Mr. Nunemaker, a Spanish-American War Veteran,
was one of the first commanders
of the native constabulary from
which the famed Philippine
Scouts and later the modern
Filipino army, which went down
so bravely with American troops
under General Wainwright at Bataan and Corregidor, was
formed. The Emmitsburg
correspondent enlisted in the
43rd Infantry at Washington in
1898 when he was 19.
He sailed from New York on the
government transport Meade and
arrived in Manila 45 days
later after a trip that
extended past Gibraltar,
Malta. Port Said, Aden. Arabia
and Singapore. He served on
the islands of Luzon. Samar,
Layte, Bohole and on
expeditions into the Moro
country. He was in a
detachment which gave guard
protection to the father of
General Douglas MacArthur when
he made an inspection trip to
the outlying posts in the
southern islands.
Mr. Nunemaker, then a
corporal, drilled the first
constabulary on the island of
Layte. At the time he was
drilling the native
constabulary other Filipinos
were engaged in fighting
American troops. "They needed
little training as fighters,"
he says. "They were plenty
good enough, hard as nails and
as elusive as eels. When we
started drilling them as
police we issued clubs instead
of rifles. If they had had
guns we would have shot in the
back before we could have
turned around."
Mr. Nunemaker
was born October 1, 1879 at Zora,
where his family for several
generations had made it's home.
He attended the Emmitsburg
public school, preparatory
school at Dickerson College,
Carlisle. Took special work in
electrical engineering at Union
College, Schenectady, New York
and spent four years as a
student at the General Electric
works in Schenectady, New York.
From 1902 to
1915 Mr. Nunemaker remained with
the General Electric company,
building street railways,
power houses, transmission lines
and hydro-electric distribution
systems. He helped build
the West Jersey and Seasure
railways, and the Washington,
Baltimore and Annapolis electric
railway. He was in charge of the
installation at the Jamestown
Exposition including a steam
plant at Norfolk, Virginia. He
built the electric distribution
system at Washington, D.C., and
Holtwood hydro-electric plant on
the Susquehanna River. He sent
the first power by water into
Baltimore, built and operated
the electric section of the
Necaxa water power plant of the
Mexican Power Company, 150 miles
from Mexico City on the Pueblo
Indian Country, built and
operated companies in Tennessee,
Alabama and Georgia, all while
working for the General Electric
Company.
In 1915, he
transferred to the Tennessee
Power Company at Chattanooga, as
Vice President and General
Superintendent. He built plants
on the Tennessee, Ocoee and
Little Tennessee Rivers. In 1925
Mr. Nunemaker transferred to the
Southern Cities Power Company as
Vice President and General
Manager and built and operated
plants in the Southern
States.
In 1928, he was
compelled to give up active work
due to a fever contracted while
in the Tropics. Since that time
he has been living at Emmitsburg
with his mother and sister. He
still spends some time each year
in hospitals undergoing medical
treatment.
If you have any information that could help us expand our
archives on the knowledge of men
from Emmitsburg who may have
served in the Spanish American War,
please send it to us at
john@emmitsburg.net