Headstone of Union soldier buried beneath a Long Island church awaits its final resting place. John C. Pollitz died of disease while serving in N.C.

Current location of the Polllitz headstone (Trinity Episcopal Church)

The headstone of a Union soldier buried beneath a Long Island, New York, church awaits a permanent location nearly four years after it was found during a renovation project.

The Picket wrote two articles about the unusual circumstances involving parishioner Pvt. John Codman Pollitz, who died in 1863 while serving with the 44^th Massachusetts in North Carolina.

Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn has long known that Pollitz’s 1863 grave was incorporated within the current building during construction in 1906. But most of them had no idea where; there was no recorded location. That changed in summer 2018, when rotting wooden floor joists were removed and Pollitz’ headstone was exposed; it was lying flat in a crawlspace area.

“My assumption was that the headstone was too high standing up for the crawlspace. I believe they simply laid it down on that same spot” during the 1906 construction, church property manager and sexton Mike Callahan told the Picket.

Removal of the floor exposed headstone for John C. Pollitz (Trinity Episcopal)

A June 2019 ceremony rededicated the soldier’s grave, which still lies beneath the floor. A plaque marks the spot on the floor under which Pollitz rests. Members of an area camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War took part in the ceremony.

At the time, the church said it was trying to determine what to do with the headstone.

“Plans are to build a cabinet mounted on the wall, but that’s going to take some engineering,” Father George Sherrill, priest in charge, told the Picket in a recent email. “The stone weighs a ton and affixing to the wall is going to be difficult, so no real timetable as of yet.”

The priest said the headstone does elicit conversation when people see if for the first time.

The headstone is currently propped up against a bell that has its own interesting history.

Bell was used during the funeral (Courtesy of Trinity Episcopal)

According to a June 1914 article in The New York Times, a dying Pollitz asked comrades to ensure his body was sent to Roslyn, where it was to lie in the shadow of the belfry. “With his army pay he had bought a bell as a gift to the parish, and its arrival and his death were so close together that it was tolled for the first time at his funeral,” the article said.

It’s believed that the young Pollitz was living in Boston and barely 18 when he joined up with the 44th Massachusetts, ostensibly in the summer of fall of 1862.

The regiment, which took part in skirmishes and sieges across North Carolina before it was mustered out in June 1863, was in New Bern for several months before transfer to Plymouth, N.C.

A history of the regiment detailed disease and illness that stalked the troops during campaigning and at their quarters. Pollitz, who served in Company F, died on Jan. 7, 1863 in New Bern.

Sons of Union Veterans lead 2019 ceremony near plaque (Trinity Episcopal)

According to the “Record of the Service of the Fourth-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina, August 1862 to May 1863,” Pollitz and 13 other soldiers in the regiment died from cerebrospinal meningities.

His remains were sent north to Long Island. “Shortly after his burial, February 1, 1863, the bell was taken down and another put in its place. John Pollitz’s bell was inverted, filled with dirt and flowers, and stood by his grave for many years,” a church newsletter states.

In 1914, the bell was moved and restored after church officials discovered the grave under that floor while investigating a break in the foundation walls, according to The Times.

Construction of floor during 2018 (Trinity Episcopal Church)