Contributed by Diane Ciba
A veteran of World War I, Harold Amos Beers worked on an Army Transport ship and was a victim of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (also known as the Spanish Flu) that killed many soldiers who served in that conflict.
Born in Watertown on May 13, 1892, the youngest child of William Howard Beers and Martha Jane (Peck) Beers, he joined his brothers, William (born 1883) and Frederick (born 1887), and a sister, Helen (born 1884.) In the 1900 Census, his father, William, is listed as working in a Silk Factory, and the family rented a home on Main street between the homes of Merritt Heminway and Frederick Bronson.
A descendant of Asahel Beers, Revolutionary War Patriot and a 1913 Watertown High School graduate, Harold graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1917. According to “L’Agenda,” the Bucknell yearbook, “‘Suds’ was a good fellow.”
Harold enlisted as a Quartermaster in the Merchant Marine section of the Navy on May 15, 1918 in Boston.
On September 18, 1918, Harold is listed as a crew member serving as a “Messman” on a U.S. Army Transport ship, the “Peerless,” also known as the U.S.A.C.T. “Eagle.” The ship sailed from Newport News, VA, and the manifest lists Harold’s father, William, as his next of kin, living on Hillcrest Avenue in Watertown.
Sailing to France with 130 soldiers and 84 crew members was a difficult and dangerous journey. Dr. William Sheddan, an Army transport surgeon on that ship recalled,
“Twice in the six months I had to go over, we had steering trouble and had to fall out of convoy. On both occasions, the ships that took our position were torpedoed.” [The Courier News, Blytheville, Arkansas, May 27, 1954, p. 6]
In addition to sailing through treacherous waters, members of the military were among the first Americans to become infected with Influenza in the spring of 1918. How and where Harold caught this flu is unknown, but when he died at the age of 27, his cause of death was listed as “Epidemic Influenza”. Evergreen Cemetery records noted that he was a Mechanical Engineer. He was buried February 4 in the family plot.
His older sister, Helen P. Beers, died 8 days later, February 10, 1919, and was buried February 12 near her younger brother. She was just 34 years old, living with her parents on Hillcrest Avenue in Watertown at that time.