On Saturday, May 27, at the North Elba Cemetery, his service was honored and remembered. Cpl. Appo was Black, fighting with a nearly all-white regiment.

“Appo did not have to serve,” said the John Brown Farm State Historic Site Manager Brendan Mills. “Black Americans were not permitted to participate in combat, yet he did before Lincoln signed and released the Emancipation Proclamation.”

Appo’s parents did not come to the town of North Elba as a Timbucto homesteader accepting land from abolitionist Gerrit Smith to gain the right to vote. Instead, they bought their land as they could afford to; William Appo Sr. was an exceptionally talented musician who enjoyed a successful career performing across the United States and Europe, which included performing for the newly crowned Queen Victoria. Indeed, his musical combo was the first American musical ensemble, white or Black, to perform abroad.

Appo Sr. came to the Lake Placid region because he was intrigued and wanted to reconnect with abolitionist John Brown and meet the homesteaders. Reconnect because Brown was in London selling his wool while Appo was being feted by high society; there, they met and shared a strong passion for ending slavery. Appo and his wife were some of the first seasonal residents in the Lake Placid region, according to Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, professor of anthropology at SUNY Potsdam. They kept coming to North Elba because they and their children fell in love with the area’s beauty, becoming very active in community life and giving whatever assistance they could to the Timbucto residents. Doing so, the Appos became seasonal residents of North Elba, where they felt most at home and where their family is buried.

Today, local cemeteries and the Lake Placid Hall of Fame are filled with the names of seasonal residents, like the Appos, who contributed much to our community. For the Appos, that meant, among other things, giving locals, especially youth, music and voice lessons and staging performances. Thus, when Appo Jr. decided to volunteer, knowing he’d never be allowed to enlist in his birth city of Burlington, New Jersey, where he was well known, he applied and successfully enrolled in North Elba. He joined the New York’s 30th Infantry Regiment, and displaying leadership skills, within a few months, he was made a corporal.

Like many who died in that brutal conflict, with deaths numbering in the thousands, Appo’s remains were buried in a mass grave at Manassas, Virginia. What he has never been allowed to have, as is true of most who died alongside him, is an official Union headstone.

But thanks to the efforts of Mills, North Elba town Supervisor Derek Doty, historian Amy Godine, Sons of Union Veterans member William Stump and others, progress in getting Cpl. Appo his rightful due will hopefully take place late summer or early fall. In many respects, the seed was planted by local historian Charles Thomas, who alerted Mills shortly after his arrival to Appo’s service. Later on, Mills learned from Godine about Appo’s lack of proper recognition, a task he has pursued to rectify with dogged determination.

“The VA turned us down because there is no living relative as far as known,” said Mills. “Appo is not particularly unique as many Civil War veterans were never given a grave or official headstone. During the war, the army never felt a need to give many a proper burial or notify their families that they had been killed; plus, they didn’t issue dog tags at that time, making it hard to identify bodies. Appo was probably buried in a mass grave near or in the railroad cut where he fell. While his name is on the Appo-Epps family obelisk in the North Elba Cemetery, there is no recognition of his service, no official headstone, so we’re just going to have one made that complies with the town’s guidelines and includes his rank, unit and where and when he died.”

Also missing until recently has been a Grand Army of the Republic brass plaque, denied to him despite the best efforts by Thomas to get one placed on his grave marker. Former town historian Mary MacKenzie blocked every attempt because Appo’s remains were not buried here; she felt his grave marker didn’t deserve a GAR plaque. She was a stickler for details. As so many veterans were buried in mass graves, the VA favors that privilege as it enables families and communities to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

On May 27, members of Lake Placid’s American Legion Post 326, a Civil War detachment from Fort Tribute representing the 60th Regiment Volunteers, Godine and Mills led a tribute to Appo that included laying a wreath next to his marker by the family obelisk.

“It’s an honor to be asked to represent Fort Tribute and recognize and help pay tribute to Corporal Appro,” said Detachment Lt. Col. Scott Wilson. “We are here lest we forget; the bottom line is, if we don’t continue to keep sacrifices such as this one made by this soldier, it gets forgotten.”

Post 326 Commander Doug Hoffman said though they were coming out to place flags on the graves of all veterans, as they do every Memorial Day, they were pleased to be invited to participate in the service honoring Cpl. Appo.

“What brings us here today is not Appo’s death,” said Godine, “but it’s the life he lived that gave that death meaning. It’s his fearlessness, his determination, and his love of country so profound that enabled him to break the law to come to his country’s defense. We are also moved by his leadership, to me made corporal after only a few months in the field, and so young. William Appo was a rare soul.”

“To me, any man of color who joined, under those circumstances, was a hero already,” said Paul Smith’s College professor Curt Stager. “Many whites joined to save the union or have an adventure; Appo and other Blacks joined for the highest ideal, to defeat slavery, and they did it against massive headwinds. All the suffering and risk they took on, in addition to being despised by their side, singled out by the Confederacy to be killed or enslaved if they were taken on the field and not be paid the same as the white soldiers. Yet Appo and others still signed up.”

(Naj Wikoff lives in Keene Valley. He has been covering events for the Lake Placid News for more than 15 years.)