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Saturday, July 1, 2006 10:29 PM EDT The Franklin Township monument was the first Civil War monument to be erected in Michigan. By David Panian Daily Telegram Staff Writer FRANKLIN TWP. - In 1866, as the nation was still beginning to recover from the Civil War, the people of Franklin Township honored their neighbors and relatives who died while serving in the Union Army. ;Using donated funds, they designed a sandstone monument, built it in the Franklin Township Cemetery and dedicated it on July 4, 1866. It was the first Civil War memorial in Michigan, and one of the first in the country. An inscription on the monument says it is a “memorial of the brave and patriotic men who represented them in battle and gave their lives in defence of the UNITY of our common country.” A year ago, after having watched the monument's slow deterioration over the years, Gregg Hardy of Tipton started on a project to restore the towering marker to its original glory. He found people who could help him take it apart, clean it and rehabilitate it then put it back together again. That took about a year. Now the township and the group who worked to refurbish the monument, with its list of fallen soldiers and stone shaft with the American flag draped around it, will rededicate it in a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the 140th anniversary of the original dedication. “When my father passed away, I thought I'd like to do something in his honor,” Hardy said. His father, Raynor Hardy, died in 2004, and some people made monetary donations in his name. Using that money and some of his own to fund the project, Gregg Hardy received the approval of the township board and found people willing to help refurbish the monument. “It was becoming eroded to the point where you couldn't read some of the names,” Hardy said. The monument had special meaning to him because his grandmother would bring him to the cemetery on Decoration Day - now called Memorial Day - to pay tribute to their relatives buried there. He is also related to three of the soldiers listed on the monument. “She would bring me by this memorial and explain the importance of it and usually leave some flowers here,” he said this week while visiting the cemetery. His grandmother was born 30 years after the war, but the war still had personal meaning to people of her era, Hardy explained. Franklin, now called Tipton, was a small community that sent an unusually large number of men - and teenagers - to war. While only one soldier from Tipton died in the Vietnam War, Hardy said, there are 33 names on the Civil War monument. Of those, 30 died of illness or wounds suffered during the war. After checking around with different companies that do stonework and either being turned down because of the monument's fragility or turned off by the cost, he found Paul Churchill in Lansing who offered his services. The DeJonghes in Britton helped take the monument apart last summer, and Hardy, a fifth-generation Franklin Township farmer, drove the pieces to Churchill's shop with his tractor-trailer. Churchill also used photos and computer software to make a new spear tip for the monument's top, Hardy said. The shaft was blown over during the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado, with the spear tip breaking off. The original tip was never found. To clean the sandstone, Hardy said, they first tried power washing it with a water and peanut shell mixture, but it was too abrasive. “So we gathered volunteers and used elbow grease, Clorox and buffing stones,” Hardy said. It took Churchill a year to finish the project. He matched the fonts and punctuation in the epitaphs of each soldier, chiseling them deep into the sandstone. Most simply state where they died and how old they were along with their unit. But some express how the Franklin residents felt about the former Confederate states, such as Charles S. Eddy's epitaph, which says he died of a “disease contracted in (a) rebel prison at Cahawba, Ala.” They also rebuilt the foundation so it would be less susceptible to freeze-thaw patterns. Hardy said in doing so they found that none of the rumors about the monument, such as a slave being buried under it, were true. They also patched up spots where bronze plaques had been put on the monument's base in 1971. Hardy said the names were visibly fading then, and another group, which did not have the resources Hardy had, attached plaques bearing the names to the base. Those plaques will now be displayed at the Lenawee County Historical Museum in Adrian. Once that work was done the DeJonghes again brought in their heavy equipment to put the memorial back together. “What was so dynamic to me was, can you imagine doing this with horses?” Hardy said. Meanwhile, others were trying to contact descendants of the men named on the monument. Marlin Klumpp, who also did research on the wording on the monument so Churchill could do his work accurately, said they were able to contact relatives of 12 of the men. Many still live in or near Lenawee County, but two are from as far away as Missouri and Arizona. Klumpp said he found a lot of the relatives by going through the phone book and making calls, even to the Smiths. ;“Most of the people I called knew they were not related (to the soldiers),” he said. Others, such as the Whelan and Warner families, knew they were related. Dale Whelan of Tecumseh knew his grandfather J. Simeon Whelan had been a non-commissioned officer in the war. He has his grandfather's cavalry saber and knew he had received a pension from the U.S. government because his feet had been frozen while in the Army, causing a disability. But he didn't know his grandfather was listed on the monument until a cousin told him. He said refurbishing the monument is a good idea and that he plans to be at the ceremony Tuesday. Other relatives found out about the project and called Klumpp. “We never would have found them except by second-hand contacts,” he said. Klumpp knew some of the fallen soldiers would have no descendants. “Some of these young men never married and never had descendants,” he said. Hardy said they plan to do something special for the relatives who attend the ceremony, which will feature a fife and drum corps and a changing of the guard at the cemetery.
