George Toriello sent this information on September 4, 2019 on Lewis Cotte after I had sent him a photo of this gravestone, which is at Hackensack Cemetery, asking him if he could find out if he was the father of Lewis C Cotte.  He did find out, and the answer is yes, he is the father of Lewis C. Cotte, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Lewis Cotte married Jane Van Athena and their son was Lewis C. Cotte whose gravestone is next to his father’s in Hackensack Cemetery.  Source of information was Ancestry family tree by Michelle Cotte Cogswell. 

Lewis Cotte was born in 1817 in New ~York and died on February 29, 1888 at the age of 71.  Lewis Cotte’s gravestone states his service on the USS Potomac, but no specifics are given of what time period he served.  The ship was commissioned into service in 1822 and was decommissioned in 1877.

  Lewis Cotte would have been able to serve anywhere between 1835 at the age of 18, or possibly a few years before at the time, through the Civil War, when he would have been 41 at the outbreak of the conflict.  At the beginning of the Civil War, the USS Potomac was a formidable Frigate ship, which took part in the Blockade of Mobile Bay Alabama.   

Written by:
Bob Meli
September 5, 2019