jack walsh photo via facebook
The restored Civil War Monument on the Derby Green.
A brief ceremony marking the restoration of the Civil War Monument on the Derby Green will follow the annual Derby-Shelton Memorial Day Parade Monday (May 28).
The ceremony will begin around 10:30 a.m., according to Jamie Cohen, who has led the effort to restore the monument.
A more elaborate unveiling is being planned for June. Stay tuned.
Click play on the video below to watch Cohen talk about the restoration in an interview recorded during the Valley Indy’s Great Give live-stream.
The monument discussion begins around the 14-minute mark. The first part of the interview features Derby’s Kelly Curtis talking about how more volunteers are needed to plan the annual Derby-Shelton Memorial Day Parade.
The monument was erected in honor of Derby and Shelton residents who died to preserve the Union against Confederate states, which seceded from the country when their leaders felt their right to own slaves was threatened by the election of Abraham Lincoln.
The bloody, five-year war claimed the lives of more then 600,000 Americans — including 82 from Derby and Shelton.
The base of the monument was dedicated in 1877, and the bronze statue of a union soldier was completed in 1883.
But in the years since it had fallen into disrepair. It had been repeatedly damaged by vandals.
The recent restoration effort was the first work done on the monument since its original completion, Cohen said.
Francis Miller, of Hamden-based Conserve ART, led the restoration.
The statue of the soldier was cleaned and restored, as were the cannons placed at the monument’s four corners. Workers also replaced missing parts, reset a bent plaque, and cleaned and repaired the statue’s stone pedestal.
Cohen praised “all of the work that’s been done by wonderful artisans who have transformed this very sad-looking, vandalized, but beautiful monument to what it should have been all of these years.”
“The transformation work here is so wonderful, it’s heart-warming every time I go by,” he said.
Cohen also praised Derby Public Works, which helped the effort by pouring the foundations where the cannons around the monument were re-set and cleaned up the area around the monument — at no cost.
The cities of Derby and Shelton contributed $10,000 each to the restoration. The total cost of the restoration was about $75,000 to $80,000 raised through a fund set up through the Valley Community Foundation.
The restoration effort also resulted in a bona fide historical discovery — of a piece of canister shot, a type of anti-personnel artillery ammunition critical to the Union victory at Gettysburg, the turning point of the war.
When Miller discovered the shot, Cohen said, “You would have thought somebody gave him a million dollars. This was like something from another world.”
Click here to read more about the find from a CT Post article.
