BIOGRAPHY: Charles H. Weygant; Newburgh, Orange co., New York

transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for USGenWeb Archives

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Portrait and Biographical Record of Rockland and Orange Counties New York
Containing Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens of the Counties.
Together with Biographies and Portraits of all the Presidents of the United
States.
New York and Chicago; Chapman Publishing Co., 1895

COL. CHARLES H. WEYGANT. In presenting to the readers of this volume the
biography of Colonel Weygant, we are perpetuating the life work of one of the
most honored residents of Newburgh. Throughout a long, influential and
honorable career, both as an officer during the Rebellion and as a private
citizen since that time, he has maintained the energy and integrity that
characterized him in youth. Nor has his success been merely in accumulating
wealth, but, in the better sense of the word, he has been successful in doing
good and in winning the esteem of a very large circle of acquaintances.

It being generally believed that heredity has much to do with the formation of
character, and that our lives are stimulated by the immediate or indirect
influence of our ancestors, a short resume of the ancestral history of Colonel
Weygant may serve as an index to the liberal and humane impulses which mark
his daily life, and which have won for him the regard of those who know him.
Lord Lindley has said, "If the virtues of strangers be so attractive to us,
how infinitely more so should be those of our own kindred; and with what
additional energy should the precepts of our parents influence us when we
trace the trans-mission of those precepts from father to son through
successive generations, each bearing. the testimony of a useful and honorable
life through their truth and excellence!"

This is forcibly, pertinent to the ancestry of Colonel Weygant. He comes from
that German Lutheran stock in which conscience seems to have been as
hereditary as intelligence, and in which are apparent the results of many
generations of honest lives. The original progenitor of the family in America
was Michael, son of Rev. George Herman Weigand, Lutheran minister at
Niederchulheim, in the Rhine Palatinate. Michael Weigand was born in 1656.
Before he was fairly out of his teens he entered the army, and served through
several disastrous campaigns in defense of his native land. On leaving the
army he be-came a husbandman, married, and settled at Osthofen, near the city
of Worms. There his children, Anna, Maria, Tobias and George, were born, and
there he and his good wife, Anna Catharena, hoped by industry and wise
management to rear their offspring creditably, and, with a competence honestly
acquired, to spend their declining years in peace. But in this worthy ambition
they were destined to cruel disappointment, for their rooftree had been
planted in a land to which peace was an utter stranger.

"In the countries intersected by, or lying near, the Rhine, it would be
difficult to find any castles or fortresses whose battered bastions do not
be-tray the vestiges of hostility, any towns which are not built on the ashes
of their former edifices, any plains which have not been drenched with blood."
During the long reign of Louis XIV., which began in 1651, and did not end
until 1715, this unfortunate country, which had for centuries previous seemed
devoted to carnage and conflagration, experienced anew the horrors of
devastation. In 1706 an invading army of Louis with fire and sword swept over
and laid waste hundreds of the most productive farms, and not a few of
villages, adjacent to Worms. Michael Weigand, after beholding the incendiary
flames devour the home which had sheltered his wife and little ones, and
witnessing the confiscation or wanton destruction of every vestige of the
ac-cumulation of years of toil, resolved to quit forever the land of his birth
and seek a new home in America.

In this undertaking he was joined by his pas-tor, Rev. Joshua D. Kockerthal,
and eight other families, that, like his own, had been despoiled by the cruel
invaders. This little band fled to England, which they reached in utter
destitution. There they appealed to Queen Anne, frankly stating their
lamentable condition and petitioning for transportation to and a grant of land
in America. The good Queen, after receipt of a favor-able report from the Lord
Commissioner of Trade and Plantations, to whom their appeal had been referred,
granted their request, and in addition gave them an allowance from her private
purse. The grant of lands given them embraced what is now the city of
Newburgh. The Weigand family received title to the two hundred and fifty acres
lying between Renwick and Washington Streets, and running from the river to
the west-ern limits of the city. The historic Washington's Headquarters
building lies within the limits of the Weigand farm. A portion of that famous
old stone structure was built by the sons of Michael Weigand, who is supposed
to have died there about the year 1725.

