Well, this Saturday morning it will be a mystery no longer. That’s because it will be unveiled as the latest Grand Army of the Republic Highway sign honoring the Union forces that served during the Civil War.
The sign’s dedication ceremony is scheduled – rain or shine – at 9:30 am. Its actually part of a three-city coordinated G.A.R. Highway effort. The same day, Sheffield Lake is having a ceremony at 11:00 am (at the same location), and Bay Village at 12:30 pm (at the Avon Lake/Bay Village border).
I’m pretty happy about it. If you had told me thirty years ago that this G.A. R. Highway sign revival was going to be taking place in Lorain County (and its neighboring counties), I never would have believed it.
Kudos once again to Peter Hritsko and the James A. Garfield Camp #142, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War for their fine effort in ensuring that those veterans and their contributions to this country are not forgotten.
Some years ago I ran across a list of G.A.R. Posts in Ohio. There was one in Lorain listed as Gen. Barnett Post 2. Since almost all of the posts were named after a local Civil War Soldier, I wondered who General Barnett was. The only possibility I could find was a James Barnett who was indeed a breveted General who hailed from Cuyahoga County, and was active in many civic affairs in Cleveland after the war. Is this the person the G.A.R. Post was named after? I would think a Lorain Post would have been named after General Quincy Adams Gillmore who was certainly more famous, and also from Lorain. Perhaps Gen. Barnett was an officer who served with the men who established the post. By the way, if memory serves, there were at least eleven G.A.R. Posts active in Lorain County at one time.
ReplyDeleteThanks again, Rick, for letting me know about this. That's a good question about General Barnett, I'll have to see if his name turns up anywhere in some of the stuff in my files.
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