FORT MITCHELL, Ky. — John Rowalt is buried about 174 miles away from where he was born in Bellville — in an unmarked grave near Fort Mitchell, Ky.
That 148-year indignity for a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient will be resolved on Nov. 4.
A Medal of Honor headstone marker will be placed on the grave during a ceremony on that Saturday at 11 a.m., according to Thomas Honebrink, general manager of the Highland Cemetery.
Richland Source plans to cover the ceremony.
Rowalt received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1870 for his bravery during the Indian Campaigns in the Arizona Territory.
The Bellville native died from smallpox five years later in Cincinnati and was buried in an unmarked grave in northern Kentucky, a fact documented in a recent Richland Source series of stories on local MOH recipients.
The marker honoring the for the U.S. Arm private is largely due to the work of two researchers working on behalf of the Medal of Honor Society of the United States, a non-profit organization whose efforts include locating “missing” MOH recipients.
A Medal of Honor headstone marker for Rowalt was ordered in August through the Veterans Association after research from Karl Jensen of Hackettstown, N.J., and Ray Johnston of Toledo.
The men provided sufficient evidence to convince VA officials that the John F. Rowalt buried in Highland Cemetery near Fort Mitchell is the same John F. Rowalt who earned the MOH for “gallantry in action with Indians” during fighting in 1869.
The two men worked on the Rowalt case for more than a decade after research done by Persian Gulf war veteran Robert Schultz 12 years ago pointed to the grave being the burial site for the MOH recipient.
After becoming aware of the Rowalt issue through a newspaper article on Schultz’s work in 2011, Jensen put together a 16-page research timeline paper largely based on genealogy studies, U.S. Census Bureau data, birth certificates, death certificates, military documents, newspaper clippings and other public records.
(Below is the research timeline done on behalf of U.S. Army Pvt. John F. Rowalt from Bellville.)
Efforts like the Rowalt case are labors of love for men like Jensen and Johnston.
“When we started in 2009, there were 525 Medal of Honor recipients who were ‘lost souls,’” Johnston said in August. “No one knew where they were buried. We’re down to about 350 now.
“We have probably hit every state and a couple of foreign countries,” he said.
Rowalt was even more special to Johnston, a fellow resident of the Buckeye state.
“I don’t live that far from where he is buried. We needed to do the research. It’s not like he is going to be able to sit up in the grave and say, ‘It’s me.’”
“I am not real good at doing the timeline stuff, which is what Karl does great,” Johnston said.”
