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Guy Nunemaker is Expert on Public Utilities; Wide Experience; Service Abroad

(Originally Published, Gettysburg Times August 19, 1943)

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