Pvt. Leverett Holden of the CT 29th at East Avon Cemetery
15 Simsbury Road, Avon
December 2025
As I write this in late 2025, I’m entering my 20th year of writing this website. I’m working on the third site makeover, my hair has gone full gray, and my youngest son is starting to think about colleges. Sigh.
Over that time, the Connecticut Freedom Trail has grown similarly. They have gone through a few website revamps and it has grown and expanded quite a bit from its humble beginnings – which were around the time CTMQ began.
I think that’s all pretty darn cool.
It also makes it hard to keep up with, but that’s fine. It’s especially fine when one of the newer additions to the Freedom Trail is a few minutes from my house in a cemetery I pass by all the time. As with all of these CTMQ entries, I lean on the fine folks behind the Freedom Trail to explain the historical import of these places.
Pvt. Leverett Holden, a resident of Avon and veteran of the U.S. Civil War, served in the 29th Connecticut Infantry Regiment, Colored, from 1863 through 1865. According to a late-19th-century Avon resident’s diary, Holden lived in Avon in the mid-1850s. He served with the 29th Connecticut during several engagements in 1864 in Virginia, such as at Petersburg, Chaffins Farm, Darbytown Road, and Kell House.
Upon returning to Connecticut with the regiment in late 1865, he resumed his life in Avon. After his death, a memorial stone commemorating his service, provided by the State of Connecticut, was placed in the East Avon Cemetery behind the Avon Congregational Church on May 29, 1890.
A Headstone Rededication Service was held on February 22, 2014. The service was adapted from the 1917 Service for the use of the Grand Army of the Republic; it was used to dedicate a headstone for a Civil War veteran.
Since that time, ground-penetrating radar confirmed the stone placed here was in honor of the man; there’s nothing (and no one) in the ground. I’m impressed Avon and the state placed the stone here in 1890!
So that’s it. A memorial stone and plaque for a Black Civil War veteran in a picturesque Avon cemetery. Across the street at the newly rechristened and opened Avon History Museum, I picked up a very impressive 27 page full size booklet about Pvt. Holden and all of the ceremonies for him. It includes lots of stuff about Avon’s role in the Civil War, but still, Avon is clearly… Holden on to this piece of history.
Connecticut Freedom Trail
CTMQ’s Freedom Trail page
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