11/05/2026
Have you visited the Sackets Harbor Military Cemetery? This cemetery is one of the village's most historically significant and quietly moving places.
Veterans from the War of 1812 through the present day are buried here, and the story of how this cemetery came to be is just as interesting.
Before 1820, the remains of officers and approximately 141 unknown soldiers who were killed in action during the War of 1812 or who died of sickness on the northern frontier were collected and buried within Madison Barracks, close to the harbor itself. In 1909, they relocated around 300 bodies to the present cemetery.
When the U.S. Army later made plans to move all of the remains to Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira, the people of Sackets Harbor said no. Local residents organized, protested, and successfully petitioned to keep their soldiers here, in the community they fought to defend. The Village of Sackets Harbor has owned and operated the cemetery ever since.
Walk through it, and you will find multiple historic markers, a memorial to Brigadier General Zebulon Pike and the officers killed at the Battle of York in 1813, and a memorial to unknown soldiers of the War of 1812.
These are the people who defended this village. They stayed because this community made sure they could.
π Sackets Harbor Military Cemetery Β· Sackets Harbor, NY