Sunday, Jan. 6, 1918
Saratoga Springs learns this weekend of the first death of a native son in France since the U.S. declaration of war against Germany last April.
Mr. and Mrs. George E. Rowland of 151 Maple Avenue received a telegram yesterday afternoon announcing that their son, 29 year old Sergeant Harry H. Rowland of Motor Truck Supply Train 402, died on pneumonia on January 1.
Harry Rowland had not lived in the Spa City since 1911. At age 23 he moved to Glens Falls, where he became a driver for the Walmarth Company. He held that job until June 1917, when he went to New York City to enlist as a mechanic in the quartermaster’s corps.
“When the United States declared war upon Germany, Sergeant Rowland put the call of his country ahead of every personal consideration and offered his services in the branch of the work with which he was most familiar,” The Saratogian reports.
Harry’s brother Ambler Rowland is a corporal in Company L of the old Second New York Infantry regiment, now the 105th U.S. Infantry receiving advanced training in trench warfare at Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg SC. Harry is also survived by two younger siblings.
Sgt. Rowland is the fourth Saratoga Springs man to die in service to his country during the war. Clarence Van Wagoner was run over by a train while on guard duty in Little Falls on April 27. Arthur O. Butterfield fell into a Fort Edward canal and drowned while on guard duty on August 14. Frank M. Annis died in Dayton OH on October 16 from injuries sustained in a plane crash.
A relatively small section of Maple Avenue has been disproportionately bereaved by the war. Three of the city’s four fatalities, including Rowland, had families on that street. The Van Wagoner family lives at 220 Maple, while the Butterfields live at 209 Maple.
Evangelistic services
Singing evangelist D. F. Baker begins a series of special services at First Methodist Church today and quickly convinces the congregation that “the official board made a wise decision in securing him for a helper to the pastor.”
Baker is “seen at his best” during an evening praise service that “kept the audience in good humor from the first [with] a rich fund of anecdotes, some of which he relates while resting from the singing.”
Most recently involved with a Schenectady revival, Baker recently settled in Mechanicville after years on the road. During the morning service he sings “The Crucifixion of Our Lord” while pastor George C. Douglass preaches that “Without Faith it is Impossible to Please God.”