Edward N. Blanchard Died July 30, 1918, age 31, in the Aisne-Marne offensive, Picardy, France.

Edward N. Blanchard was born May 8, 1887, in North Grafton, a son of Joseph and Minnie (Thebault) Blanchard. On June 5, 1917, the 30-year-old Blanchard registered for military service.

Blanchard enlisted on November 22, 1917, and was assigned to the 151st Depot Brigade at Camp Devens, then transferred to the 2nd Company of the Camp Devens replacement draft on February 25, 1918, and entered infantry training. Blanchard was sent overseas on March 12, 1918, and a month later joined Company A of the 165th Infantry, 42nd Division.

On July 26, the 42nd Division relieved the 26th Division and went into front-line action at the Croix Rouge Farm and heights overlooking the Ourcq River, a tributary of the Marne. On July 30, Blanchard became one of the thousands of American servicemen to fall in the campaign. His body was never found. He is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing inside the chapel at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France.

Donald McCaskill, Jr. Died August 28, 1918, age 18, Arras campaign, Battle of the Scarpe, Northeastern France.

Donald McCaskill, Jr. was born in Scotland in 1900, son of Donald and Margaret C. McCaskill. His father emigrated to the U.S. in 1901, and his mother followed a year later, along with Donald and his sister Agnes. Agnes later married a Russell and began the business known to Millbury-ites as Russell’s Florist Shop on Canal Street.

On October 3, 1917, McCaskill traveled to Boston and enlisted in the MacLean Kilties, a unit of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces, which recruited soldiers in both Canada and the New England states, appealing to a shared sense of Scottish identity and pride. The Kilties even recruited before a Boston Red Sox/Detroit Tigers game that perhaps Donald attended! The Kilties formed part of the 7th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Division.

In early August 1918, Allied forces launched the “Hundred Days Offensive.” The 3rd Canadian Division was heavily involved, including at the Battle of the Scarpe, August 26-28, during which they seized a key part of the German defense system at Fresnes-Rouvroy.

McCaskill was killed in action on the first day of that battle. He is buried in Millbury’s Central Cemetery, along with his mother, who died just months later of influenza, on December 27, 1918.

George Devoe Died September 7 or 8, 1918, age 25, killed in action south of the Aisne River, France.

George Devoe was born July 27, 1893, in Millbury, one of the seven children of William and Mary (Leary) Devoe. At the time he registered for military service, on June 5, 1917, the slender 23-year-old Devoe was employed as a weaver by P.H. Walsh in Holden.

On February 26, 1918, Devoe traveled to Camp Devens to become part of the 151st Depot Brigade, and was later transferred to Camp Upton on Long Island, some 60 miles east of New York City, where he joined the 306th Infantry Regiment.

On April 6, 1918, Devoe’s unit was sent to France. By August, the 306th Regiment was engaged in a series of skirmishes and battles with German forces south of the Vesle River, which lies between the cities of Soissons and Reims northeast of Paris. In early September, theAmericans crossed the Vesle, and took up positions south of Vauxcéré. Over the next two days, they fought a series of battles with the Germans, during one of which Devoe was killed in action.

On October 3, 1918, his parents received a telegram informing them that their son had been killed in action on September 7. The regimental history lists his death as occurring on September 8. He is buried in St. Brigid’s Cemetery in Millbury.

Charles Henry Demers Died September 30, 1918, age 24, of influenza, at Camp Merritt, New Jersey.

Charles Henry Demers was born on July 5, 1894, in Spencer, Massachusetts, the son of Charles J. and Celina Demers. A tall, slender youth, Demers worked as a weaver in the Millbury Mills, and enlisted on December 7, 1917. He was initially assigned to Company 17 of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps at Boston Harbor’s Fort Revere, in Hull, Massachusetts, and transferred on September 21, 1918, to Camp Merritt, New Jersey.

Demers’ arrival at Camp Merritt coincided with the outbreak of the Spanish flu there. The epidemic claimed 578 lives at Fort Merritt, including Demers on September 30.

His funeral was held October 4, 1918, from the home of his mother on Elm Street, with a requiem Mass celebrated by the Rev. Joseph O. Comtois at the Church of the Assumption. Heis buried in St. Brigid’s Cemetery beside George Devoe.

Demers’ friends and cousins served as pallbearers, and two of the town’s Civil War veterans, Henry F. Hobart and Lyman S. Waters, provided a military salute.

