Union Army captain, freed slave descendants meet

Through help from genealogy and local historians, the descendants of a gravely injured Civil War army captain and a freed African-American slave who aided him met at the historic Hoag House on 127 Donaldson Ave. in Rutherford on May 5. Stanley Baxter, the great-great grandson of African-American Lafayette Hoag, and Arthur N. Mabbett, the great adopted grandson of Union Army Captain Alonzo Lorenzo Mabbett, traveled from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to meet for the first time.

"Rutherford didn't witness any of the battles of the American Revolution or the Civil War. Nevertheless, Rutherford [a.k.a. Boiling Spring] has had an interesting, colorful history because of some of the people that moved here," Borough Historian Rod Leith said at a ceremony commemorating Historic Preservation Month held at Borough Hall....