Captain Martin Willis of Astoria: Civil War Prisoner and Advance Lodge No. 635
Captured at Williamsburg in 1862, Civil War captain Martin Willis endured imprisonment in Richmond before returning to Astoria. In 1866, he became a charter member of Advance Lodge No. 635, connecting the lodge’s beginnings to the wartime experience of its Queens neighbors.
The Professor of Hell Gate: Benjamin Maillefert’s Underwater World
Before the great explosions that transformed Hell Gate, Benjamin S. H. Maillefert attacked its submerged rocks with powder charges and an electric battery. Follow the Barcelona-born inventor through Astoria, a fatal blasting accident, Civil War waterways, and the intriguing possibility that his diving-bell design survives in a Georgia river artifact.
Charles Wesley Hallett, Sr.
Discover the life of Charles Wesley Hallett, Sr.—Civil War veteran, Advance Lodge No. 635 Mason, banker, and civic leader whose story reflects the transformation of Hallett’s Cove into modern Astoria.