As many of us pay our respects this Memorial Day weekend, it is interesting to note one burial plot in particular, which honors some of our war dead.

On the peaceful incline of the eastern part of Wildwood Cemetery is the lovely and picturesque plot of graves owned by the Garrett Cochran American Legion Post 1. The plot contains the honored remains of 86 individuals who served their country in time of war. Those interred are veterans of both World Wars and the Korean War.

It is fitting to know that such a place exists. There is a similar plot not far away that contains some of the honored dead of the Civil War. This plot was established late in the 19th century by the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization for Civil War veterans similar to the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

According to an article in the Grit, in November 1951, the American Legion cemetery plot was purchased by Post 1 officials in December 1920.

The first burial service to take place at the American Legion Post 1 cemetery plot in East Wildwood (Cemetery) took place on the afternoon of September 7, 1921, when the body of Private Boyd E. Stricker of Company M, 28th Division was laid to rest there. On November 7, 1918, he was wounded in France and died on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. He was interred with full military honors with members of the Garrett Cochran American Legion Post 1 rendering the honors, according to the Williamsport Sun of September 7, 1921. The article said in part, “The Post supplied pallbearers, a guard of honor, a firing squad, and a bugler. And the burial service was conducted by the Rev. Allen C. Shue, chaplain of the Post. It was the first service conducted locally entirely by the American Legion.”

The American Legion Post that honored Stricker and 85 others with a burial spot in Wildwood Cemetery has a very interesting story.

Post 1 was chartered on August 1, 1919, and is named for Lt. Garrett Cochran of Battery D of the 28th Division, who died of an illness, probably influenza, while on lookout duty on a ship returning from France. The numerical designation for the Williamsport Post resulted from a dispute between Philadelphia or Pittsburgh as to which would have the first Legion Post in Pennsylvania. Lyell Spangel, one of the Williamsporters who attended the organization of the national Legion in St. Louis, was sitting on the train with Legionaries from all parts of Pennsylvania and suggested as a compromise that Williamsport has the designation of Post 1 since it was in the center of the state, midway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. And with this compromise, the Post received its honored designation.

The Post Home has been at various locations in the city, including 419 West Fourth Street, 348 Pine Street, and finally moving to Market Square in 1954.

The Post had an active band and a drum and bugle corps at one time that was a fixture at all patriotic occasions and at State and National American Legion conventions.

The Post always has promoted patriotism and Americanism and has held various contests and awarded scholarships in those categories and continues to do so and remains active at different patriotic occasions in the area today.