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Long battle for restoration of Civil War Monument at last over
In a battle that's literally lasted longer than the Civil War itself -- seriously -- restoration of the Civil War Monument at Greencastle's Forest Hill Cemetery is now complete.
While the Civil War started with a bang at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 and ended with a whimper at Appamattox on April 9, 1865, the Greencastle monument project had a rather inconspicuous debut, Heritage Preservation Society (HPS) President Phil Gick remembers.
The organization hosted a tour of Forest Hill Cemetery in October 2011, Gick recalled in an interview with the Banner Graphic, noting that former officer Bonnie Yahrus had spearheaded the effort and implored HPS members to do something about restoring the priceless monument before it was too late.
"I grew up here," Gick said, "and I didn't know that monument was out there at the time. But Bonnie (who has since moved to the East Coast) became the champion of that project, saying essentially, 'If not us, who?'
"And we really couldn't make a good argument against why we shouldn't try," Gick said, indicating that things seemed to come together at the 2012 HPS annual meeting.
The Banner Graphic was there to cover it, he noted, and wrote of the plight and the rarity of the Civil War monument in our backyard.
Indianapolis TV station WRTV, Channel 6, took note of that story, as did the Indianapolis Star, and their subsequent resharing of the story caught the eye of people in the Indianapolis area with the ability and means to help the situation.
Among them was the firm Arsee Engineers, which did a quick survey of the monument's status in 2012 and projected a $75,000 renovation was necessary to solidify the structure. That figure would later climb to $100,000 and $110,000 before finishing at what Gick said is a "ballpark figure" of $125,000 at project's end. That number includes around $110,000 for the monument, $12,500 for the assessment and $6,500 for the effort to get Forest Hill Cemetery placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which was integral to the overall project.
Along the way several fundraising projects and grants were received, including $13,000 via the Zaring House open house, $10,000 grant from the Efroymson Family Fund, $2,000 from the Servaas Award, $50,000 in an Envision Grant from the Putnam County Community Foundation, $40,000 in a Heritage Preservation Fund Grant made possible by Forest Hill being listed on the National Register, and $10,000 from both the City of Greencastle and Putnam County.
Gick wishes the timing of the project could have been a bit better. After all, the cemetery was approved for the National Register in April 2015 but when the monument project was submitted for approval in October 2015, it took until October 2016 just to get a contract in place.
"If it had been approved at the state level three months earlier," Gick said, "we could have been talking about this a year ago and it would have been a bicentennial (for Indiana) project like we'd hoped for."
That also would have allowed a rededication of the restored monument to have occurred on the original dedication date of July 2.
Rededication is now up in the air. Options are for a possible celebration next Memorial Day. Or next Fourth of July. Or next July 2, which will be a Monday.
Regardless, HPS members are happy with the work of Blakley Corp., Indianapolis, as were visiting officials from the Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Gick said.
Dave Duval, style and quality expert, and Steve Lawrence, head of the section, made a recent visit to Forest Hill to view restoration efforts on the monument, Gick reported, and said the work exceeded their expectations.
That made the outcome worth the long and winding road of a journey.
"It was kind of ugly getting here at times," Gick laughed, "but as least we came out with a good product."
History notes that the Putnam County Civil War Monument was the third such statue erected in the state. Dedicated just five years after the war ended, it was the first Civil War monument in Indiana to feature a human figure, and the only Hoosier memorial displaying a seated soldier.
Titled "Western Soldier on Guard" and sculpted by Thomas David Jones -- who erected a twin statue in Pomeroy, Ohio -- the monument is a three-tiered structure with the bottom section made of Indiana limestone from Oolitic in Lawrence County, while the upper portion appears to be a variety of sandstone. The center area is composed of Berea sandstone, quarried from an area of Ohio that no longer provides such material.
The monument was formally dedicated to great fanfare in July 1870 before a crowd estimated at 8,000 people -- an amazing number considering that at the time, fewer than half that many people actually lived in Greencastle.