Enjoy our Halloween morning tour of Sparta Cemetery, led by Town Historian Scott Craven, Village Historian Joyce Cole, and former Village Historian Dana White. Also joining us were Martha Mesiti, former Town Historian; Jane Botticelli and Regina Rafter of the Ossining Historic Cemeteries Conservancy; and Robert Stava from the Ossining Historical Society. Video by OPL's Louis Crisci.
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Edmond Charles Clinton Genet
Edmond Charles Clinton Genet was born in the Village of Sing Sing in 1896. A descendant of the famous “Citizen Genet,” Edmond grew up on Spring Street and was educated locally. He joined the US Navy and travelled to his ancestral country of France. When war broke out he then joined the French Foreign Legion. After distinguishing himself in heavy ground fighting, he joined the Lafayette Escadrille, a nascent flying group comprised of Americans fighting in France.
On the day America declared war on Germany, Genet was shot down and killed, making him the first official American casualty of the war. Soon after the war, the Lafayette Escadrille’s French commander published a book about the unit in 1921, titled The story of the Lafayette Escadrille Told By its Commander, Captain Georges Thenault . The Ossining Public Library took in a copy in 1923 and recorded this in their accession book. It is unknown whether the library acquired the book because of the hometown connection or because of the unit’s notoriety. However, Airman Genet’s former neighbors and friends undoubtedly read the book with interest and sadness.
Related in Ossining today
American legion Post #506 in Ossining is named after Edmond C. Genet. Every Memorial Day the American legion honors Ossining’s war dead at a ceremony at Nelson Park. We can’t think of more important place to be in Ossining on any Memorial Day than this yearly service.
-Scott Craven
Want to learn more? Check out:
The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille by