New Hampshire in WWI: Heroes of Raymond

Dudley-Tucker Library, Raymond, NH. From Wikimedia Commons. Photographer John Phelan, taken on 21 April 2014.

The year 1917 was an especially difficult one for the Town of Raymond in Rockingham County, New Hampshire.  A month before the United States declared war the town hall burned down (13 March 1917). According to the book, Images of America: Raymond by Kristin Ozana Doyle, “the town offices were moved to the upper floor of the library, and remained there until 1974 when a new town hall was built.”

This incident did not dampen the town’s patriotism and they sent their full quota to service (2 to 2-1/2% of the town’s total residents of around 1200 people.).  Within the decade of World War I (1910-1920), the town’s population would decline by about 150 residents.  Two residents, Sergt. Dudley Gilman Tucker and Private Emerson Maple made the supreme sacrifice.

Now as I write about the town’s WWI monument, I would like to thanks to Patricia Currier, Assistant Director of Raymond NH’s Dudley-Tucker Library for her assistance in researching the date that it was installed.  According to her, and the book mentioned earlier, Raymond’s WWI monument was unveiled on Memorial Day in 1926 by two little girls, Betty Plant and Rosemary Fox. The relief bust at the top of the monument is that of Dudley Gilman Tucker (see biography later).

Close up of bronze plaque on Raymond NH’s WWI monument. Photograph courtesy of Richard Marsh from his website, Images of New Hampshire History. Used with permission.

In researching the men on the monument, I discovered additional names not on the plaque either by accident or intent.  I have added their names following the list on the memorial, so that all the heroes will be acknowledged.  The transcription of the WWI monument follows.  [Editor’s Note: information contained in brackets “[ ]” are not found on the original monument, and are from my notes on their service].

[WORLD WAR I MONUMENT, RAYMOND NH]

1917 WORLD WAR 1918
Dudley Gilman Tucker
Sergeant in French Air Service
Killed in Action Near Soissons
July 3, 1918

Emerson Maple
Private Battery D., 103 F.A.
Killed in Action near Chateau Thierry
July 20, 1918

Carl M. Ladd, Ensign
Robert B. Ladd, Lieut.
Warner B. Tilton, Lieut.

Allen, Chris A.
Armstrong, Newton O. [Pvt, Battery D, 103rd Field Artillery]
Barnes, George W.
Bartlett, Frederick D.
Batchelder, Vernon S.
Brown, Arthur V. [Pvt, Co I, 303rd Infantry, Mrs. Addie Caswell, Aunt]
Brown, Clarence A.
Brown, George D.
Brown, Harry F.
Burk, Andrew J.
Clement, George A.
Clement, James C.
Counter, Paul
DeLage, Antonio A.
Dudley, Delbert S.
Dudley, James T.
Fox, Philip A.
Gove, Norris D.
Guptill, Bernard R.
Kirkland, John R. [Pvt, 315th Ammunition Train Ord Det, 90th Div.]
Kirkland, William T.
Letteney, Harry C.
Littlefield, John R.
Lyman, Ernest E. [Pvt., Battery D, 103rd Field Artillery]
Lyman, Fred S.
Mann, Perley E.
Miles, George A. [Arthur G. Miles, Pvt., Co H, 18th Infantry,Sick and Wounded, mother Mable Thompson]
Maloon, Roger B. [Sgt, HQ Det MTC Paris, grandfather Plummer Corson]
Moore, Henry C.
Morrison, Ivan B. [Sergt., Battery A, 303rd Field Artillery]
Page, Byron G. [training Fort Andrews, Corporal HQ Co. 44G.A.C., mother Agnes Page]
Pollard, Frank L. [Sgt1c Q.M.C. Road Show, Marseille Special Casual Co., mother Ellen Pollard]
Roberts, Frank C.
Robie, Guy E. [Edward G. Robie, Pvt. Co I, 303rd Infantry, wife Gladys]
Rogers, Stephen B. [Pvt Arty, HQRS Co, 50 CAC, father Ralph Rogers]
Simoneau, Geroge J.
Sinclair, Fred D.
Smart, Herbert W. [Private, Co F., 103rd Inf, mother Grace Lesles]
Stokell, Arthur D.
Tilton, Paul J.
Tilton, Ralph H.
Tilton, Sewall R.
Whittier, Hugh D. [Hugh Damon Whittier, Pvt, Ord Detachment,315th Ammunition Train, 90th Div. father Horace L. Whittier]

Raymond NH’s WWI monument in front of the town library. Taken by Richard Marsh. Used with permission.

–NAMES NOT FOUND ON Raymond NH’s MONUMENT–
Claimed Raymond NH as residence during WWI
Avery, Fred G., Pvt, Battery D, 103rd F.A. mother Mrs. Sherburne Blake.
Brown, Arthur V., Pvt, Co I, 303rd Infantry, Mrs. Addie Caswell, aunt.
Jameson, Charles W., P1C, Co A, 146th M.G. Btn., Mrs. Mabel Chamberlain, sister.
Lang, George Henry C., Pvt. QMC, Conservation and Reclamation Depot 301 QMCNA, mother Emma Whittier Lang
Lyman, Frank B., Pvt., Battery A., 46th Artillery CAC.
Pratt, Everett S., Pvt 3d Co, 101st Supply Train, friend Mrs. Samuel Pratt.
Tilton, Josiah B., Corp Co F, 103rd Infantry, mother Ross L. Tilton. / Mrs. Sarah K. Ordway, sister.
White, Waldmar Richard, Pvt Co M, 309th Infantry, friend Miss Mamie Lane. He completed his WWI registration form in Concord NH.

