Daniel Morgan's Grave Matters (the story of the wrong cannon in 1921)
Daniel Morgan lives a long afterlife. We are going to jump ahead to a poignant personal memory of the wrong cannon used to honor the memory of Daniel Morgan. All orange italics are from the author Elizabeth C Engle who documented this story. All other notes and links are by Jim Moyer.
Late June or early July 1921
UPSET? or VERY UPSET?
My brief role (the author is Engle speaking here, co-auther Morris helped her do the research) in this saga took place in late June or early July of 1921, my eleventh year.
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[We found this picture on this website https://handley.pastperfectonline.com/ Click or Touch picture for source.]
Postcard of Daniel Morgan’s grave at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Winchester, Va. – Photo and Caption from Handley Library’s Stewart Bell Jr Archives.
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My father (Frank B. Crawford) got an early morning message to come to the Pennsylvania Railroad station on Amherst Street.
[Ed note: This became the Winchester Little Theatre 1974 to now as of 2023 ]
When he did not return for lunch, Mother sent me to bring him home. When I arrived at the station, I found my father in an open box car, apparently struggling to move a large cannon. No one else was there, but Father told me that the railroad needed the cannon to be removed from the boxcar so the car could continue its journey..
Father returned home with me, and during lunch I learned that the cannon had come to mark Daniel Morgan’s grave, and that its arrival was apparently the result of long-time efforts. Father was gratified his wish for a marker for Morgan’s grave had been granted, but he was upset that the cannon was not a Revolutionary War era cannon as he had originally envisioned.
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Father never discussed the cannon again in my presence. He was embarrassed by the controversy over the incorrect vintage of the cannon for the rest of his life.
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For the next two decades there was debate about this wrong cannon.
Not until WWII was there a solution.
Melt it down for material for the war effort.
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We owe this story to this source:
Winchester Frederick County Historical Society Journal Volume XIV 2002 issue on Daniel Morgan, pages 112 to 130, by Elizabeth C Engle and Mary Thomason Morris for an article entitled: Cannons and Marble: A Monument for Daniel Morgan.
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Below is the timeline.
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces
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.Compiled and written by Jim Moyer 1/9/2016 This story was copied on to the French and Indian War Foundation's old website
updated 2/23/16, 2/6/2017, 2/7/2017, 2/8/2017, 2/28/2017, 4/22/2017, 4/23/2017, (2/23/2019, 2/24/2019 just prologue changed) , 4/29/2019, 7/4/2019, updated 11/26/2023 to fix old broken links 11/27/23
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Timeline
1921 is a busy year
THE SAGA OF THE CANNON
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February 11, 1921
Cannon purchase budgeted
The Board of Managers of the Mount Hebron Cemetery met “to consider the acceptance of a cannon offered by the War Department through Mr. Frank B. Crawford, to be placed in General Morgan’s lot . . . It was moved by Mr. Maphis and carried that the Board accept the cannon, [and] that an appropriation of six hundred [dollars] or as much thereof as necessary . . . be used to pay transportation and other charges.”
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March 14, 1921
Cannon from Maine – Cost Overrun
Congressman T.W. Harrison attended the next Cemetery Board meeting on this date, and the correspondence concerning the cannon donation was turned over to him. He was asked to approach the Secretary of War about obtaining a cannon from a closer arsenal than Fort Knox, Maine, as the charges to deliver the cannon to Winchester would be in excess of $700 — more than the budgeted amount.
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April 14, 1921
Fort Loudoun Chapter D.A.R.
The Winchester Star reported that the Fort Loudoun Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution had initiated a Morgan Monument Fund. A drawing was held to decide which of the three banks in Winchester would hold the funds. Louise Glass pulled the winning ticket, and sixty-five dollars already raised was deposited with the Farmers and Merchants Bank. The final disposition of the funds is not known, as the minutes of the Fort Loudoun Chapter do not begin until December 1921, when the chapter was formally organized, and no mention is made of them after that date. However, by 1932 the chapter minutes show that a Daniel Morgan Scholarship Fud had been instituted at Union Theological Seminary, to which the chapter donated one hundred dollars a year. Nothing more is known of this project.
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April 26, 1921
Cannon from NJ – 8″ Rodman Gun
The Cemetery Board minutes for [this date], report that Stewart Bell Sr. and John Maphis had visited Congressman at the War Department. A letter from the Ordinance Department had been received stating that an eight-inch Rodman gun, complete with carriage and eighty cannon balls, was available from a New Jersey arsenal. Freight costs would be $225. The board voted unanimously to accept the proffer and passed a resolution of thank to members of the Ordinance Department and Congressman Harrison. The resolution also thanked my father, Frank B. Crawford, for “his timely and apt conception of the plan of securing so suitable a memorial, and for his active services in bringing about its consummation.”
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May 6, 1921
Different Cannon from Tennessee?
