| New Zebedee (Michigan) Civil War Monument |
Located at one end of Main Street in New Zebedee; “a fantastic stone object shaped like an artist’s easel. Each of the joints and corners of the easel had a soldier or sailor standing on it, threatening the rebel army with a musket or a sword or a cannon swabber or a harpoon. The flat part of the easel was covered with the names of Capharnaum County residents who had died in the Civil War” [The House with a Clock in its Walls, 23-4]. Lewis’ great-grandfather’s name was on the monument for his membership in the Fifth Michigan Fire Zouave Lancers.
Marshall historian Richard Carver notes this is probably a piece of Marshall history and lore Bellairs remembered from his youth.
"Some time after the Civil War certain people were collecting money to build a huge monument in Gettysburg. It was apparently to be thirty foot high. Anyone who donated money to the cause were given a sort of glorified discharge document with the name of their Civil War ancestor inscribed on it. Several of these certificates have survived and are on display in the local museum. The scam artists even sold one to the local G.A.R. as it contains a list of the members. It was never intended to be a monument in Marshall or Gettysburg and the gentlemen absconded with the money. One weekend when I was showing people through our museum a visitor exclaimed, 'That is it, the monument in John Bellairs’s book, where is it located?' She said she had been using the book in her classroom. It was difficult to convince her that there was no monument in Marshall. There is a small stone standing near the G.A.R. museum in memory of the Civil War veterans."
| Some veterans chose commercially available products to commemorate their service. Mervin Barber, for example, bought a large lithograph depiction of the "Easel-Shaped Monument" with his service record carefully inscribed on a central panel. Proceeds from sales of the lithograph presumably were intended to fund the construction of the monument itself - an ornate and allegorical artistic monstrosity that was never built, and most likely was just a come-on to get veterans to purchase the lithograph and an accompanying book.
Brothers One and All: Esprit de Corps in a Civil War Regiment by Mark H. Dunkelman (2006), page 265 |
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| Examples of the Easel-Shaped Monument lithograph with an individual service record written on the flat face of the monument. |
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