Charles F. Hammond, Jr.
World War I Veteran
Charles was born in Roxbury on June 15, 1893, the oldest child of Charles F. and Elizabeth F. Hammond. Charles, the father, was employed as a bank cashier. By 1900 the family was living on Millet Street in Dorchester. Charles, Jr., had a sister, Hazel M., and a brother, Clarence O. Hammond.
Charles, Jr., graduated from the Oliver Wendell Holmes School, which was within walking distance of his home. He played baseball with the Standish Club and Intercity League and was well known in the western part of Dorchester.
He went on to work for the Shoe and Leather Exchange for five years, then went to work for the Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Quincy. He enlisted on August 17, 1917, in the Massachusetts National Guard, which was in Federal Service by that time. He was assigned to the Artillery and went to Europe with the American Expeditionary Force on September 9, 1917. He died at Coetquidan of disease on October 9, 1917, and his family was notified within days afterward. His mother hS received a letter from him on September 24th in which he said he was enjoying good health, and the telegram announcing his death was the first the family knew of the affliction.
The local American Legion post #78 was named for him, and in 1919 St. Leo’s Church presented a banner with a portrait of Charles F. Hammond, Jr., to the post. The Boston Globe reported on September 24, 1919, that the banner ” which will be on exhibition in the window of the A. Shuman Co. store today and tomorrow was designed and painted by C. F. Shea. It is of silk, heavily fringed, embodying the National red, white and blue, with a portrait of the hero for whom the post is named, surrounded by the Post’s name and number.”
In 1921 a City of Boston square was named for him at Bradshaw and Esmond Streets.
Sources:
1900 and 1910 Federal Census on Ancestry.com
Birth Record on Ancestry.com
Boston Globe October 16, 1917; September 24, 1919; July 22, 1919.
https://www.cityofboston.gov/veterans/herosquares/
Death Record on Ancestry.com with data from Soldiers of the Great War compiled by W. M. Haulsee. (Washington, 1920)
The Gold Star Record of Massachusetts. Edited by Eben Putnam. (Boston, 1929)
Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard
World War I draft card on Ancestry.com