Memorial Service Honors 8 French Soldiers

Eight French soldiers who died in Van Cortlandtville during the Revolutionary War were honored Sunday, July 3, during the annual memorial service held by the Van Cortlandtville Historical Society at Old Saint Peter’s Church. The 15-minute tribute saluted Lt. Antoine Alexandre de Mauvis de Villars, Jean Bonair, Joseph Duguin, Claude-Pierre Dumageot, Alexis Labrue, Georges Mochl, Philippe Mortagne
and Jean-Joseph Paquay.

The memorial service, which attracted a dozen people, was the highlight of a double open house at the church and the neighboring Little Red Schoolhouse. Despite persistent drizzle about 30 people visited either or both sites during the afternoon.

French forces commanded by Gen. Rochambeau were in the Cortlandt-Peekskill area in 1781 and again in 1782 while en route to and from Yorktown, Va., where they helped compel the surrender of British forces under Gen. Charles Cornwallis. During that time, Old Saint Peter’s was used as a military hospital. The causes of the deaths of the eight men are unknown but diseases such as dysentery and food poisoning are leading suspects, given the unsanitary and unhygienic conditions of military life and the limits of medical care at that time.

The body of Lt. de Mauvis, a member of the French nobility, was returned to France; the other seven men rest in unmarked graves between the church and the schoolhouse.