Wednesday, May 17, 2000
Small cemetery renewed
Man who fell at Vicksburg not forgotten
By Walt Schaefer
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Pvt. Jonathan Shupp gets a new marker.
(Dick Swaim photo)
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SHARONVILLE — In a small graveyard off Sharondale Road, a long-forgotten soldier was remembered with a new headstone Tuesday from the country he gave his life to serve.
While the speeches and ceremony will occur at the historic Shuff-Myer Cemetery on Memorial Day, members of the Society of Historic Sharonville, with Carl Muennich, a cemetery restoration expert with Deerfield Township, quietly placed Pvt. Jonathan Shupp's new headstone. Bill Elmore, a Sharonville native who lives in Davenport, Iowa, discovered Pvt. Shupp's crumbling tombstone on a visit home in spring 1999.
He provided documentation to the U.S. Veterans Administration of Pvt. Shupp's Civil War service, which qualifies him to receive the new marker.
“Right now, I'm thinking of a 19- or 20-year-old young man who volunteered for his community and country in the Civil War and gave his life. I'm thinking of his contributions, and I'm hoping more people will recognize what he did because of this (gravestone and cemetery restoration),” Mr. Elmore said in a telephone interview from his home.
Mr. Shupp was born Nov. 11, 1842, and died May 23, 1863 from a gunshot wound to the abdomen at the siege of Vicksburg, Miss. He had enlisted with the Ohio Volunteer Infantry in August 1862 in Sharonville and was assigned to Company E of the 83rd Regiment of the OVI. He participated in Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Bayou Expedition down the Mississippi River into Louisiana, then went to Vicksburg, Mr. Elmore said.
The original stone, found in pieces, had been placed in the small cemetery by Mr. Shupp's family.
The entire cemetery, where about 50 graves have been found, has been given a face lift.
Glen Lovitt, 15, a member of Sharonville Post 485 of the Boy Scouts of America, took on the cemetery restoration as his Eagle Scout leadership project, said Bob Houston, a member of the Historic Sharonville board. A dozen scouts have been working at the small cemetery.
Glen, a freshman at Princeton High School, received donations of trees, bushes and flowers from Imperial Nursery. City Council approved a driveway and parking lot installation.
MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVANCE
Ceremonies begin at 12:05 p.m and include:
• Comments from Col. Ken Daft, chaplain of the Ohio National Guard; Bill Elmore; Mayor Virgil Lovitt; William K. Lewis, president of the local historical society, and Walt McVicker, Ohio Valley Union Volunteers.
• Keynote speaker: U.S. Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio).
• Recognition of Glen Lovitt and other Boy Scouts who helped restore the site.
• Rededication ceremonies.
• Taps and placement of flowers on the grave by the Daughters of the Union, Levi Worster Chapter.
• Rifle and musket and cannon volleys by the Ohio Valley Volunteers and the Ohio National Guard.
• A 1 p.m. flyover by F-16s from the Ohio Air National Guard in honor of Pvt. Jonathan Shupp.
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