Newspaper Article

AROUND TOWN Militia Honors Lost Leader

By Eileen Swift. STAFF WRITER

1992

Overview

Huntington Town Supervisor Stephen Ferraro, in colonial officer's uniform, reviewed the troops - members of the Huntington Militia (of which Petit had been commander), the Third New York Regiment of the Brigade of the American Revolution (in which he had been an infantryman), and the Regiment d'Auxerrois, the French regiment (of which he had been a colonel). Women in colonial dress sang colonial songs, and members of the fife and drum corps played late 18th-Century music. \"Then the supervisor presented me with a hatchment, a word dating to 1540, meaning a tablet with the deceased person's coat of arms. They used the Town of Huntington's,\" [Marie Petit] said. The hatchment was painted by Hank Poh of Northport. Marie Petit had a similar surprise in April at a historical re-enactment at the New Windsor Cantonment at Vails Gate, N.Y., the Hudson-area site of George Washington's New York headquarters during the American Revolution where the Petits attended reenactments every year. \"They planted a white dogwood there in his honor and gave me a lovely French flag from the Eighteenth Century,\" she said. Petit, before retirement as a tool-and-die craftsman with Republic Aviation in Farmingdale, was noted as a meticulous reproducer of historic artifacts. While his wife would sew the period uniforms from man-made fibers, Petit used to craft the brass and pewter buttons, camp tools, and military equipment.

• Publisher: Newsday LLC
• Subject: Petit, Marie / Petit, Roger / Vorwald, Gary