American Legion Post 419 honors War of 1812 veteran with headstone dedication ceremony

The American Legion Post 419, out of Freistatt, honored an American veteran of the War of 1812 with a headstone dedication ceremony on Saturday, April 10. The ceremony consisted of an invocation, some brief remarks and a color guard presentation. The color guard was made up of cadets from the Scott Regional Tech Center JROTC.
The ceremony took place at Lee Cemetery where the veteran, Private Benjamin Allen, is buried. Allen, who was born in 1779, served in the 45th Infantry Regiment during the war.
During the dedication ceremony, Sergeant at Arms Ryan Riott spoke of Allen’s service.
“Private Allen volunteered and offered his service so that freedom and democracy might serve to be the victorious ideals of the people of the United States of America,” Riott said. “As he served in time of war, may we serve America in time of peace. American Legion Post 419 is proud to be part of the recognition of his faithful service.”
Aaron Obermann, post adjutant, said Post 419 became involved in the effort to place a headstone on Allen’s gravesite following an incident that took place in Lee Cemetery in 2019.
“About two years ago, there was some vandalism that was done here in the cemetery, and there were some stones that either were totally obliterated or some kind of damage was done to them,” he said. “Once we found that out, we came and talked to the cemetery committee and … just tried to see if there was anything we could do to help accommodate any restoration of any veteran’s graves or stones or anything along those lines. During that process, they had actually made contact with an organization out of Joplin, Mo. … that was actually helping and donating time to help fix and restore some of the stones.”
The organization, Obermann, said, informed the post about Allen’s gravesite.
“When they got back to us, they said, ‘We have one potential thing you guys might be interested in, and we have a veteran from the War of 1812 that we know is buried out here, but we can’t find a marker for him. Would you be interested in doing something like that?’” he said. “So that’s where we picked it up, and we actually had a fundraiser … where we raised funds to provide the stone, and it’s just kind of morphed into that at this point.”
The post held a chili supper fundraiser in October to raise funds for Allen’s headstone, which cost $700. It was placed in Lee Cemetery on Monday, April 5. Because Allen’s exact burial site is not known, Obermann said, Allen’s headstone was placed next to the burial site of his daughter, Elizabeth Allen Lee.
Allen’s headstone is not the only one that the Legion will place. Rock Conway, the finance officer for Post 419, said there are numerous veterans buried unmarked gravesites in the area.
“We’ve got graves all over that are not being recognized and taken care of, and that’s one of our objectives,” he said.