b. 08/01/1840 Assonet, Massachusetts. d. 02/09/1914 Assonet, Massachusetts.
DATE OF MOH ACTION: 25/03/1865 Fort Steadman, Virginia.
John M Deane MOH
Deane was born in Assonet, Massachusetts to John and Lydia (Andros) Deane. He attended local schools in Assonet and Myricks, and later at the Foxboro English and Classical School. After completing his own schooling, Deane served as a schoolteacher in Berkley and Assonet. Deane enlisted in the Assonet Light Infantry in September, 1858.
On November 20, 1866, Deane married Mary Gray Pearce (1846–1923). She was the daughter of Abner Tompkins and Sarah Read (Briggs) Pearce. He finally received the Medal of Honor on 8 March 1895, nearly 30 years after Fort Steadman. He was elected a resident member of the Old Colony Historical Society in 1902. In 1896-97, he had erected a home on Water Street in Assonet that is now the Assonet Inn. On September 2, 1914, John Deane died at the age of 74. He is buried in the Assonet Burying Ground.
In 1989, a ceremony was held in the Assonet Burying Ground during which a government marker was placed on Deane’s grave. In 2005, Deane’s diaries from the period 1861-1865 were published by the Freetown Historical Society as Civil War Diaries of Maj. John M. Deane, Medal of Honor Winner, 1861-1865.
MOH CITATION:
For most distinguished gallantry in action at Fort Steadman, Virginia, March 25, 1865, in serving with other volunteers, a previously silenced and abandoned gun, mounted en barbette, at Fort Haskell, being exposed to a galling fire from the enemy’s sharpshooters.
BURIAL LOCATION: ASSONET BURIAL GROUND, FREETOWN, MASSACHUSETTS.
SECTION 2, LOT 6.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
