Academic

Monuments of West Chester, Pennsylvania

By Alfred Brophy

As I promised, I've taken a few photographs of my home town, West Chester, Pennsylvania.  I've got a couple of photographs of the Union Solider Monument -- in Marshall Square Park.  Whenever I think of a park in my mind's eye, I think of Marshall Square Park (which was established in 1848--the 1840s were a big decade for West Chester, as will become apparent in a moment) and also one of the other parks near where I grew up, as well as Maymount Park in Richmond, Virginia. (Photos of it and the Carillon to follow -- probably in March when I'm next in Richmond, for a conference at the Library of Virginia.)

The West Chester monument was put up around 1887--so somewhat earlier than most of the monuments in southern towns that I'm familiar with.  And it's also on a pretty high pedestal.  A better view of its height appears in the image below.

   And while I was in downtown West Chester, I thought that I'd take a picture of the Courthouse, which was built in 1846 -- along with the "Ten Commandments Monument," which was placed on it around 1920.  The courthouse is a really grand structure -- lots of granite there.  So it's a lot more solid looking than many of the antebellum courthouses that I'm familiar with in the South.  It's testimony to how well Chester County was doing in the years leading into Civil War, especially in comparison with the south. 

This is one of the things I've been really interesting in seeing -- how public buildings constructed at the same time compare across regions (and private buildings, for that matter).  I noticed this in particular when I was visiting Athens -- the antebellum mansions there are larger and grander than the antebellum mansions I'm used to seeing in Alabama.

And then there's the Ten Commandments plaque on the Courthouse.  (You can see a piece of it over to the left of the doors, between the third and fourth pillars, counting from the left.  I seem to have left the image back in West Chester--I'll retrieve it sometime soon and get it up.)  When the Third Circuit heard a  case about it in 2003 (Free Thought Society v. Chester County), they overturned a district court order that the monument be removed -- and they rested their decision in part on the finding that it has historical significance and that the County has done nothing to promote the plaque since it was placed there around 1920.  In the words of Chief Judge Becker, "the age and history of the plaque provide a context which changes the effect of an otherwise religious
plaque."  This is further evidence that law finds that long-term use confers a dignity on monuments -- and also an opinion that deserves some serious discussion at a later date.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on January 04, 2010 (boomark / email).