My daily jogging routine takes me past St. Joseph Cemetery in Burlington, VT; this cemetery is fairly discrete with no over-the-top entryway and is located in a section of Burlington typically used as a pass-between for the Old North End and the UVM campus.  St. Joseph is the oldest Catholic cemetery in Burlington, and primarily consists of Irish-Catholic and French-Catholic burials.  The cemetery property was donated by Col. Archibald Waterman Hyde (1786-1847) in 1830, a War of 1812 veteran who served as Barracks Master in Burlington during the war.  According to his FindaGrave.com entry, Hyde:

“In his later years he affected antique costumes and habits, dressed in small-clothes, wore knee- and shoe-buckles, or long boots, with a long cue hanging down his back; eulogized the forefathers, and lamented the degeneracy of their descendants. He was a man of his word, a faithful friend, open-handed to the poor. He never married.”

An interesting side-piece to this post! (So many questions about Hyde….)  Now let’s focus on William F. Duggan…

I always take pause to check out the various headstones as I do my pre and post run stretches, and I take particular notice of interesting military-related graves. In this case, I found a semi-obscured headstone with three small American flags clearly marking a veteran grave.  I snapped a picture in hopes of researching and posting the info to PortraitsofWar.  This post is dedicated to William F. Duggan – just an ordinary Vermont WWI veteran who deserves a place in the digital world!  I hope a few of his relatives chime in…

Biography

William Francis Duggan was born on September 25th, 1895 in Burlington, Chittenden County, VT.  The son of William Amos and Katherine M. Duggan, he married Georgianna Esther Hall of 19 Cherry Street, Burlington on June 6th, 1916.

William was sent away to war a few years later and served in a number of disparate units during the three months he spent in France and Germany during the war; he served stateside with the 52nd Aero Squadron from March until June 17th, 1918, and then transferred to Battery B of the 110th Field Artillery (29th Division) until July 10th, he then transferred again to Company L of the 340th Infantry Regiment, 85th Division, and later to Battery F of the 137th Field Artillery, 41st Division.   He served overseas with the 137th from October 6th, 1918 until December 24th, 1918.  He left Europe and returned to the US on January 17th, 1919, where he was summarily discharged.  His home at the time (and for years prior) was 57 Rose Street, Burlington, Chittenden County, VT:

William F. Duggan’s Wartime Record

With William’s WWI service record researched, I began to look into his pre and postwar life in Burlington.  He lived in the my community, and such, I’m interested in his comings and goings on the streets that I frequent.  It turns out that Will likely knew the streets of Burlington better than most 2016 residents!  During his lifetime, William F. Duggan worked as a streetcar operator, fireman,used furniture salesman, taxi driver (many years), and as a Burlington Electric employee.  Quite the credentials!

 

 

Although I can’t find the marriage record for his second marriage, I do know that he remarried later in life and had six children with his second wife.  William and Mary Louis Rielling had six children together – Patricia, Dorothy (Quintin), Mary (Kidder), Elizabeth (Rousseau), Kathleen (Dutra), and Robert Duggan.  As of the writing of this post, only Patricia has passed.

William sounds like an incredible guy, and I hope to learn more about him and his exploits through this post. A wartime photo of him would be the icing on the cake!

I plan to trim a bit of the grass around his headstone to allow for easier view, and he will certainly be a part of my daily run routine for years to come 🙂