A dedication ceremony took place Sunday to recognize a Civil War commemorative statue being relocated after its removal from the Jefferson County Courthouse grounds June 20, 2020.
The new home of the statue is Camp White Sulphur Springs Cemetery, the former Confederate military camp, hospital and cemetery 2 miles southwest of Pine Bluff.
Under the direction of Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson, the statue was taken down from the courthouse square on the grounds of being “an inappropriate symbol for public display.”
Before the removal, an agreement was reached in April 2019 between the county and the David O. Dodd Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to move the marble figure to Camp White Sulphur Springs Cemetery near the Watson Chapel community.
More than 60 people attended the ceremony. Among them was Jerry Lawrence Sr.
“What more perfect place for the statue to reside than a Confederate cemetery where those at rest here now have someone to watch over them,” Lawrence said.
His wife, Deelois Lawrence, is the local UDC historian and chairman of the statue relocation project.
“Judge Robinson has been very helpful accomplishing the logistics of moving the statue,” she said.
The monument’s origin began in 1907 when the local UDC set about to honor former Southern soldiers with a stone likeness. By March 1910, $1,500 had been raised and the order was placed with McNeel Marble Co. of Marietta, Ga. The base and column of the 24-piece composition are all Georgia marble while the life-size soldier atop the tower is carved from Italian marble.
The unveiling took place July 22 of that year for its original placement at Pine Bluff High School. The local newspaper reported “the grounds around the high school were a seething mass of humanity, eager to see, hear and do honor to the occasion.”
Sixty-three years later, in 1973, the building on the school campus in front of which the statue stood was set for demolition. As a result, the statue was removed from the…
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