Chicopee City Hall and Civil War Memorial Tablets
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Pictured is the south tablet, which says "honor the brave."
Close-up of the south tablet.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
On opposite ends of the entrance to Chicopee Massachusetts’s City Hall sits a pair of tablets that lists the names of 72 men from Chicopee who died in the Civil War. These tablets also give information on the date these men died, the location of their death, and their cause of death. For example, the cause of death for one name listed is described as complications from “disease contracted in prison.”
Listed below the lists of the honored soldiers, inscribed on the north tablet, is the following: “To her fallen heroes Chicopee erects this tablet.” The north tablet is called the “roll of honor” and lists 38 members of the Union Army who lost their lives. On the south tablet, the following is inscribed below the listed names: “To her honored dead Chicopee erects this tablet.” The south tablet is identified with its list named “honor the brave,” and it features the remaining 36 members of the Union Army who perished during the war.
After the building and its memorial tablets were dedicated in December of 1871, the town’s paper described the ceremony in detail, as well as reprinted the full texts of the memorial tablets into that day’s paper.
These tablets honoring the town’s fallen soldiers is not the only piece of Civil War history here, in fact, all of the metal railings, hinges, fittings and the eagle weathervane used on the building were all cast at the Ames Manufacturing Company, famous for Ames Swords used during the Civil War.
Sources
Chicopee's Civil War Memorials. Tripline. . Accessed July 07, 2019. https://www.tripline.net/trip?id=7247255475631003B8CA9BCFE279955B&list=1.
City Hall History. City of Chicopee. . . http://www.chicopeema.gov/440/City-Hall-History.
All photos: Chicopee's Civil War Memorials. Tripline. . Accessed July 07, 2019. https://www.tripline.net/trip?id=7247255475631003B8CA9BCFE279955B&list=1.