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This vintage postcard image of the Civil War monument on Public Square was published in the early years of the 20th century by James & Harner, Publishers, out of Columbus, Ohio. The card was sent to Pearl Harris in Mansfield from someone named Ruth in Mount Vernon at 6 p.m. on Feb 24, 1908.
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This style of cast statue was popular in the 1870s. Eagles were popular earlier, while more grand and dramatic styles tended to be used later on. Both North and South were supplied with variations of this style of soldier.
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Today the monument looks much the same, having weathered storms and car crashes for over 140 years.
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Prominent Knox County statesman Henry B. Curtis designed the monument and presented it at its unveiling in 1877.
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The inscribed quote on one side of the monument’s pedestal came from a poem by this once-popular Scottish poet, Thomas Campbell. Though largely forgotten today, Campbell is buried in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey in London.
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The central park in Public Square is a more recent structure. As can be seen in this image from the late 1870s, traffic originally passed immediately adjacent to the monument, the kind of arrangement that can still be seen in Mount Gilead in Morrow County, where a semi trailer recently damaged their monument by turning too tightly.
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