Courthouse Medal of Honor restored

A group of community members have made it their duty to recognize a man who earned military acknowledgment for going beyond the call of duty.

 

Members of the group — which is dubbed the "Committee of Relatives of Somerset County Recipients of the Medal of Honor and Interested Citizens" — have spent their time and money to remount the Medal of Honor awarded to John W. Mostoller on Dec. 27, 1894. 

 

Somerset resident Vince Jacob said it was important for them to be historically accurate in reconstituting the medal display in the way it would have been originally presented to Mostoller. To this end, the committee added a new top bar and ribbon to the medal. These were authentic reproductions donated by the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Pittsburgh.

 

"I think that it's a very worthwhile project to restore something that was received by a Somerset County person," said Jacob, the Somerset Rotary Club's Veterans Day chairman.

 

"We did a lot of research on this. The whole committee joined in."

 

Mostoller earned the nation's highest military distinction for his actions during the Civil War. He died in 1927 and his medal was placed in the lobby of the county courthouse in 1954.

 

According to Jacob, the project came together when area residents Harold Weigle and Stewart Saylor decided to research local Medal of Honor recipients. 

 

"They're the ones that started all this," he said. "I would say I was inspired by them and we started a committee. I'm just an interested citizen."

 

A total of four Somerset County natives have received the Medal of Honor: Francis Marion Cunningham, Civil War; George Henry Ramer, Korean War; Clifton T. Speicher, Korean War; and Mostoller. Jacob said the number is significant because there have been only about 3,400 recipients over the course of history.

 

And because there are more than 2,200 counties in America, this means Somerset has a remarkable ratio given its low population.