SAMUEL FRANKLIN WELCH -- 118th INFANTRY MOVED TO ILLINOIS FROM ESSEX - Samuel Franklin Welch's great grandfather, Bazaleel Richardson, spent 14 days in 1780 in Col. Ebenezer Allen's Vermont Militia. He was called out on alarms in March and May and received over ₤3 for his service and transportation. Samuel's time to serve his country came when he was 18 and enlisted in the 118th Infantry in September 1864. The young mechanic, as he styled himself, received $500 for enlisting. In August and September 1864, the 118th was still recruiting in Plattsburgh. Between March and the end of July of that year, over 300 casualties had been incurred and the 25 men who had enlisted were sent straight to Virginia and the battlefields along the James River between Petersburg and Richmond.The first battle for the newly-enlisted men was at Chaffin's Farm on October 29th where one of his comrades were wounded. At Second Fair Oaks a month later, two of the new men were captured. Samuel managed to remain unscathed until after the Fall of Petersburg and was mustered out with his company on June 13, 1865. Samuel came home to Essex to live with his parents and by 1870 had moved to Marseilles, IL, a manufacturing community about 75 miles southwest ofChicago. He married Adaline Thompson in 1870 and when she died, he married Lulu Marshall. When his mother, Mary Winslow, died in 1879, his father, Abram moved to Illinois. By 1910, Samuel was a superintendent of a factory in Aurora, IL, a few miles closer to Chicago. He died in 1923 and was buried under the same stone as his first wife in the Spring Lake Cemetery in Aurora. Lulu died in 1939 and was buried in the same plot.
