Location:
Prospect Hill Cemetery
Section no: NN
Memorial no: 516-1
Orientation:
See map of this cemetery: https://cemeteries.nha.org/prospect-hill-cemetery/
Personal Information
Name: William H. Gruber
Gender: Male
Age:
Birth: 1838
Death: 1865
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Number interred: 2
Notes
Inscription:
FATHER – MOTHER
WILLIAM H. GRUBER
1838 – 1865
CAROLINE H. GRUBER
1841 – 1923
Epitaph: No
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Biographical notes: William H. Gruber, son of Joshua Gruber and Ellen Cummings Gruber, was born in 1837 and married Caroline H. Fanning before the war in 1860. The Barney record notes that he died on January 2, 1865 as a prisoner-of-war. The NPS web site lists a William H. Gruber who joined the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, Company M (along with Alvin Coffin and Edward Hamblin). Companies E, F, L, and M were known as the “California Battalion,” and had been recruited from volunteers in San Francisco in March 1863. Eager to serve but not wanting to fight out west, the California Battalion was part of a second wave of former Easterners who returned home to fight in the war (from “The Second Mass and Its Fighting Californians” web site—as many Nantucketers had flocked to San Francisco around this time in search of new opportunities, this fits well). The California Battalion saw action in Virginia around Washington and also in the Shenandoah Valley; when Gruber was taken prisoner is unclear (although a number of the 2nd Cavalry were captured at Dranesville on February 22, 1864, see below), and there is no record of him at Andersonville. (“Search for Nantucket’s Forgotten Heros” by James Everett Grieder)
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Data Collection
Date data collected: 4/4/2007
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Location note:
Citation source:
Field recorder: Georgen Gilliam Charnes
Data input by: Georgen Gilliam Charnes
Reviewed by: Automatic