Infantryman Returns Home

Canton’s Infantryman at the turn of the 20^th 
century with a group of Canton High School girls. 

As is so often the case, soldiers that return home from war are often broken. We see the veterans who have sacrificed for our great nation, but sometimes what we fail to see are the scars hidden deep inside. And, if there could be a metaphor for all this, it is the soldier that is about to return home to Canton next week.

This soldier, Infantryman, has stood guard for over one hundred years. You may have seen him during his lonely vigil, looking down over Washington Street – or standing guard at the end of a dusty hallway. Yet, his is a history that will come full circle in just a matter of days. This is the story of the Civil War Monument and one man who has a pretty ambitious bucket list.

On the second floor of the William’s Estate is the office of the Veteran’s Agent, Tony Andreotti. The office is littered with flags, files, and plaques. Sitting behind his desk, one day last year, Melissa Araujo walked into his office. Melissa is the daughter of a Canton man that had been killed in action in Vietnam. Andreotti had been recognizing various fallen heroes at their graveside for the past several years, and a few years ago attention was turned to Rudolph Araujo who had died almost forty-four years ago.

At the simple ceremony, at St. Mary’s Cemetery on Washington Street, the family gathered to pay tribute to a husband, father and citizen of Canton. As Andreotti looked down at the headstone he shook his head, “this was a small, government issued stone that seemed so insignificant- certainly given the sacrifice that Rudolph had made to his country.” And, as far as sacrifices go, Araujo gave the ultimate one – his life. In a far away place, near Binh Duong, South Vietnam, an explosive device killed the 29 year-old army mechanic just four days before Christmas. In an instant, a wife and a daughter’s holidays were forever changed. In that winter of 1969, the Town of Canton mourned the loss of one of its own.

And, reflecting upon that modest stone, it was apparent to Andreotti that something had to change. “The original stone was so insignificant that you could not find it. I think perhaps the family might not have had the means for a larger stone. So, we are correcting this now.” And, by correcting it, Andreotti means that he will make the insignificant, now significant. It has always been the mission of this Veteran’s Agent to make us see what has been lost to time. This past Sunday on a crisp autumn morning, family and friends and townspeople gathered at the grave of Rudolph Ernest Araujo. The air hung heavy, and leaves crunched underfoot. In this sacred place,  Andreotti helped us remember the sacrifice of this amazing hero. What was there was trivial, what is now there today is proper.

What has been done makes us stand up, take notice, and remember. And still, another soldier is about to return and as a result of significant funding by the people of Canton, we will give our tribute to the fallen Civil War soldiers from Canton. By now, everyone knows the story of the statue that had stood at Memorial Hall. One night, hoodlums from a neighboring town – in response to local rivalries – hitched a rope around the statue and tied the other end to the bumper of a car and in an instant destroyed a monument to the War of the Rebellion.

Andreotti was reminded that Community Preservation money could help restore the statue, the repair of which had been on his “bucket list” for quite some time. “I conceived of the project in 2000 – a year into my new job as agent. I asked Buddy Fallon to get a quote for restoration, and as budgets have always been tight it was impossible to undertake.” Explains Andreotti, “Jeremy Comeau gave me the hint … we were at Starbucks one day and he tipped me off.  And I went after the money and fortunately the town was receptive.”

Canton’s Civil War Monument has a name – known simply as Infantryman, the statue is painted, cast-zinc, and manufactured by the J.W. Fiske Company in the early 1890’s. Weighing in at 400 pounds and measuring almost seven feet high, this statue has several “brothers” throughout the country.  This same statue can be found in Iola, Kansas at the town cemetery, in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, and more importantly one on Martha’s Vineyard at Oak Bluffs.

It is important to note that these statues were made of soft metal called zinc. The costs of production of zinc as opposed to bronze are lower due to its low melting temperature and yet when cast it mimics bronze. At the time, zinc was referred to as “white bronze” and was marketed as alternative to actual bronze. In the late 1800’s it was very common for garden sculptures and memorials to be cast in zinc, examples of such can be found in the old part of Canton Corner Cemetery. For a town like Canton, and even though donated by the wealthy philanthropist Elijah Morse, the choice of zinc over more expensive sculptures meant the ability to order a statue from a catalog for quick delivery.

When Infantryman arrived in 1890, he was placed inside Memorial Hall and used as a drinking fountain. Water would pour forth from the lions’ heads in the pedestal into small cast iron bowls.  Quite a controversy erupted when a town resident reportedly walked off with the ladles, causing a brouhaha, “scores of people have gone to the fountain for a cool refreshing drink, only to find the dippers gone. The officers should keep a strict watch and if possible, catch the rascal,” the local paper reported.

Then, in 1894, the town decided to relocate the memorial statue and drinking fountain to the front lawn of Memorial Hall where he stood until attacked by vandals. A wonderful conservation effort by Canton resident, Ernie Ciccotelli pieced Infantryman back together, but he could not be moved outside. Relegated to a back hallway, Andreotti moved restoration off of his bucket list and onto active duty.