✫★✫★✫★✫★✪🌟✪✫★✫★✫★✫★
Heroes of Raymond NH During WWI
✫★✫★✫★✫★✪🌟✪✫★✫★✫★✫★

Dudley Gilman Tucker, from From “Memoirs of the Harvard dead in the War against Germany by Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe, 1920-24, p 138

Dudley Gilman Tucker
Sergeant in French Air Service
Killed in Action Near Soissons, France
July 3, 1918

From “Memoirs of the Harvard Dead,”He was born in New York City, April 7, 1887 of New England ancestry in such names as those of Governor Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Nathaniel Gilman of Exeter, New Hampshire, are found. His parents, Gilman Henry Tucker and Caroline Low (Kimball) Tucker, were lovers of books, art, and travel. They established a Free Public Library at Raymond, New Hampshire, the early home, and afterwards the summer home, of Tucker’s father, who for many years was secretary of the American Book Company. His mother was one of the organizers, in 1883, of what is now called the Messiah School, Spring Valley, New York, a home-like school for dependent children; of this she became honorary president. Tucker prepared for college at Dr. Louis Ray’s School in New York, and at the Hackley School at Tarrytown NY. He entered Harvard in the autumn of 1903, a good student, who learned quickly and easily, and found no difficulty in completing the studies required for his degree by the middle of his senior year. In college he became a member of Kappa Gamma Chi, of his class lacrosse team in the freshman, sophomore and junior years, and of the class hockey team in his senior year. As a freshman he suffered a serious disappointment through breaking one of his ankles while playing football. This was his favorite sport, but, in conformity with his father’s wish, he gave it up. For his mother’s gratification he payed the violin and sketched a little, and for his own pleasure he cultivated a good voice. Leaving Cambridge in February 1907, Tucker made the last of the four European trips which were a definite part of his parents’ scheme of education. These were not mere tourist travel, but were sojourns here and there. In 1907 he stayed in Sicily and southern Italy, enjoying early morning swims in the Ionian Sea, tramping, climbing, tennis and all the life of the English colony in which he found himself. On earlier trips he had visited the Tyrol, Switzerland, Germany, England, Scotland, and Wales. His mother recalls his coasing her to climb Snowdon–“just we two.” As the gathering mists warned them to turn back he pleased, “Only a little farther”: thus they reached the top and both were glad. She writes also: “Life at his country home in Raymond was always very full for him, with his pony, his canoe and his house-parties, when he and his guests danced in the moonlight on the lawn, and swam, and drove, and tramped over the hills. Always he had books–best of all pleasures to him–and he was constantly collecting them. During his months in camp in France his companions wondered that he would burden himself with so many books, with the all the frequent changes of base; but they enjoyed the stories which he found in

Headline from the New York Herald of 23 July 1922.

them. One, Jean Marchet, wrote: “He was always making fun for us, reading to telling stories, or making up plays. Il etait un tres bon camarade.” [The biography is quite lengthy, so you can read the rest here and more details on the Find-a-Grave site].

During WWI he enlisted in France’s Service Aeronautique.  The Hospital Breeze newspaper (Fort Riley, Kansas) of 28 August 1919 page 3 published in a column called “The Port of Missing Men”: Dudley G. Tucker, Escadrille Squad 15th, 1st Reg. French Foreign Legion, Pilot, Lafayette Flying Corps. Last seen surrounded by three German planes near Fismes, July 8.  The official record states he died of wounds near Chateau-Thierry France (after his airplane crashed or crash-landed) and was buried by the German Army.  He is now buried in the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial in France.  In 1922, he was posthumously awarded France’s Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre.

Private Emerson Maple, courtesy his 2nd great niece, Kathleen O’Connell Piasek.

Emerson Maple
Private Battery D., 103 F.A.
Killed in Action near Chateau Thierry
July 20, 1918 [should be July 30, 1918]

Emerson P. Maple was born 16 December 1898 in Charlotte, Chittenden County, Vermont, son of Frank & Charlotte “Lottie” (Lyons) Maple.  In the 1900 U.S. Census he was living in Ferrisburg, Addison Co. VT with his parents and siblings, and by 1910 the family had moved to Chester, New Hampshire. His siblings include Clyde R., Frances I., Marie E., Harold, Archibald. Emerson P. Maple served during WWI as a Private (in Co. C, 103rd Field Artillery.  He was shipped to Europe with this regiment and was killed in action in France on 30 July 1918.  The NH Adjutant General shows his rank as

Newspaper notice from The Derry Enterprise, Tuesday, August 27, 1918

“Cook” and credits his service to Chester, NH.   At first buried near the battlefield where he fell, after the war ended, Emerson Maple’s remains were returned to the United States on 2 July 1921 aboard the ship “Wheaton.” His service number was 136942.  He is buried in the family plot in Chester Village Cemetery, Chester, NH. Thanks to Kathleen O’Connell Piasek’s information that the Raymond NH American Legion Maple-Wheadon Post was named in his honor.  [Editor’s note: The Raymond NH monument shows his death date as 20 July, however the newspaper notices, the NH Adjutant General’s List of deaths, and his official request for a military tombstone all show 30 July.

[Editor’s Note: this story is part of an on-going series about heroic New Hampshire men and women of World War I.  Look here for the entire listing].