“Private Demers was an excellent soldier, who was universally liked by this officers and fellow soldiers,” Major J. I. Sloan wrote to Demers’ mother on October 4. “And his untimely death is a source of genuine regret to us all. His death occurred in the line of duty and is no less honorable than had it occurred on the field of battle.”

Warren T. Harris Died October 8, 1918, age 24, of influenza, at Fort Slocum, New York.

Born March 10, 1894, Warren Timothy Harris was a son of Charles Henry and Mary Jane (Callahan) Harris. He graduated from Millbury High School in 1913, and in 1917 from the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts at Amherst). He was employed by his father in the family’s ice and lumber business along West Main Street.

After being drafted, Harris left Millbury on Monday, September 30, 1918, and that evening reached Fort Slocum, located on Davids’ Island, off New Rochelle, New York. In the crowded barracks of Fort Slocum, the deadly Spanish influenza was spreading rapidly, en route to claiming tens of millions of lives worldwide.

Within three days after his arrival at Fort Slocum, Harris was dangerously ill. His father visited the hospital, and returned to Millbury on Tuesday, October 8, with the “good news that his son was on the gain and was expected to recover,” as reported by the Worcester Telegram. That same day, however, Harris passed away. A sister, and a brother, Dr. Walter C. Harris, house surgeon at Boston City Hospital, were with him when he died.

Charles F. Minney Died January 21, 1919, age 26, of influenza, at Langres, Haute-Marne, France.

Charles Francis Minney was born August 24, 1895, in Millbury, the son of Arthur J. and Mary A. (Army) Minney, grew up on Cherry Street, attended the Burbank School in Bramanville, Millbury High School, and was employed as a weaver in the Mayo Woolen Mills in Bramanville.

He enlisted on May 25, 1917, reported for duty two months later, and joined Battery E., 2nd Field Artillery, training at Paxton, then Boxford, and shipping to France from Hoboken, New Jersey on September 23, arriving at St. Nazaire on October 4.

Minney’s experiences in the war were summarized in a Worcester Telegram account of February 4, 1919, reporting the news of his death on January 21, 1919, from disease at a base hospital in at Langres, Haute-Marne, France. According to other sources, including a 1985 article prepared for the 50th anniversary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Millbury, Minney had suffered from the effects of mustard gas during an engagement on the front in 1918. That experience left him with ulcerations of the lungs.

“He was one of the first Millbury boys that had come thru the great fighting at Chateau Thierry without serious injury,” the Telegram reported, “and his many friends were awaiting to hear from his own lips the thrilling story of the engagement.”

“The little home of the Minnies [sic] on Cherry street is filled with pretty relics sent home by the young soldier,” the Telegram account reads, “all of which were pointed to be his parents and his sisters, who were all grief stricken tonight upon the receipt of the sad news.”

Two years later, Minney’s body was returned to Millbury, where he was buried with full military honors. His name is included on the honor roll of the Church of the Assumption, and VFW Post 3329 on South Main Street in Millbury is named in his honor.

Minney’s Battlefield Grave in France

William Higginson Died May 9, 1919, age 20 or 21, of cholera, with British forces at Meerut, India.

William Higginson was born in in Belfast, Ireland in 1898, a son of Edward and Annie (Elder) Higginson, and came to the U.S. with his family at a young age, settling into the West End Thread Company village in Millbury. The family resided at 170 West Main Street, on the shores of Brierly Pond.

According to the Worcester Telegram, Higginson repeatedly tried to enlist in the U.S. armed forces following the nation’s entry into World War I, but was rejected because he was missing a

finger on his right hand. Determined to serve, he returned to Belfast in May 1917, where he joined friends who were enlisting in the British Army.

Higginson was assigned to the British motorized transit training school in the city of Meerut, India, capital of Uttar Pradesh state. Meerut was very far from the front lines during the war, but Higginson undertook his role with enthusiasm.

On May 11, 1919, Higginson’s fellow soldier and friend, J. Rachburn Mann, wrote to William’s brother, Charles Higginson:

“You will probably have heard by cable, long ago, before you get this, that your brother passed away at [3:20] this morning. We were all very sorry for we had come to know him as one of the workshop boys, who was always ready and willing to patch up our cars for us. And this they always did, with the use of a monkey wrench and a file, for our supply of workshop equipment was very meager, and the task of keeping cheerful under these circumstances was a difficult one, indeed, I can assure you.”

William Higginson was buried in the British cemetery at Meerut, beneath the Union Jack, as Mann wrote “… in just such a quiet and restful place, where anyone would like to be, if they could not be placed beside their relatives.

The Higginson home on West Main Street by Brierly Pond