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Collective memorials for those who gave their lives in war were relatively rare until after the Civil War. The first in New Castle was not erected until 1912, and it commemorates a much earlier event: the use of the meetinghouse as a military hospital following the Battle of White Plains in 1776. Some of the sick and wounded died and were buried in a common, unmarked grave near the building. Their names were unknown, and none would have come from this pacifist Quaker community.

The first, true veterans’ monument was dedicated 1n 1922. It lists all 73 of the known service members from New Castle during World War I. Stars mark the names of the two who died in the conflict – Sante Felizzola and Frederick T. Wallington. The bronze plaque was commissioned by “The People of Chappaqua,” and mounted on a glacial boulder donated by Quaker Road resident Eugene T. Woolf. The monument was originally located at Victory Corner, a grassy triangle at the intersection of King Street and Bedford Road, and when that intersection was realigned, it was moved to its present position next to the sidewalk on its southern side.

In 1956, the local post of the American Legion offered to erect a monument to the veterans who died in World War II and the Korean War. The site in the railroad station plaza was quickly agreed upon, but controversy arose over the design and financing, so the memorial was not completed and dedicated until 1965. It originally contained the names of the fifteen casualties of World War II, plus the two from World War I and the single one, Charles Peuget, from the Korean War. Updated, it is now the endpoint and centerpiece of our annual Memorial Day parade.

More recent is the memorial to the victims of an undeclared war, the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. It, too, was somewhat delayed by controversy, mainly over the selection of an appropriate site. Eventually the Town Board settled upon its location at Gedney Park, and commissioned noted landscape architect Stephen Yarabek to design the dramatic curved pathway leading to the commemorative plaque and the fragments of the Twin Towers. The monument commemorates the three community members, Louis Inghilterra, George Morell, and Allan Shwartzstein, who died in the towers’ collapse, but it also serves to honor the community’s first responders who selflessly volunteered in the clearance of the ruins.

Most recent of all is the Holocaust Memorial, sited near the gazebo on the town ballfield, and dedicated in 2019. It was originally conceived by two town residents, Alexandra Rosenberg and Stacey Saiontz. Like many others in our community, they had a personal connection to the Holocaust – both were grandchildren of death camp survivors. The memorial is composed of a modest commemorative plaque in a landscape setting. Each spring, it features the blossoms of 750 daffodil bulbs, planted as part of the international Daffodil Project, projected eventually to contain a million and a half bulbs, one for each child who died. The monument is intended not only to honor the memories of the victims but to serve as a warning. In the words of Horace Greeley High School student Matty Wasserman, inscribed on the plaque, “Although no one can change the hate that has occurred through our past, to not acknowledge it and understand it, would be forcing it upon our future.”