Lewis Barnavelt has a sense of pride in snopping around New Zebedee and seeing the name “Barnavelt” on the Civil War Monument [24]. However the name that precedes “Barnavelt” is not revealed in this book and the Civil War veteran is obstinately referred to as Jonathan’s grandfather. Gee – you’d think that guy would have warranted a name.

At any rate, some detective work and luck provided us to the fact that John Bellairs' great-grandfather also fought in the Civil War. First the luck: in a 1981 letter to Jack Bellairs, John admits that "James Bellairs, the one who fought in the Civil War, is my great-grandfather." From the family tree we’ve put together, this appears to be James Henry Bellairs (1841-1929) who would have been a mere 20 years old when the war began. While manifests of Civil War veterans are available online, we have not found any solider with the name "Bellairs." The closest we’ve found is "Bellair," specifically Private James Bellair who was part of the 7th Regiment, Michigan Infantry. The regiment was organized in Monroe, about 100 miles east of Marshall, prompting us to assume this is why James’ name is not listed in Marshall Historian Richard Carver’s Marshall [1993] and, subsequently, why James would not be included in that city’s monuments.

And the monument must have been a sight to see for Lewis, too. The massive stone object was “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." Along the flat, front part of the easel were the names of Capharnaum County residents who had died in the American Civil War [23-4].

Marshall - and more so the state of Michigan - committed a number of men to the American Civil War. Carver writes in Marshall that the first regiment from the West to reach Washington D.C. was the First Michigan Infantry Company I, lead by Colonel Orlando Wilcox [462]. Overall, Marshall enlisted well over 700 men, meaning that the city’s massive stone monument would have to be pretty large just to encompass all their names.

But here’s the thing: the easel-shaped monument doesn’t exist. Anywhere.

The origins of the monument can be traced to a marketing campaign aimed at Civil War veterans who were offered the chance to purchase plaques commemorating their service record.

Mark Dunkelman, in Brothers One and All: Esprit de Corps in a Civil War Regiment (2006), says one of the most common products was a large lithograph depiction of an Easel-Shaped Monument that displayed the veteran’s service record on the 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."

Carver believes the monument was never intended for Marshall or Gettysburg and the gentlemen absconded with the money. "Anyone who donated money to the cause was given the glorified discharge document. Several of the 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. One weekend when I was showing people through our museum a visitor exclaimed, 'That’s it, that’s the monument in John Bellairs’ book, where is it located? It was difficult to convince her that there was no monument in Marshall."

Instead of the large easel, Marshall has a respectable-sized small stone monument in front of the Grand Army of the Republic Hall in memory of its Civil War veterans. This might be more akin with the “Civil War Monument annex” mentioned in New Zebedee [24].