Jonathan Guerrier, the Sons of the American Revolution Mahoning Valley chapter’s past president, pays his respects to John Duer, one of four Revolutionary War soldiers who are buried in the cemetery....Photo by Sean Barron

NORTH JACKSON — Gary Gault has never met one of his far-removed relatives, but that didn’t diminish the warmth he felt in seeing the man who lived more than a century before him being honored.

“I thought about it, and I’m mostly appreciative of what our forefathers did. I’m just gratified,” Gault, of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, said. ”It’s pretty amazing.”

Gault was referring to Andrew Gault, a soldier with a rank of private who fought in the Revolutionary War. He also is the younger Gault’s great-great-great-grandfather.

Gault was among the four Revolutionary War veterans who were honored during a special ceremony and marker unveiling Sunday afternoon at the newly revitalized Covenanter Cemetery near Kirk and Lipkey roads.

Also included was the unveiling of a new marker near a revamped entrance.

The other three soldiers were William Orr, Samuel Calhoun and John Duer, whose families were among the township’s earliest settlers.

Gault also expressed his appreciation regarding the vast improvements, upgrades and care the one-acre plot, also known as “God’s Acre,” has undergone since his last visit a few years ago. At that time, the space was in deteriorating condition, with many headstones partially or fully buried and much overgrowth.

Karen Langer-Gault of Plain City, Ohio, whose late husband, James Gault, was Gary Gault’s brother, noted that the Gault and Ewing families were among the area’s first settlers and have been connected through numerous generations. This August will mark the 137th annual Ewing-Gault family reunion, she said.

A descendent of three of the four soldiers — Gault, Duer and Orr — who attended the ceremony was Jo Ann Ewing Grace of Hudson. Ewing Grace’s great-grandfather, James R. Ewing, was connected to the Gault family; her father married Martha J. Duerr, a descendent of John Duer; and her maternal grandmother was part of the Orr family, she explained.

After the four soldiers’ descendents and others gathered in the cemetery, Jonathan Guerrier, the Sons of the American Revolution Mahoning Valley chapter’s past president, read narratives to honor Calhoun and Duer.

Calhoun served three tours during the Revolution, the first of which was the Battle of Trenton on Dec. 26, 1776, after Gen. George Washington had crossed the Delaware River. He also marched near Philadelphia, then to a frontier near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Guerrier noted.

After the war, Calhoun’s connection to the Mahoning Valley was born.

“In 1801, before Ohio was even a state, he entered into a land contract with John Young (Youngstown’s founder). Soon after, he became one of the earliest residents connected with Youngstown and then one of the first settlers of Jackson Township,” Guerrier said.

Duer hailed from New Jersey, where he served as a private in a militia stationed in Newton Township in Sussex County. Like many who exercise their patriotic fervor, Duer’s service “was not marked by fame or high rank, but by duty. He was one of the ordinary men who answered when his community and country called,” Guerrier said, adding that around 1805, Duer and his wife, Susanna Duer, came west to Ohio.

The couple had a large family of several generations who became a significant part of Jackson Township’s fabric, he added.

Narrating parts of Gault and Orr’s lives and service was Marty Campana, honorary regent for the Daughters of the American Revolution Mahoning County chapter.

“Andrew’s military history is more complicated than most, because the records of several related men named Andrew Gault became tangled over time,” Campana said. “But the man buried here is remembered as part of that Revolutionary-era generation that moved west and helped turn wilderness into community.”

Gault and his wife, Eleanor Chesney, had seven children and arrived in Jackson Township in 1803, soon after the Calhouns, she said. Gault also served as the township’s first justice of the peace.

For his part, Orr, who came from Donegal, Ireland, served in the Pennsylvania militia as well as in the Washington County militia as a private. He also came to the U.S. before the American Revolution, Campana said.

After marrying his wife, Mary Bailey, in 1783 and establishing their family, they came to Ohio in 1803, then became part of the township’s early settlement, she added.

“William and Mary raised 11 children, and their descendents became woven deeply into the life of this community,” Campana said, adding, “Their family’s story includes some of Jackson Township’s earliest recorded moments: a first marriage, a first death and the hard beginnings of pioneer life.”

Natalie Dechant, the North Jackson Historical Society’s president, said in her remarks that concern regarding the cemetery’s well-being continued to grow, leading descendents of some buried there, along with the historical society, to work toward preserving its history. After conversations with Tim Lehotsky, whose late father, Dick Lehotsky, was a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Green Berets with the 82nd Airborne Division, the younger Lehotsky began in August 2024 to take on the project without compensation, Dechant said.

“He has raised, repaired and righted many gravestones,” she added. “He has dug up bases that were almost completely underground. He painstakingly chipped away at a tree to release the gravestone encased in its trunk.”

The most recent burial in the cemetery was in 1945, Dechant said.

Kathy Wetzl, a historical society member, noted that Lehotsky also repaired and stabilized Orr, Gault and Duer’s original gravestones that had been damaged or difficult to read. In addition, the Sons of the American Revolution donated memorial markers for them, Wetzl said.

According to the new marker, Jackson Township’s first known death was Mary Orr, William and Mary Bailey Orr’s daughter, who died Feb. 18, 1805, at age 14. She is buried near her parents.

At the bottom of the marker are the names of other soldiers buried in the cemetery: Robert Gault, David Riddle and Samuel Riddle, who served in the War of 1812; Samuel Ewing, William Ewing, Andrew Gault, James Gault, John Johnston and Samuel Johnston, who were in the Civil War; and Archibald Ewing, who fought in the War with France.