2 ‘McKeesporters finally’ receive headstones

By JEFF STITT
jstitt@yourmvi.com
Two “McKeesporters” who were laid to rest in unmarked graves, but made an impact on local and national history were honored with new gravemarkers on Saturday.
Through a grant from the Charles F. Peters Foundation, The McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center was able to purchase headstones for George Simmons, the city’s first African American police officer, and for Pvt. William Sample, a Union soldier from the Civil War who was merely feet away from President Abraham Lincoln when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington D.C.
Sample and three other soldiers who were from the Mon-Yough Valley — Pvt. Jabez Griffiths of McKeesport; Pvt. Jacob Soles and Pvt. John Corey, both of North Versailles — carried Lincoln’s body from the theater following the assault that would inevitably kill the 16th President of the United States.
Each of the men who carried Lincoln were under 20 years old at the time of the president’s assassination.

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