Schoharie County NYGenWeb Site

Captain Peter E. Borst obituary

Submitted by Elsie Saar

Obituary - Cobleskill Index, February 5, 1914, pg 1

Captain Peter E. Borst - Captain Peter E. Borst, a former resident of this village, died at the Soldiers' Home at Bath on Wednesday evening, Jan 28th, at the age of 76 years. He was a son of William and Catherine Maria (Van Patten) Borst.

Capt. Borst had the honor of being the first soldier to enlist in Schoharie county. In 1861, at the age of 24, he enlisted as a private in the Third New York Cavalry, a regiment organized and commanded by Colonel S. Hoosic Max, who was killed before Petersburg in 1864. Captain Borst served through the entire war and saw much active service.

He took part with his regiment in both the Wilson and Dahlgren raids. In the former he received a gunshot wound in the right elbow which confined him in the hospital for some. Rejoining his regiment, he was again wounded in action at Little Washington, N.C., receiving a saber cut in the left shoulder. In 1863-64 he saw service in the Shenandoah valley. He was successively promoted for meritorious service from corporal to captain, and was mustered out as a first lieutenant at Suffolk, Va., July 12, 1965. In later years he was for a time an orderly at the capitol at Albany.

Captain Borst is survived by his widow and four children, two sons, Leland and Carl, and two daughters, Mrs. Chelsea [Furner] and Mrs. Claude Braley of Schenectady, two sisters, Mrs. L.D. Letts of this village and Mrs. Edna Rowe of Chicago, Ill., and by one brother Martin Luther Borst of DeKalb, Ill.

His body arrived Friday morning and was taken to the home of his sister, Mrs. Letts, where funeral services were held Saturday at 1 p.m., Rev. H. Dennington Hayes, pastor of Zion Lutheran church, officiating. The handsomely engraved plate bore the single words, "Our Comrade" so full of meaning to the old soldier.

"Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows no breaking'
Dream of battle fields no more,
Days of danger, night of waking."

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