The Star reported that a gun had been selected from an arsenal in Tennessee, but freight costs to Winchester would be $1000, so the committee had turned down the government offer. The relationship of this gun to the one discussed at the April meeting of the Cemetery Board is unclear. This report conflicts with the Cemetery Board minutes.
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Late June or early July 1921
UPSET? or VERY UPSET?
My brief role (the author is Engle speaking here, co-auther Morris helped her do the research) in this saga took place in late June or early July of 1921, my eleventh year.'
[We found this picture on this website originally https://handley.pastperfectonline.com/ but the original link was broken. Will keep looking.]
My father (Frank B. Crawford) got an early morning message to come to the Pennsylvania Railroad station on Amherst Street. [Ed note: This became the Winchester Little Theatre 1974 to now as of 2017 ] When he did not return for lunch, Mother sent me to bring him home. When I arrived at the station, I found my father in an open box car, apparently struggling to move a large cannon. No one else was there, but Father told me that the railroad needed the cannon to be removed from the boxcar so the car could continue its journey.
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Postcard of Daniel Morgan’s grave at Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Winchester, Va. – Photo and Caption from Handley Library’s Stewart Bell Jr Archives.
Father returned home with me, and during lunch I learned that the cannon had come to mark Daniel Morgan’s grave, and that its arrival was apparently the result of long-time efforts. Father was gratified his wish for a marker for Morgan’s grave had been granted, but he was upset that the cannon was not a Revolutionary War era cannon as he had originally envisioned.
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Father never discussed the cannon again in my presence. He was embarrassed by the controversy over the incorrect vintage of the cannon for the rest of his life.
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July 2, 1921
Where to place and point the Cannon
A meeting of the Cemetery Board was called on July 2, 1921, to decide the placement of the cannon on General Morgan’s lot. According to the minutes, my father was invited to attend. After viewing the cannon in the boxcar, the board decided to place it in the north end of the lot, with the muzzle facing south.
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July 7, 1921
Morgan Grave Cannon Here
. . . was a headline on the front page of the July 7, 1921 issue of the Star. The article reported that a Civil War cannon had been shipped from a government arsenal in New Jersey to mark Morgan’s grave. The cannon was in the process of being unloaded and would be erected at an early date. Stewart Bell Sr and J.J Maphis were credited with securing the cannon after Mr. Frank B. Crawford had made the initial suggestion. There is no further mention of either the newspaper or the Cemetery Board minutes of the final installation of the cannon.
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Between June 20 and July 15, 1921
Disbursements
Stewart Bell reimbursed $10 for his trip to Washington.
Cumberland Valley Railroad was paid $83.01 cannon freight.
Cumberland Valley Railroad paid $69.79 cannonball freight.
Jim Darr, local house mover, paid $125 on July 9.
Jim Darr was also paid $45.50 on July 13 for moving the cannon.
James Hodgson was paid $15 for helping Jim Darr.
B&O Railroad paid $4.15 for removing the cannon from the boxcar.
Mr. Barr paid $8 for stone.
Glaize & Brother Hardware was paid $16 for sand and cement.
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November 1922
One more disbursement
F.C. White was paid $3 for hauling the cannonballs to the cemetery
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Over the next 20 years
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suggestions to remove the cannon surfaced many times because it was not of Daniel Morgan’s era.
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Click on photo to enlarge. Hit backspace to return here.
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1923
And then there’s another cannon.
This one isn’t involved with Daniel Morgan.
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Instead, this cannon is sitting on the grounds within Fort Loudoun footprint on Noah Solenberger’s land. There’s a debate on whether will it go? In front of the Handley Library? Or a the Corner of Braddock and Cork where the Washington Office museum is?
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But that’s another story.
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Back to the Cannon we were discussing
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January 27. 1942 Winchester Star
January 29, 1942 Washington Post
Cannon to be Scrap for the war effort
The need for scrap metal early in WWII had sealed the cannon’s fate, and taken the beleaguered Mount Hebron Cemetery Board off the hook. The huge naval cannon, its carriage, and the eighty cannonballs were sold for scrap, part of the war effort. News photos showed the huge gun being lifted from its carriage by a crane with the help of a large group of workers.
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The machinist from the scrap company reportedly expressed amazement at the fine workmanship in the gun. He said the gun was not rusted at all, and he expected to get about twenty-three tons of metal from the piece. It took two days to dismantle and remove the gun, carriage, and cannon balls from Mount Hebron Cemetery to Kent Street, where it was broken into pieces and loaded on boxcars for shipping to the metal works.
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Both newspaper articles on the removal were filled with anecdotes on how the cannon came to Winchester and the long-lasting furor it had engendered. Research later determined that although the stories contained a germ of truth, many of the details had been filtered through the gauze of time.
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END OF CANNON SAGA
Daniel Morgan gets to Rest In Peace, now?
No. No RIP for Daniel Morgan.
But maybe that’s a good thing, surmises Judge Woltz.
ENTER 2nd BATTLE OF COWPENS, SC
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