Todd Cross

Pelham Town Historian Art Scinta

Editor’s note: Pelham Town Historian Art Scinta delivered this keynote address at Monday’s Memorial Day celebration and tribute to those who gave their lives in service to our country. 

There is a scrapbook in the Pelham Town Historian Collection assembled during World War II by a young woman named Agnes Van Cott, a young reporter for the local newspaper the Pelham Sun. She set out in an effort to collect clippings of newspaper articles documenting the heroism and sacrifices of Pelham servicemen. The first page has a carefully pasted clipping from October 1941 with the headline,

“Naval Cadet Killed in Crash. Grover Burrows, Student Flier, Buried Tuesday.”

Then follows other clippings, tracking the war and its many battles: 

“Germans Report Lieutenant Hodom killed in action”

“Paul McCarthy Presumed Dead, remained at controls of stricken bomber while pals parachuted back to earth”

“Lieutenant Campbell, Bomber Pilot is killed in action”

“Lieutenant Scott is Missing after Hungary Air Raid”

“Sergeant Roger Sweeny, Victim of Plane Crash, is Buried”

Wm H Quinn Dies in Action on Belgian Field

Private Robert Gordon Killed in France

Parachuting from Plane, Ensign Ring is Machine Gunned by Japanese Airmen

Corporal Di Giacomo, killed in fight for Iwo Jima

And the clippings go on and on for more than 50 pages. The first pages have a single article, then two per page, then three and four until Miss Van Cott ran out of room and the clippings accumulated at the back until they reached a stack a half inch thick. 

For every one of these clippings, there was a grieving Pelham family and many hundreds more consoling them, all the while shouldering on in a united war effort on the home front with scrap metal drives and war bond sales, blackouts, rationing of food and gasoline, and the sound of air raid siren warnings.

There is a reason why they were called the Greatest Generation.

There is no scrapbook for the Battle of Pelham of October 18, 1776. If there were, it would document a level of sacrifice that exceeded even that of World War II. Those who embraced the radical idea that we could govern ourselves were engaged in nothing short of treason against their own government and their own king, putting on the line not just their own individual lives, but the lives of their families and children, risking their property and everything they owned, all of which would be lost were they not to win that war. This was the risk taken by John Glover and the other officers who led an undertrained, poorly clothed group of patriots, outnumbered 5 to 1, who fought in the Battle of Pelham against the most well trained, best-armed military in the world.

On this Memorial Day, as we remember and honor these and others who sacrificed themselves for the sake of generations of Americans they would never know, the question is:  what is asked of us? In a time where wars are fought in distant places increasingly with unmanned armaments, when even now there is a war underway, and the only real impact on our daily lives is that we have to pay an extra buck a gallon for gasoline, what sacrifice is required of us to secure freedom for those who come after us?

I would submit that it is the very exercise of our freedoms that is now necessary to ensure that we continue to live in a truly free society.

We live in a time when – as we all know too well – our country is so very deeply divided that it feels as if we have nothing in common that can hold us together. The solution to restoring the states of America to being truly United ones can be found, not in seeking unity through adherence to a singular viewpoint. That has never really been the foundation for our national unity. From the very beginning, America was not of one mind or opinion, even in the act of declaring our independence. The very idea of separation from Great Britain pitted neighbors and families against each other. 

When the war came to Pelham, members of the Pell Family were equally divided in their views. Pell cousins who grew up and lived within a mile of each other fought on opposite sides; two of them engaged in direct battle, shooting at each other in the Battle of Saratoga.  And while Philip Pell was serving as an officer directly under General Washington, his uncle Joshua Pell was helping guide British troops across Pelham in an attempt to destroy the entire Continental Army.

What has bound our nation together since that time, and can again, is an unwavering commitment by each and all of us, not to a single viewpoint, but to the free exchange of ideas guaranteed by a fundamental right to freedom of speech. 

This is a time when, as impossible as it seems, it has become dangerous–in fact, life-threatening — to say something in a public forum that someone finds offensive. Even for the average person, speaking freely can give rise to fear of a personal attack, that we might be belittled, or that some character flaw or past mistake might be used as an excuse for shaming and silencing.

This is where courage comes in — to defend our freedom not through a war or on a battlefield as our veterans have done, but by exercising that freedom, no matter the social consequences, and at the same time, allowing those who hold completely opposite views to do the same. To welcome the expression of ideas that are different than ours as part of an open national dialogue.

We can again be united as a country by pledging ourselves to the age-tested adage, “I disagree vehemently with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.” For in the history of the world, free societies have been established by words that challenged commonly-held beliefs and that went against prevailing orthodoxies — statements once considered outlandish and even offensive like “all men are created equal.” 

To encourage this free exchange, let us not pass judgment on those who speak, but instead judge the veracity of the words that are spoken. For if only the perfect in character are permitted to speak, we will find ourselves living in a very quiet world.

Two hundred fifty years ago, it was a battle here in Pelham that saved the American Revolution and with it, the then-crazy ideas that were ultimately put to paper in our Bill of Rights. So let it be we as Pelhamites who lead the way in committing ourselves to mustering the courage both to hold forth ideas, whether popular or unpopular, and equal courage to not fear words with which we disagree. Let this pledge begin appropriately today on this Memorial Day when we recognize those from Pelham who made the ultimate sacrifice, and let it continue through this 250th year since our nation’s founding and in the decades to come.

May God continue to bless our town of Pelham. God bless all of you, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.