Pittsfield Civil War Statue

It was sunny (but freezing) on Saturday morning, so I jumped in the car first thing and headed down Route 58 to Pittsfield. I wanted a nice photo of the Civil War monument with the morning sun hitting it, seeing as I had just written about it on Friday.

As you can see, there was a lot more snow in that part of the county than what we had up by the lake in Sheffield Lake. It was up to the top of my shoes as I slogged across the grounds to get this shot.

It was nice to get a close look at the statue (below). You can still see the seams where it was damaged by the tornado and then repaired. The brim of his Civil War kepi hat, though, looks like it's been through, well, a war.

I suspect that with the official 50th anniversary of the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado coming up on April 11, Pittsfield will be visited by a few TV news crews.

Sunday was a nice day too, so I went back for another shot. The clouds were a little more interesting this time (below) and the shadows deeper.

To read about the history of the statue, click here to visit the Historic Landmarks page of the Lorain County Historical Society's website.

However, I'm confused about the date that the monument was dedicated. One history of the statue states that it's been there since 1898, and another says 1896. According to the Lorain County Historical Society's website, it was dedicated on August 13, 1894.

I checked the two available newspapers on microfilm at the Elyria Public Library (the Elyria Republican and the Elyria Democrat) for that August 1894 time period and couldn't find a mention in either one about the dedication. (Granted, the type is pretty small in those hard-to-read microfilm versions.) 

Perhaps some Pittsfield historian in the know will leave a comment.