The descendants of this early settler have ever shown themselves, by word and
deed, loyal and patriotic Americans. Both of his sons, Tobias and John, who
were aged, respectively, seven and five years when, on the 23d of June, 17o8,
they reached these shores, became members of the first military company
organized in the precinct of Newburgh in Colonial times. At the breaking out
of the war with the another country, their sons, without an exception,
promptly ranged themselves on the side of the colonies and unhesitatingly
signed the Revolutionary Roll of Association, while four of their number,
together with John, Jr., grandson of Tobias, took up arms in defense of the
sacred cause they had espoused. In the War of 1812 the family was honorably
rep-resented, and in the war for the preservation ofthe Union not a few of its
members died on the field of battle.

About 1745, Tobias, son of Michael, who had grown up with the settlement, and
for two decades had held a prominent place in its social, religious and public
affairs, during which he had served as a Trustee of the Glebe and an officer
of the little Lutheran Church his father had helped to build in the
wilderness, sold out his interest in the original Queen Anne grant, and
removed to a more extensive tract of land of which he had be-come the owner,
and which was located near the present village of Highland Mills, some
fourteen miles distant. A number of his descendants may still be found in that
locality.

The next in line of descent from Tobias was John, an agriculturist and a man
of prominence in his community. Following him in descent was John, Jr., the
before-mentioned Revolutionary soldier, who entered the service as a Sergeant
in Capt. Arthur Smith's company of militia. At the capture of Forts Clinton
and Montgomery by the British in 1777, Captain Smith was severely wounded, but
by the aid of Sergeant Weygant managed to escape capture, and by an all-night
journey over the intervening mountains reached his home. During this journey
the stalwart Sergeant frequently carried him over difficult places on his
back. Subsequently when young Weygant asked the hand of the Captain's daughter
in marriage, his suit was not denied. Sergeant Weygant was a man of influence,
and his name frequently appears in the list of office-holders in his town. He
died in 183o, survived by four sons and three daughters.

Rev. Francis Weygant, son of the above, and our subject's grandfather, was a
leading Methodist of the New Windsor Circuit, on which he was instrumental in
building several churches. For many years he officiated as a preacher, often
filling acceptably three, and sometimes four, appointments of a Sunday, but
never accepting any remuneration for such services. He was a mild-mannered,
but unusually energetic business man, with many interests, including farming,
timbering, the manufacture of pig iron, and the maintaining of an extensive
mail and passenger stage route, which ran through Orange County and had its
terminus in New York City. He died of cholera, with which he was seized while
in New York on business in 1832.

The father of our subject, James Weygant, was born in the town of Monroe,
which had been the home of his ancestors for four generations. In early life
he was engaged in a freighting business, which he conducted by means of
sloops, which plied between Cornwall, Orange County, and New York City, but
the principal part of his life was spent in Newburgh, where he conducted a
carriage factory and livery business. He was public-spirited, liberal to a
fault, built up a large circle of business acquaintances and had a host of
friends. But he was especially devoted to his family, fond of domestic
associations, and found his greatest happiness within the portals of his home.
His death occurred in 1876, at the age of fifty-eight.

Mary, mother of our subject, was born in the town of Monroe. Her father, Wines
Mapes, was a farmer and millwright, and at the time of his death, which
occurred in his seventieth year, was just completing what was said to be the
hundredth mill he had erected in the state of New York. The Mapes family
formerly resided in Long Island, but originated in Great Britain. Their
pro-genitor in America was Thomas Mapes, who was born in Wales about 1628, and
in childhood came to this country, settling in Suffolk, L. I., where he
engaged in farming, and became a surveyor of land. There he married Sarah,
daughter of William Purrier. In 1662 he was made a freeman at Hartford.

