In 2022, an official with the Albany Rural Cemetery contacted the Mohawk chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to help them research and mark the sites of veterans of the war who were buried there. That is one of the DAR’s stated missions, and chapter members Nancy Newkirk, Laurel Andrews and Kristi Dariano took the project on.
One of those soldiers was a man named Benjamin Lattimore. His headstone was never located, but the group did uncover a fascinating story about one of Albany’s earliest African American civic leaders.
“He was a real visionary,” Andrews said. “I kept looking into what he did in Albany, and he did a lot.”…