The Great War: January 15, 1918

It's been a while since we reported on Company F, Hudson's National Guard unit which was federalized in the summer of 1917. On July 29, 1917, the "F boys" left for training at Fort Niagara, where they were expected to stay throughout the summer. After Fort Niagara, Company F was transferred to Camp Wadsworth, outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. On January 15, 1918, the Columbia Republican reported that Company F was expected to "go across" within a few months.    

 

    
Camp Wadsworth was established in July 1917, three months after the United States entered the war, and existed until it was inactivated in March 1919, four months after the war ended. It was considered to be "one of America's premier army mobilization centers." A hundred thousand soldiers trained at Camp Wadsworth for the war in Europe.

 

Census records indicate that Sergeant Edward Best, who was "in town for a few days' visit" in January 1918, was the younger brother of Archland Best, the captain of Company F when it left Hudson at the end of July 1917. Archland and Edward were the only children of Frank and Etta Best. They both survived the war, and the 1920 census--the first census after the war--shows them back home with their parents at 511 Union Street. Archibald, then 32, worked as a draftsman at a machine shop, and Edward, then 30, was an armorer with the New York Guard.
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