Thomas Mapes, Jr., was for a number of years a. Justice of the Peace and
Captain of Suffolk County Militia. About 1728 he came to Orange County and
settled in the town of Blooming Grove. His grandson, James, a soldier in the
Revolutionary War, was born December 16, 1756, and in 1778 married Anna,
daughter of Barnabas Manny. His death occurred June 3, 1835. The eldest of
their thirteen children, Wines, was born January 18, 1779, and died in 1849.
His daughter Mary died at the age of forty, December ro, 1858, after having
become the mother of sevenchildren that attained years of maturity. Or these,
one son and two. daughters are living, Charles H. being the eldest of the
number. His brother, Wines E., who was a member of the same regiment as
himself, served as Lieutenant of Company B, but owing to ill health was
obliged to resign. For some years he was employed in Jay Cook's National Bank
at Washington, D. C., afterward was Cashier of the Citizens' National Bank of
the same city, but his health again failing, he went to the Pacific Coast and
settled at Cheney, Wash., where he assisted in organizing a national bank,
being made its Cashier. He died there in 1894.

The subject of this biography was horn in Cornwall, on the Hudson, N. Y., July
8, 1839, and was reared in Newburgh from early child-hood. He was prepared for
college at the Ash-land (N. Y.) and Claverack Collegiate Institutes. His
studies, however, were interrupted by the. opening of the Civil War, and in
1862 he assisted in raising the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment of New
York Infantry, known as the "Orange Blossoms." In September, 1862, he was
mustered into service as Captain of Company A. He took an active part in the
battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Beverly Ford, Gettysburg, the
Wilderness and Spottsylvania, and in every general engagement of the Army of
the Potomac after Cold Harbor until the close of the war.

At the battle of Gettysburg, Colonel Ellis and Major Cromwell were killed, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Cummings was wounded, leaving the regiment in command of
Captain Weygant for about a month. Soon afterward he was commissioned Major,
his commission dating from July 2, 1863, and later he was made
Lieutenant-Colonel, dating from the same time. Colonel Cummings commanded the
regiment until the morning of the second day's battle of the Wilderness, when
he was severely wounded, so much so that he never resumed duty. The regiment
then passed under the command of Colonel Weygant.

After being commissioned Colonel by his state, but prior to muster to that
grade in the United States service (a delay occasioned by depletion of
his regiment through losses in battle), our subject was breveted Colonel by
Congress as a special recognition of his services and those of his regiment,
who during the siege of Petersburg captured one hundred and fifty-five
Confederates, their commanding officer and battle-flag, killing and wounding
thirty others, without losing a single man on his side. At the battle of
Chancellorsville, on the morning of the second day, he was left with one
hundred men to observe and retard the advance of Stonewall Jackson's twenty
thou-sand, while his corps, the Third, fell back to a new battle line which
had been assigned it. Fortunately, when Jackson's men advanced the next
morning, our subject found that nature had provided a small ravine through
which he, after having performed the duty assigned him, was enabled to escape
with the loss of only eight men. On that same day of May, 1863, the One
Hundred and Twenty-fourth suffered a loss of nearly two hundred men killed and
wounded, and he received a scalp wound which invalided him for a few days.

The One Hundred and Twenty-fourth was one of eight regiments which led
Hancock's charge at Spottsylvania, and there Colonel Weygant was wounded in
the limb, while in the act of planting a Union flag on the enemy's inner line
of works, after his regiment had captured four guns, over three hundred
prisoners and a rebel flag. His wound was so serious as to keep him from duty
about seven weeks. At the battle of Boynton Roads, later in 1864, while in
command of a force consisting of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth New York
and Berdan's Second Regiment of Sharpshooters, he was again wounded, being
shot in the left side, but was back on duty again in a few weeks. His
regiment, acting as sharpshooters, took a conspicuous part in Grant's last
campaign, skirmishing with the enemy's rear guard nearly every day from
Peters-burg to Appomattox, capturing many prisoners, guns and wagons, and
losing twenty men, killed and wounded, in the last encounter between the Army
of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, the day preceding Lee's
surrender. At the close of the war he took part in the Grand Review, and then
returned home, with a record as a valiant soldier of which he might justly be
proud.

