Annual New York Guard memorial event in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is postponed.

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New York Guard Brigadier General David Warager, salutes the Aqueduct Defense Memorial after laying a wreath during the 2019 ceremony on May 5, 2019.

SLEEPY HOLLOW (04/29/2020) (readMedia)-- An annual memorial service honoring members of New York's state defense force who died while defending New York in the 1918 influenza pandemic will not be held this year because of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The annual commemoration of the service of the New York Guard during World War I was originally set for May 3, 2020 at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Because of the restrictions on large gatherings, the event will be rescheduled.

Each year member of the New York Guard, the state's volunteer self-defense force which augments the New York National Guard, hold a ceremony to remember 32 members of the New York Guard who died of what was called "the Spanish Flue" while on duty guarding the New York City water supply.

During this current pandemic, 85 members of the New York Guard are currently on duty across New York. They are performing logistics missions in warehouses, assisting in food distribution missions, and filling vital roles in New York National Guard command posts operating across the state.

During World War I Soldiers of the New York National Guard were posted to guard bridges, canals, and New York City's water supply because of concerns that German agents would sabotage these facilities. This was not a baseless concern. German agents did blow up an ammunition supply dump on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor in 1916.

When the New York National Guard was mobilized for war in Europe in 1917, a New York state force named the New York Guard replaced those Soldiers. The force, falling under the commander of the Adjutant General of New York was organized into a 1st and 2nd Provisional Battalion.

These citizen volunteers, ranging from their teens to their 60s were armed with obsolete weapons, clothed in old uniforms, and paid $1.25 a day. But they did their duty, walking patrol day-after-day and night-after-night. Average strength was about 1,600 volunteers. More than 8,000 New Yorkers served in this home guard during World War I.

When the influenza pandemic's second wave hit the United States in the fall of 1918, 32 of the New York Guard members assigned to guard the New York City reservoir system died from the illness.

After the war a bolder from Bonticon Crag in the Shawangunk Mountains, along the line of the aqueduct that the Guard members protected, was moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and turned into a memorial on property dedicated by William Rockefeller.

The New York Guard is authorized a strength of 800 personnel. The members do not deploy overseas like members of the New York National Guard and cannot be controlled by the federal government. Many New York Guard volunteers have served previously in the New York Army or Air National Guard or other military forces and bring that reservoir of knowledge with them.