Huntington’s Civil War statue, among the best known Civil War monuments on Long Island, was dedicated by the Huntington Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Association on Memorial Day 1895. Three years earlier, the same association had dedicated the building immediately behind the statue, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Building, as the town’s library named in honor of Huntington’s Civil War soldiers. In 1903, the Federal government gave Huntington a Ten Inch Rodman artillery piece that is believed to have been emplaced on Bedloe’s Island during the Civil War. Bedloe’s Island is now known as Liberty Island and is the location of the Statue of Liberty.
Huntington Town now has a population of 204,127, but during the Civil War it only had about 8,924 people.
We parked in the free municipal parking lot on New York Avenue and walked a half block to the monument. We discovered that there were also Revolutionary War monuments on the grounds.
Nathan Hale, the Patriot engaged in espionage, was captured in the Town of Huntington. There is a monument dedicated to him.
The Civil War monument and the memorial building built to honor local men who went off to the Civil War, are among the best-known landmarks in Huntington. The site is in the heart of the hamlet. The site is dedicated to the thirty nine men from the hamlet who died in the Civil War.
The monument has a single inscription. in English it translates as “It is sweet and right to die for your country.”
The statue shows the soldier at parade rest, a common pose for Civil War statuary.
It was a beautiful February day when we visited.
The building was a library, a gathering place for veterans, and it had other public uses. It is now the domus of the Huntington Historian and is periodically open to the public.
On the side of the building is a Civil War Era Rodman artillery piece. This gun was used for the defense of New York Harbor during the war, being mounted at the fort on Bedloe’s Island, where the Statue of Liberty now stands.
The brightness of the day was unusual during a gloomy week.
The memorial building was designed by the New York City firm of Cady, Berg and See, which had also designed the Natural History Museum in Manhattan.
The ten inch Rodman gun weighs 15,509 lbs. It could fire shot 4,836 feet. There are 99 of this type of Rodman still in existence.
I visited the site a few years ago, right after a snow storm.
It looks even better in snow!
The bell on the left is a memorial to local firefighter.
The building housed the Huntington Library until 1958.
It now houses the Huntington Town Historian.
The building is administered by the Huntington Historical Society since 2000. The interior of the building is opened to the public to build up historical awareness.
There are many good places to eat nearby.
The effort to build the memorial was started in December, 1864 with a fundraising concert at a local hall. It took three decades to accomplish the goal of building the building and statue.
Inside the memorial building were a number of exhibits of Huntington’s past. In the 19th Century, wind was used as a power source on Long Island. Two huge offshore wind farms are in the works about fifty miles from this site. So Long Island used to rely on wind for power and it may do the same thing in the future.
The society has put up several exhibits inside the building.
Below is an explanation of the Rodman Rifle outside the building.
According to the Huntington Historian, approximately 1,400 local residents served in the Union forces. Many of them were members of the 127th New York Infantry Regiment. Most of the men in the regiment were from New York City and Suffolk County, of which Huntington is a part.
The statue was made by A. Klaber, a firm in New York City.
This moving plaque names the Huntington men who lost their lives in the service of the United States during the Civil War. I noticed the names of men from the Conklin and Sammis families. These families have lived in Huntington for hundreds of years, and they each sent their sons off to die in the war.
For the 250th Anniversary of the settlement of of Huntington this ribbon displayed Ulysses S. Grant’s face at its center.
Here is more on the history of the building.
Here is the story of a local man who went off to war and never returned. He was from the Conklin family.
A sign in the building reminds us that for many years this was the hamlet’s public library.
Behind the statue is Huntington’s Old Burying Ground, dating back to Colonial times. There are Revolutionary War veterans and colonial settlers interred here.
Markers identify the graves of Revolutionary War veterans.
A view of Huntington Harbor from the Burying Ground. The Harbor was an important whaling port before the Civil War.
Another member of the Sammis family.
And a Conklin.
Here you can see the memorial building abutting the Burying Ground.
I hope you get around to documenting the monument at the corner of Main and Church Sts. in Northport, NY.