Some years after the close of the conflict, Colonel Weygant wrote a "History
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment, N. Y. S. Vols.," which
comprises a valuable addition to our war literature, and is a very interesting
book, filled with thrilling adventures and memorable incidents connected with
that long struggle. Since the date of its issue in 1877, very few histories of
regiments which served in the Army of the Potomac have been written in which
it has not been used as a text-book. Rev. E. P. Roe, in the battle scenes of
his most famous novel, "An Original Belle," copies extensively from it, which
fact he gracefully acknowledges in his preface in the following words: "In
touching upon the battle of Gettysburg and other historical events, I will
briefly say that I have carefully consulted authentic sources of information.
For the graphic suggestions of certain details I am indebted to the `History
of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Regiment, N. Y. S. V., by Col. Charles H.
Weygant.'

For some years after the war Colonel Weygant engaged in business as a carriage
manufacturer, but in 1870 disposed of that concern, having been elected
Sheriff of Orange County for a term of three years. He entered upon the duties
of the office in January, 1871, and served with efficiency until January,
1874. In 1878 and i880 he filled the office of Mayor of Newburgh. Much of his
time has been given to the real-estate business, and he has been instrumental
in securing improvements that have been of the most enduring benefit to the
place. In 1866, associated with Henry T. McCoun, a capitalist of New York
City, he purchased a part of the Robinson Farm, and created the easterly
portion of Washington Heights Addition to Newburgh, which will ever stand as a
monument to his ability and sagacity. The tract, consisting of forty acres, he
had surveyed and laid out. Streets were opened and graded; sewer and water
pipes were introduced; sidewalks were flagged and curbed; road beds were
macadamized and shade trees planted. All these and other improvements were
made at the expense of our subject and Mr. McCoun, and no lot was sold without
such improvements, or a contract therefor, that was in all cases faithfully
performed.

This undertaking, at the time of its inception, seemed to many a most
hazardous one, and there were not wanting those who predicted that it would
bring financial ruin to its projectors. But such gloomy predictions proved
wholly untrue. From the first the enterprise has met with the most flattering
success, and this is now the most beautiful spot in the city. The streets are
from fifty to sixty-six feet in width. The deeds prohibit the sale of liquor,
and require the buildings to be placed twelve feet back from the street lines.
This twelve feet of space in front of each residence, forming a grassy terrace
between the sidewalk and the houses, is a very pretty feature of the addition.
Liberty and Lander Streets, two of the principal thoroughfares of the city,
were extended through the plot, and other streets were opened, among them
Carson Avenue, Overlook Place, Courtney and Henry Avenues, Beacon Street and
Bay View Terrace, the latter ex-tending along the edge of the bluff on the
south and east sides. Renwick Street was already open through the property
from Bridge Street east to the river, but commonly only the plot south of this
street is designated Washington Heights. Over two and one-third miles of
streets, and four hundred and fifty lots were laid out in this manner.

In 1868 Colonel Weygant married Charlotte, daughter of Samuel B. Sackett, an
old settler of Newburgh. They are the parents of one daughter, Bessie.
Socially the Colonel is a Knight-Templar Mason, and belongs to Kismet Temple,
of Brooklyn. He is connected with the Board of Trade, and prominent in all
public affairs. In 1883 he was chosen as the Grand Marshal of the Newburgh
Centennial parade. He is a member of the Grand Army, and has been Commander of
Ellis Post of that order. In the work of the Methodist Episcopal denomination
he is deeply interested. For about twenty years he has been a member of the
Official Board, and at present isserving in the capacity of President of the
Board of Trustees of Trinity Church. He is a member of the Board of Trustees
of the Newburgh District Parsonage and the District Board of Church Location.

Possessing literary taste, fluency of speech in conversation, a generous and
magnanimous nature, a manly ease and freedom of address, Colonel Weygant is
justly recognized as one of the most progressive and public-spirited citizens,
and is entitled to the high place he occupies in the es-teem of his
fellow-citizens.