The Leflore County Veterans Service Office is searching for relatives of a Spanish-American War soldier so it can hand over documents from his military service.
Veterans Service Officer Joe House recently came across discharge papers, a letter from the national headquarters of the United Spanish War Veterans and an obituary for John W. Montague of Tutwiler.
House said he would hate to dispose of the historical documents and hopes to find one of Montague’s descendants to present them to.
Montague enrolled on April 28, 1898, as a private in Company 9, Third Regiment Texas Infantry Volunteers, and served through the end of the four-month war.
“History does not record a braver, more noble bunch of men than these boys of 1898, never a murmur, always eager to press forward at the given command,” reads the letter to Montague from the United Spanish War Veterans. It’s affixed with a 3-cent stamp.
Montague died in 1940 at 59 and was buried in Clarksdale. He was survived by his wife, Lela L. Montague; one stepdaughter, Virginia Montague; and two sisters, Stella Gin of West Helena, Ark., and Mary Baxter of Harrah, Okla.
Anyone with information about Montague or his descendants can contact House at 453-3157.
