CIVIL-WAR-WOMEN-L Archives

From: "Eugene Stackhouse" <>
Subject: Mellville Freas Monument
Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 23:00:02 -0500

Newspaper Article 1907:

ORDERS HIS OWN STATUE TO BE PLACED IN CEMETERY

Civil War Veteran Prepares for Death.

Mellville H. Freas, a Civil War Veteran and a former member of the famous Bucktail Regiment yesterday awarded a contract to John W. Gessler's Sons, 39th street and Baltimore avenue to make a granite statue of him which will be placed in his lot in Ivy Hill Cemetery.

He is 73 year old and lives at 248 East Haines street. It was in Germantown that with four companions be enlisted in 1862 in the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers, later known as the Bucktails. The five young men remained together until Gettysburg. At 6 o'clock on July 3, 1863, as General Lee was preparing for flight, they were captured. They were taken to the prison at Belle Isle, where Freas four companions died. On March 23, 1864 Freas was paroled.

At the close of the war he returned to Germantown, and erected a monument upon his lot In Ivy Hill, on which were cut the names of the four friends he lost in prison. Every Memorial Day since then Freas has donned his uniform and has gone to the cemetery to decorate the monument.

And now he has ordered a statue of himself to be placed by the monument. Under this will be the inscription

MELLVILLE H. FREAS,

A Soldier of the Civil War

1862-1865

Co. A. 150th Pa. Vols. The Bucktail Regiment

Taken prisoner at Gettysburg July 3, 1863 at 6 p.m. Was in prison at Belle Isle, Va. Paroled March 4 1864. Died-



Gene Stackhouse
"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
Henny Youngman

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• Mellville Freas Monument by "Eugene Stackhouse" <>