon Douglass enlisted into the Union Army on May 25, 1863 with the 55th Massachusetts Colored Infantry as it was known at the time.

Click here to view a Civil War veteran who died in 1950 at the age of 107 possibly making him the oldest unofficial soldier of the Civil War who is buried in
Hackensack Cemetery.  A moving story of a slave’s perseverance and a man who maintained “a strong sense of right and wrong” as the article states and was blessed by a community who loved him at the end of his life. 

Simon Douglas living in Fairview which during most of his lifetime was considered the Hackensack Valley and being buried in Hackensack Cemetery confirms his connection to Hackensack now and forever more.


Written by:
Bob Meli
July 8, 2018

 



 

 

Background image of Black soldiers foraging for Union Army during the Civil War obtained from:

http://liberationschool.org/the-revolutionary-role-of-black-soldiers-in-the-civil-war/