By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich- David Wilkening is on a mission.
Earlier this month, the 69-year-old Ypsilanti resident made the trek north to the placid village cemetery in search of the gravestone of Civil War veteran John Winship.
With the assistance of some area historians, Wilkening located the marker and shared the story of his great-grandfather.
“John traveled west from Goodrich during the gold rush to Yreka, California in the 1850s,” said Wilkening. “That trip west about 1859 may have been simply to find gold or start a new life following the death of his first wife and child. While he was in California the Civil War started so he enlisted and came back east to fight.”
Winship joined the group known as the California 100—organized in San Francisco on Dec. 10, 1862.
“I’m sure that was a fearless bunch that decided to return east to fight to keep the union together or they just wanted to get back east perhaps the gold hunting was not all that great,” he said.
For the past year Wilkening has attempted to find the graves of the California 100 buried in Michigan. Now with the addition of John Winship— three of the 100 have been located.
“Most of the 100 are buried in the eastern states,” he said. “Only 15-20 returned and are buried out west. They probably stayed just in the east after the Civil War and raised families. There was no reason to return to the west coast.”
Wilkening studied the live and times of Winship and estimates the trek for the California 100 to Massachusetts took about a month considering the means of travel in the 1860s.
“The railroad across the United States would not be finished until the late 1860s so they sailed to Panama and then traveled across on land to the Atlantic Ocean side,” he said. “Then sailed north to Boston and New York then eventually to Camp Meigs in Readville, Mass. There they formed the Second Massachusetts Cavalry Co. A in January 1863.”
The California 100 participated in several battles during the Civil War.
“I’m sure some of the boys never made it home and are in unmarked graves somewhere,” he said. “But John survived the war and actually was in Washington D.C. when Lincoln was assassinated. He even went to the Capitol Rotunda to view Lincoln when he was there. He also was part of the grand parade of the Union after Lincoln’s death.”
After the war, Winship returned to the Goodrich area, married his second wife, Sarah Amelia Hyde, and operated a general store in Elba a small village in Lapeer County. Winship died March 19, 1893.
So far Wilkening has located three of the California 100, including Josepheus Blake buried in Shelby Township and George Goulding is buried in the Brady Hill Cemetery in Saginaw.