Sergeant, HQ, 153rd Field Artillery Brigade, 78th Division.
Died of pneumonia and nephritis in an Army hospital in Dijon, France, February 9, 1919. Age 26.
Town: Batavia (also Scranton, Pennsylvania; see text)
Burial: St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Plot A Row 3 Grave 5, Thiaucourt, France
Homer Lathrop Peckham was born in Brooklyn (Susquehanna County), Pennsylvania, on August 8, 1892. (Some sources give his birth year as 1893 but most documents and censuses say 1892.) He spent most of his life in that state. The 1900 US Census shows Homer at age 7 living in Brooklyn township with his parents, Jay D Peckham and Annie Peckham, and two younger sisters, Myra and Florence. In the 1910 US Census, the family is living in Dalton (Lackawanna County), Pennsylvania. Homer’s father is listed as a bank watchman, while Homer’s occupation, at age 17, is given as bank messenger.
According to the Pennsylvania National Guard Veterans’ Card File, Homer Peckham enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, giving Scranton as his residence, on March 7, 1913. He served as a private in the 13th Infantry’s Hospital Corps until he was discharged on February 6, 1914. “Left State” is the reason given in the file for his discharge.
It’s not clear exactly when Peckham moved to Genesee County, New York, but he was certainly living and working in Batavia in 1917 when he entered the service. His draft registration card shows that he registered in Batavia on June 5, 1917, and he’s also listed in Farm Journal Illustrated Directory of Genesee County and on the county’s “Militia Enrollment List,” both compiled in mid-1917. All three sources, as well as his NYSS, give his residence as 14 Fisher Park in Batavia. Newspaper accounts and his draft registration card say that Peckham worked as a chauffeur for Mrs. Alice G. Fisher of 427 East Main Street in Batavia.
As a member of Genesee County’s second draft contingent, Homer Peckham was inducted into the Army on September 25, 1917, and left the next day for Camp Dix, New Jersey, home of the 78th Division. He was initially assigned to Battery D of the 307th Field Artillery, but was transferred in early December to the division’s 153rd Field Artillery Brigade Headquarters, where he chauffeured Brigadier General Clint T Hearn’s car. He continued in that capacity when the division shipped overseas in May, 1918, and throughout the war until, according to an account in the June 20, 1919 Batavia Daily News, he contracted pneumonia while on a trip to replace the general’s car, which had been destroyed by a shell. Although most other sources also say that he died of pneumonia, two documents in his Burial Case File, both from Base Hospital No. 103 in Dijon, France, where Peckham died, give nephritis (which can be a complication of pneumonia) as the cause.
In a letter to his mother, General Hearn wrote of Sergeant Peckham, “He was an example to his associates in loyalty and courage. He was many times under hostile fire and he never faltered. Because of his tact, his good judgment, his efficiency and his fair dealing with men, he was placed in charge of the motor transportation of brigade headquarters. During the entire time he has been with this brigade there has not been a moment when your mother’s heart could not have thrilled with pride in your soldier son.”
History of the Seventy-Eighth Division gives Homer Peckham’s death date as February 19, 1919, but that is certainly a typo; all other sources list the date as February 9, 1919. Soldiers of the Great War (Volume 3) shows him as a Pennsylvania casualty, while New York’s Roll of Honor lists him under Genesee County. He can rightfully be honored as a fallen son by both states.
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June 20, 1919 Batavia Daily News p12 c3
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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri
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Homer L Peckham headstone, St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Plot A Row 3 Grave 5, Thiaucourt, France
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Homer L Peckham Sources:
– County Lists 2, 3
– Sep 25, 1917 BD p1 c6-7, p2 c4
– Dec 1, 1917 BD p7 c2
– Oct 23, 1918 BD p8 c4
– Jun 20, 1919 BD, p12 c3*
– Jun 21, 1919 BT, p1 c5
– “United States Census, 1900.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Jay Peckham (head) and Homer L Peckham (son, age 7), citing Census Records, Brooklyn Township, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania; sheet number 5, line numbers 32 and 34, microfilm series T623, Roll 1488, page 70.
– “United States Census, 1910.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Jay D Peckham (head) and Homer Peckham (son, age 17), citing Census Records, Dalton Borough, Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; sheet number 22, line numbers 14 and 16, microfilm series T624, Roll 1357, page 82.
– Farm Journal Illustrated Directory of Genesee County (1917), p 84
– “Militia Enrollment List” (Genesee County, 1917), p P1
– NYSS
– Roll of Honor (NY State), p 65
– WWI database, American Battle Monuments Commission website (www.abmc.gov/search/wwi.php)
– Soldiers of the Great War (Vol. 3), p 152
– World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Ancestry.com)
– “Peckham L. Homer” file card image, Pennsylvania National Guard Veterans’ Card File, 1867-1921, Pennsylvania State Archives, online database (www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us/archive.asp?view=ArchiveItems&ArchiveID=21&FL=P&FID=2045915&LID=2045964)
– History of the Seventy-Eighth Division, p 242
– BCF
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