For whom the bell tolls: Pvt. John C. Pollitz lies beneath the Long Island church he dearly loved. His headstone and a bell he bought are reminders of sacrifice

Gravestone in crawlspace in 2018 (Trinity Episcopal Church); Pvt. John C. Pollitz after enlistment 

The memory of John Codman Pollitz -- a young private who died of disease in 1863 while serving with the 44th Massachusetts in North Carolina --  lives on at a Long Island, N.Y., church where his remains lie beneath the floor and his gravestone rests above.

For several years, the soldier’s headstone and a bell he purchased for Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn have greeted visitors entering the building.

Officials had hoped to place the stone in a cabinet or display on the wall, but its weight proved problematic..

“The headstone and bell are still in the same place and there are no plans to change this,” church property manager and Mike Callahan said this week when asked by the Picket for plans for a permanent location for the items.

I have been a bit fascinated with the story of Pollitz, the son of a German immigrant, since the first of three articles I wrote following the 2018 discovery of his headstone in the rear section of the elegant sanctuary.

New to me this week was discovery of a document indicating he applied to attend West Point before the war broke out and an 1862 photo of Pollitz, taken shortly after his enlistment. I credit ancestry.com and the American Civil War Research Database for the latter.

The church had long known Pollitz’s grave was incorporated within the current building during construction in 1906. There was no recorded specific location for the grave. That changed in summer 2018, when rotting wooden floor joists were removed and Pollitz’ headstone was exposed; it was lying flat in a crawlspace.

“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 construction, Callahan said a few years ago.

While Pollitz -- who was a member of the church -- remains buried beneath the floor, the congregation had wanted his headstone to be displayed inside. The stone is propped in front of a bell, which likewise has a good story.

According to a 1914 New York Times article, 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.

The bell rests on a stand inside the church, an affixed plaque indicating the soldier’s grave lies beneath the church (Photo courtesy Trinity Episcopal Church). Another plaque on the floor calls Pollitz a "son and hero of this parish."

Fever stalked Federal troops in North Carolina

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

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 meningitis. A pension record I found online this week (below) mentions malarial typhoid fever.

The volume provides the following information for late 1862 and the first days of 1863 in New Bern.

“December 25, the first case of a new and alarming disease occurred in our regiment, proving fatal in a few days. The epidemic, which followed and extended to other regiments, was entirely outside the experience of any of the surgeons in the department. The fever was at first regarded as a virulent type of malarial disease. The autopsy in the case of Henry G. Kimball, of Andover, Company G, who died Jan. 1, 1863, made by the assistant-surgeon, showed the presence of inflammation in the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. The disease was afterwards recognized as cerebro-spinal meningitis, which is identical with the disease once known as spotted fever, occurring as an epidemic in Massachusetts between the years 1807 and 1816. The next death was that of John C. Pollitz, Boston, Company F, on January 7. Having been previously well, he came in from guard in the morning, was sent to the hospital, and died the same afternoon. This sudden fatality naturally produced much consternation in the regiment. Quinine rations were issued as a prophylactic measure, and Surgeon Ware was untiring in his efforts to determine the cause of the epidemic.”

Pollitz’ remains were sent north to Long Island and to the church, where he had briefly been a Sunday school superintendent.

“It is my understanding that he requested to be buried in the shadow of the belfry of the original chapel. They built the new church alongside the original chapel so I assume that is why they built over it,” said Callahan.

The bell was used during the 1863 Pollitz funeral (Trinity Episcopal Church)

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.

Descendants group honors Civil War troops

Pollitz’s father was a businessman; a history of Roslyn indicated he emigrated from Northern Ireland. But an online search of ancestry-related pages shows Otto W. Pollitz was from Hamburg, Germany, and John’s mother was from Massachusetts. The young soldier is believed to have been born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Church members are unaware of any living descendants, though Pollitz had siblings.

Members of the SUVCW lead 2019 ceremony near plaque (Trinity Episcopal Church)

A 2019 ceremony at the church rededicated the gravesite. Eight members of Moses A. Baldwin Camp #544, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, participated 

According to Dennis Duffy, secretary for the camp, the younger Pollitz attended Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (now part of NYU) and had moved on to college in Massachusetts, where he enlisted with the 44^th Massachusetts.

"John did not have to go to war. There was no draft at the time and when the draft would come six months after John's death, his family could have afforded to pay a substitute under the rules then in effect," Duffy wrote in 2019 to other members of the SUVCW camp.

Since 2019, the camp has obtained more than 100 headstones for veterans in previously unmarked graves, Duffy said this week. The post on Saturday will dedicate several VA headstones for Civil War soldier graves at Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale, N.Y.

"I did mention his story in a presentation I made to the North Shore (Long Island) Civil War Roundtable, Huntington, N.Y., last week and must admit the telling brought a tear to my eye," Duffy added.

(At right, the Rev. Margaret Peckham Clark with the Pollitz gravestone in the church crawlspace in 2018)

READ MORE ABOUT POLLITZ:

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2022/05/headstone-of-union-soldier-buried.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/06/in-silent-camping-ground-of-dead-sons.html

https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-civil-war-soldier-and-his-headstone.html