close

Monongahela history buffs honor ‘The Invincible Grays’ and black veterans

3 min read
1 / 2

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Walter Seal, center, presents a plaque to the county commissioners, along with Terry Necciai of the Monongahela Main Street Program, right, and Eric Wible of Youngwood, left.

2 / 2

Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter

Walter Seal reads from a plaque he presented Thursday to the Washington County commissioners.

It’s not every month that a man dressed in a Civil War uniform marches into the public meeting room for an audience with the Washington County commissioners, but one appeared Thursday to kick off Black History Month.

Eric Wible of Youngwood, Westmoreland County, portrayed a Union Army corporal as he read a list of last names from Pennsylvania’s all African-American National Guard unit from Washington County.

Walter Seal and Terry Necciai, on behalf of the Monongahela Main Street Program, presented the county with a plaque noting the accomplishments of the unit known during the Civil War as the Invincible Grays. They were later called the Keystone Guards and, finally, Company F, 10th Regiment, Eighth Division.

Before being honorably discharged, this unit served as honor guard at the 1876 U.S. centennial celebration in Philadelphia and kept the peace during railroad strikes in 1877.

Necciai said Seal asked him to provide context for the formation of the unit. “Many people don’t know that Pennsylvania passed the first abolition act, but it wasn’t emancipation” of slaves.

“As late as the 1840s, there was still a slave sale in Westmoreland County,” the same year two slaves were listed in the U.S. Census of Washington County, Necciai said.

Pennsylvania first passed its Abolition Act in 1780, then again after the creation of Washington County in 1781. Because the region was once part of the Virginia territory, the Legislature acted twice, presumably “just to make sure we knew that it covered Washington County,” Necciai said, mentioning he learned this from the late county and U.S. District Court Judge Paul Simmons of Monongahela, a Harvard Law School graduate who was the first black federal judge in Western Pennsylvania.

Necciai said black residents volunteered to serve in the Union Army with black officers during the Civil War, but the governor turned them down “because the governor didn’t know what to do about this possibility of taking African-American troops. After the Battle of Gettysburg, the war got so bad that they actually drafted some of these guys.”

After the meeting, Cliff Cochran of Washington, a Democratic committeeman, said, “I thought it was a good presentation. I wasn’t aware that existed. It’s a good idea, but I think other than slavery, there’s more black history to be discussed and looked at.”

Cochran, a member of the Democratic State Committee and former president of United Steelworkers Local 3968, advocated for “concerns of African-Americans in Washington County that are not being addressed,” citing a relatively small number of minorities working in county government, which the state Department of Labor and Industry lists as the fifth-largest employer in Washington County.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today