What has happened next is nothing short of a miracle in preservation. Part art and part science, the statue has been in Maryland for the past forty days in the care of very talented conservationists.  As the sculpture was unwrapped, the conditions were noted and paint removed. Plenty of items had been lost including the end of the bayonet, the thumb, the interior of the cape, a section of gun strap, and sections of the plinth and strap on the cap brim.

A rare glimpse inside Infantryman,
where a new stainless
steel skeleton takes shape. 

Overseeing the project is Mark Rabinowitz, the Executive Vice President of Conservation Solutions, Inc. the firm that is handling this project. “The best goal for public art is to serve the public need it was intended for.” Notes Rabinowitz, observing that the very essence of this statue is more than a memorial; it is “art.” Of the use of zinc, Rabinowitz puts forward the idea that “it is an interesting form of sculpture whereby the ideals which public art embody – nobility and memorial – were available to localities for a lower cost, leading to the best democratization of the values of public art.” 

David Espinosa and Bob Donahue
solder the cape, which
 conceals the interior armature.

And, when you think of Infantryman as art, he takes on additional meaning.A new stainless steel armature has been fabricated and has become the skeleton inside the figure. As for the missing items, it is here that the “brothers” have been called into action. In the Hurricane of 1938 Infantryman of the Oak Bluffs Soldiers and Sailors Memorial was toppled and severely damaged. In 2002 Conservation Solutions’ conservators fully restored the work to its original condition. So good was the work that the project received an award for excellence from Smithsonian Institute. Today, the same molds that were used for Oak Bluffs (and originally cast from the North Kingston, RI Infantryman) have come full circle to become castings for the scabbard and bayonet missing from our monument. In the case of Oak Bluffs, an actual 1859 Springfield bayonet was used to create a wood model and ultimately the zinc cast replacement. The same model was used again with permission of Oak Bluffs to bring our soldier back to condition.

Over several emails, Tony Andreotti has received updates for the past several weeks. The head, oddly detached, lies on a table and gets close attention and repair. The loose ammo pack becomes soldered to the body. Small losses have been filled with synthetic materials. And within the past few days Infantryman has been reassembled and coated with a system of acid etching primers and acrylics designed to mimic the bronze patina. Bronze powder filled paint has been followed by a coat of darker brown paint and rubbed back to age the statue. And finally, a coat of wax seals the system.

Within days, Infantryman will return to Canton, still a broken soldier – with wounds well covered, yet well cared for by a loving community and a caring Veteran’s Agent. This is why Andreotti ordered a new gravestone for a fallen Vietnam War veteran, and why he initiated the restoration of the Civil War Memorial – to make us remember the sacrifice of our soldiers. When asked if he fears that vandals may attack again, Andreotti merely shrugs and says, “I do not think so,” but in true military fashion he adds, “and if they do, we will put it back up again.”

A Memorial To Freedom

Memorial Hall in 1879
as it appeared just after completion.
(Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society.) 

When it was built, it was the largest public structure in Canton. A grand memorial to the men of the Civil War, we named it Memorial Hall. All across America the soldiers who fought in the War Between the States were beginning to pass away, and for the great masses of men who fought, there was a certain need to mark the great sacrifices that were made to keep the nation as one.

The war ended in 1865, and within two years the soldiers from Canton began gathering annually in encampments to provide a social structure to the shared experience that brought them together during those hostile years. General Charles Devens Jr. of Boston formed the Grand Army of the Republic in Massachusetts, or GAR. The purpose was to “preserve those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers and sailors who have stood together in many battles, sieges engagements and marches.”

Across the nation more than 8600 community-based GAR Posts were formed; there were more than two hundred posts across Massachusetts alone. In Canton, the soldiers formed GAR Post 94, known as the Revere Post in commemoration of the loss of the two nephews of Paul Revere who hailed from Canton and died on the battlefield. Membership in the GAR was limited to those men (and a few women) who served in the Union Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. As such, the GAR was destined to eventually cease existence, which it did in 1956 when Albert Woolson, the last veteran of the war died at age 106.

Canton had an extremely strong connection with the Civil War and the Revere Post was an influential part of community decision-making. Building a memorial to the memory of the lost men from Canton began in 1878; thirteen years after peace had been restored. A committee of five men were selected and instructed to take a deed of land donated by the wealthy local philanthropist, Elijah Morse, and erect a building thereon to be called Memorial Hall. The committee started work immediately, selecting the architect, Stephen C. Earle of Boston.

Earle was a fairly well accomplished architect who specialized academic, cultural and commercial buildings, churches – 23 in Worcester alone, as well as firehouses, private homes, and apartment buildings. Earle was a veteran of the Civil War having served as a medical corpsman in the Union Army.  After the war, Earle traveled through Europe to essentially gather the visual cues that would become hallmarks of his work back in America.

