Killed In Action

EDWARD ALFRED TROTTIER
1887 - 1918

US NavyEdward Alfred Trottier, Newmarket  son of Henry and Philomene (LeFebvre) Trottier, enlisted in the US Navy as an Apprentice Seaman in Boston onJuly 24, 1918.  At the time of his enlistment, the 30 year old Newmarket native had been employed in the family wool importing business firm Trottier and Company, on Federal Street in Boston.   Within two months of his assignment to Base Headquarters in Boston, Edward died of Influenza on  September 23rd, 1918.  He is buried in Newmarket at Calvary Cemetery.

At the time of his death, his younger brother, Arthur Joseph Trottier had left the Newmarket Manufacturing Company to enter the US Army.  He was a Private assigned to the 3rd Company Coast Artillery.

ROBERT GREENLEAF DURGIN
1890 - 1918

Born on June 27, 1890 to Frank H. and Mattie Durgin of Newmarket, Robert attended local schools and worked in his father’s grocery store before enlisting in the in the US Navy on June 2nd, 1917.  He was assigned to Battery B, 73rd CAC (Coast Artillery Regiment) and rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant.  He went to the front with the Exeter Construction Artillery Corps on July 26, 1917.   While returning home, he was stricken with influenza and died as the Corps crossed the ocean on October 4th, 1918.  He was buried at sea.

He was survived by his parents, and two brothers Elmer and John.   John Frank Durgin, enlisted during WW I in the National Guard,  and by the war’s end,  he also had been commissioned to 2nd Lieutenant with the Army Air Corps.  

The Durgin family donated money in Robert’s  memory to buy a building for the newly formed Newmarket Legion.  The Legion purchased the old Creighton Block on Main Street and named their Post  The Robert. G. Durgin, Post # 67, in his honor.

ARTHUR  BEAUCHESNE
1890 - 1916

Canadian Expedition Force

Isreal and Dina (Dupuis) Beauchesne immigrated in 1895 from a small asbestos mining town in Quebec Province to work in the Newmarket mills. Dina was pregnant at the time with her third son, Albert, who was born in Newmarket in the fall of 1895.  The family took up residence at 11 Chapel Street.

Their older son, Arthur,  worked in the mills when the War broke out between Great Britain and Germany.  As he was still classified as a Canadian citizen, he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Army Infantry.  After his initial training he was given the rank of Private with the22nd Battalion., Canadian Infantry (Quebec Regiment).

Arthur, who was 26 years old and unmarried,  was quickly sent to the European Front.  While fighting in the trenches, he was Killed in Action at Zillebeke, Belgium on 11 June 1916 by direct cannon fire. He was buried in a mass grave within the war zone. His name is inscribed in the YPRES (Menin Gate) Memorial War memorial and he is officially recorded among the Commonwealth War Dead.

When the United Stated entered the War in 1917, the selective service draft was instituted.  Arthur’s older brother WilfredBeauchesne (1889  - 1918)  was chosen on July 20th as the 59th man out of the first one thousand names from New Hampshire to be called up for the draft. A large town parade and a purse of gold was bestowed on Wilfred and seven of his townsmen on September 20th, 1917  when they left Newmarket for Fort Devens.  Once in the Army, the 29-year old Army Private contacted the influenza and died on October 2, 1918.  He is buried in the Beauchesne family plot at Calvary Cemetery.  Although Arthur’s body remained in Belgium, his parents engraved his name on the family gravestone.

HORACE GRANT ROSE
1891 - 1918

Canadian Expedition Force

Horace Grant Rose was born December 3rd, 1891 in Scotland.  Not much is known of his early life.  The 1901 Scottish Census lists his occupation as that of a scholar (but, he was ten years old at the time) and living with his parents George and Annie Rose and his younger brothers Jessie (age 7),  John (age 1) and sister Maud (age 3) in a small fishing village in the Northwest corner of Scotland.

After the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany, at the age 25 he registered on June 15th, 1916 with the Canadian Army as an “alien”.  At that time he was employed as a farm superintendent working on the John Walker Farm on Wadleigh Falls Road in Newmarket. (The property was later owned by Link Gowen before it burned in 1968.)  The farm was well known for its prize show cattle  and they exhibited their animals all over the country.  It is unclear just how long Rose had been in Newmarket prior to the war, but the following year, on December, 17th 1917 he enlisted from Newmarket in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and went to Toronto for training in trench warfare as a Private with the Canadian Machine Gun Corps. 

Private Rose’s name next appears on the Commonwealth War Dead roster. On February 7, 1918, less than two months after he enlisted, he died from a spinal cord inflammation.

Spinal cord inflammation (SCI), was caused by the abnormal, severe and involuntary forward flexion of the spine.  It manifested itself during standing and walking, and was a specific physical ailment particular to soldiers involved in trench warfare during World War 1.  Originally described as a psychogenic disorder, it was later determined that there was an 80% mortality rate for World War I soldiers with SCI in the first few weeks because of infections from bedsores and catheterization.

During World War I Toronto was the Canadian military medical center with over 15 military hospitals and several military cemeteries.  Private Rose is buried in Prospect Cemetery, one of the larger Canadian Military Memorial burial grounds in Toronto.