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Civil War monument |
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BARNUM, John R. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co. E |
Died April 27, 1865 |
From the explosion of the steamer Sultana near Memphis, Tenn., at 27 years old |
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BUNTING, L. F. |
21st Illinois Volunteer Infantry |
Died Jan 9, 1863 |
Of wounds received in battle at Murfeesboro, Tenn., at 26 years old. |
BURROUGHS, Jerry |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co. E |
Died Jan 23, 1863 |
In a hosital in Lexington, Ky, at 23 years old. |
BUTRICK, George C. |
12th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. E |
Died Dec 21, 1863 |
In a hospital in Charleston, Va, at 25 years old. |
CARD, William C. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co E |
Died Jan 29, 1863 |
In a hospital in Lexington, Ky at 27 years old. |
COOK, Edwin G. |
6th Michigan Infantry, Co K |
Died July 26, 1882 |
In a hospital in Baton Rouge, La at 39 years old. |
EDDY, Charles S. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co E |
Died May 4, 1865 |
Of a disease contracted at the Confederate prisioner of war camp at Cahawba, Ala, at 22 years old. |
ELLIS, John J. |
1st Michigan Engineers and Mechanics, Co A |
Died Feb 23, 1863 |
No place given, at 20 years old. |
ELSASSER, Symbert |
9th Michigan Volunteer Calvery, Co B |
Killed in action Sept 21, 1863 |
At Carter's Station, Tenn, at 23 years old. |
HALBERT, Franklin |
20th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co B |
Died March 1, 1863 |
In a hospital in Washington, D.C., at 19 years old. |
HAMPTON, E.P. |
9th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co B |
Died Nov 20, 1883 |
No place given, at 39 years old. |
JACKSON, John W. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co G |
Died June 20, 1865 |
Of sunstroke at Washington, D.C., at 20 years old. |
LAMKIN, Alford |
11th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co H |
Died Nov 2, 1864 |
of wounds received at Saltville, Va, at 26 years old. |
LARRRUE, Hiram J. |
7th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co B |
Killed March 26, 1864 |
By bushwackers near Grove Church, Va, at 21 years old. |
MATHEWS, William |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co G |
Died Dec 19, 1861 |
In Franklin, at 28 years old. |
MAPES, Consider A. |
17th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co A |
Killed in action May 6, 1864 |
At the Battle of the Wilderness, Va, at 16 years old. |
MARLATT, George W. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co D |
Died Sept 27 1864 |
In Adrian, at 17 years old. |
MASON, Frank F. |
17th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co D |
Died June 3, 1864 |
Of wounds received May 9, 1864, in the Battle of the Wilderness, Va, at 32 years old. |
MASON, George P. |
18th Volunteer Infantry, Co E |
(April 27, 1865) |
From the explosion f the steamer Sultana near Memphis, Tenn, at 26 years old. |
MILLS, Philo T. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co E |
Died Oct 21, 1864 |
At Decatur, Ala, at 30 years old. |
PENTICOST, William J. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co E |
Died Aug 18, 1864 |
At the Confederate prisioner of war camp at Andersonville, Ga, at 23 years old. |
SKINNER, Amos C. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co F |
Died March 24, 1865 |
In a hospital in Nashville, Tenn, at 19 years old. |
SKINNER, Seymour L. |
11th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co H |
Killed in action Srpt 30, 1864 |
At Saltville, Va, at 16 years old. |
SLATER, Hiram |
11th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co D |
Died April 1865 |
In Chattanooga, Tenn, at 27 years old. |
SMITH, Co. Sgt. Allen C. |
9th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co B |
Killed in action Nov 27, 1864 |
At Waynesborough, Ga, at 26 years old. |
SMITH, John |
9th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co B |
Died March 16, 1864 |
In Grand Rapids, at 17 years old. |
SMITH, Sgt. Lorenzo R. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co G |
Died May 27, 1864 |
Of wounds received May 10, 1864, in the battle of the Wilderness, Va, at 27 years old. |
TRIPP, Virgil |
9th Michigan Volunteer Calavry, Co B |
Died March 8, 1864 |
In a hospital in Knoxville, Tenn, at 22 years old. |
VAN WERT, Benjamin |
12th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co D |
Died April 9, 1866 |
In Franklin, at 21 years old. |
WARNER, Harvey L. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Veteran Co B |
Died Aug 21, 1864 |
Of wounds received July 28, 1864 in Peterburg, Va, at 31 years old. |
WARNER, William R. |
18th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co C |
Died April 18, 1865 |
In a hospital in Huntsville, Ala, at 30 years old. |
WHELAN, Edwin M. |
4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Co G |
Died March, 1864 |
In Confederate prisoner of war camp in Augusta, Ga, at 22 years old. |
WHELAN, Sgt. J. Simeon |
11th Michigan Volunteer Calvary, Co H |
Died April 12, 1932 |
In Jackson at 87 years old. |
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