Earle was heavily influenced by Gothic, French Second Empire, Neoclassical and Romanesque styles. In fact, the critics of the day described Canton’s Memorial Hall as “Modern Gothic.” There are Lombardic and French styling elements throughout the façade of our great building. Wherever possible local materials were used, but predominantly the building is made of red brick trimmed with Longmeadow freestone, (the same stone as that of the Trinity Church at Copley Square) and contrasted with bands of black brick laid in black mortar. There is even a hidden carving of a wise old owl above the portico.

The building is massive in scale, made even more impressive when you consider it was built in the late 19^th century for a town with a population of approximately 4000 people.  The six front stairs alone are twenty feet long and made of hammered Concord granite.  Covering 6500 square feet, its extreme height is eighty feet above the finished grade. The interior space when it was built was equally impressive, the second floor was twenty-six feet from the floor to the ceiling.

To look at Memorial Hall in Canton, imagine a great church, for in essence that is the historic form that the building takes. The building forms a cross with a center aisle that originally divided the entire structure. The altar, if you will, was a large stage that extended the entire back of the Hall. The front of the building projects out extending as if a tower could rise to a belfry high above the building. When it was built large gothic trimmed chimneys occupied the four corners of the structure. Look closely beyond the first bay of windows at each corner and you can see the vestiges of the chimneys as slight bump outs in the exterior walls.

Originally the building was intended as a community center where all manner of entertainment and meetings would be held. On the first floor as you entered to your right was a small ticket booth that sold admission to minstrel shows, concerts, basketball games, dances, and exhibitions. The first floor was dedicated to public offices, with the Town Clerk, Selectmen and Treasurer on the right and the Public Library on the left side of the building.

The centerpiece of the first floor is of course the memorial tablets, a gift of Elijah A. Morse. It is likely that this was a very special gift for Morse, as he had enlisted in the Union Army and was part of the 4^th Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers and had served under General Butler in Virginia and under General Banks in Louisiana. At the time that Memorial Hall was built, Morse was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and extremely wealthy as a result of his business interests.

The Memorial Tablets in honor
of Canton’s fallen Civil War heroes.
(Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society.) 

The left hand tablet bears the names of those killed in battle, with the date and place where they were killed. The eleven names ordered by the date they were killed are etched into the cream-colored marble. The names on the right side tablet are those men that died in the service of disease or wounds and not directly in battle. These nineteen names and the places they died, evoke the distant places where these men died in horrendous pain so far from home. All of the names are etched in light-veined Italian marble.

Stepping back from the tablets and truly taking in the memorial in its entirety is critical to the message. At the top, over the door is the inscription “Erected to commemorate the patriotism of the soldiers of Canton who fell in defense of the Union in the War of the Rebellion.” And, just below is the motto, “It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.” This motto was taken from a line in a Roman lyrical poem by Horace in which citizens are encouraged to develop martial prowess to terrify enemies of the Republic. Ironically, this same motto is inscribed at the Confederate cemetery at Manassas National Battlefield Park.

The memorial was designed by Earle, but carved and built by John Evans of Boston. Evans was a well-known carver and his works are in the Washington Cathedral, Trinity Church in Boston and the landmark Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

Evans used delicately mottled marble, brought from the Echaillon quarries at Grenoble, France.  The source for the marble in France was the same as that of the Arc de Triomphe and considered one of the finest sources of limestone in Europe. Four columns support the canopy and are made of highly polished Red Lisbon marble, and dark Tennessee marble make up the plinths at the base. Look closely and you will see the arms of the Union in the medallion of the canopy and arms of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts between branches of laurel and olive. Foliage and rosettes complete the artwork.

Upon completion, Memorial Hall was constructed and dedicated at a cost of $30,961. On October 30, 1879 hundreds showed up to listen to the speeches of the Governor, the Secretary of State, as well as local politicians from around the county. From that point forward, Memorial Hall was dedicated to the people of Canton.

The grand hall on the second floor
could accommodate over one thousand guests.
(Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society.)

At almost 135 years old we haven taken great care of this building, for it unlikely that public funding or support could ever be garnered to build such a building again. Today, the building no longer holds a social use; purely governmental in every respect. The music and dancing is merely an echo of the past as the interior is transformed into something far removed from its original use.

The basement once held a firing range for the Canton Police Department. At the far right of the enormous space was a lead lined sand filled room where patrolmen would regularly practice firing their weapons underneath unsuspecting taxpayers filing their yearly payments. Large vaults to heavy for the Southern pine floors lined the spaces shared with immense boilers. Today, modern office space takes up most of the at grade floor. The third floor too has changed, and the hall, which unbelievably held one thousand and fifty people comfortably, is now home to the Selectmen and various other town boards. Dressing rooms that were used by vaudeville actors are long gone, replaced by generous meeting spaces.

In the end, let’s not lose sight of what Memorial Hall was meant to be – that place where we could remember these men that died for their nation. The names engraved in the finest marble should be forever in our hearts. And, we are assured that our men of Canton died in a just and righteous cause. Lincoln’s words echo here, “From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”