Do you know this man?

Jerry Sayre PDC - Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

Asa Withorn Hebberd was an early pioneer of Fallbrook and a Civil War veteran. Although the spelling of his last name varied throughout the years – Hibberd, Hebbard, Hebberd – the most common was Hebberd. Asa’s headstone is carved Hebbard, and his wife’s headstone is labeled Hebberd.

Asa Hebberd was born in Maine, Feb. 20, 1828, and by 1850 he was here in California mining for gold with the 49ers. After little success, he moved back East and met and married Jerusha Fairchild, Sept. 25, 1856, in Wisconsin. The couple would have three daughters.

While in Wisconsin he joined Company E of the 28th Wisconsin Infantry during the Civil War, and rose to the rank of lieutenant.

After the war, the family moved to Iowa and lived there until 1875, when they moved back to California.

From 1875 to 1881, the family lived in Oakland, and by 1882, the Hebberds moved to Fallbrook, where Asa Hebberd was assigned as postmaster and station agent for the California Southern Railroad at the Howe Station in the canyon, near to where De Luz Road and Sandia Creek Drive split. Asa Hebberd’s time as postmaster ended in 1891 when the De Luz post office opened.

As a veteran of the Union Army, he was a member of the Ross Veteran Club, a fraternal organization similar to the Grand Army of the Republic. The Ross Veteran Club was believed to be formed in Fallbrook, because the nearest GAR post was in Escondido, and in the 1890s that was a long way to travel.

Many newspaper reports of that time mention the Ross Veteran Club having meetings in Fallbrook and holding their annual picnic in “Hebberd’s Grove” near the station. The large grove of oaks was where all the “Old Soldiers” could gather under the shade.

Jerusha Hebberd died in Fallbrook in 1888 and was one of the earliest burials in the Oddfellows Cemetery, and Asa Hebberd died Oct. 26, 1905.

At this point, the story comes to the present. No one is alive to say when the fence around the Hebberd Family Plot was built, but the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War have been propping it up and keeping it painted for the last 20 years.

It was decided this year that the old fence had to go, as it was falling down and falling apart. The organization took it down, including old wood held together by hand-forged square nails, which will be replaced by a new picket fence.

The new fence is complete and will be ready for dedication Saturday, Oct. 19.

The community is welcome to attend the Sgt. William Pittenger Camp 21, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, in perpetuating the memory of the “Boys in Blue” Saturday, Oct. 19, at 10:30 a.m. at the Fallbrook Oddfellows Pioneer Cemetery on the corner of Alturas and Clemmens Lane in Fallbrook.