Gettysburg Address Boulder
On the Town Common in Franklin sits the Gettysburg Address Boulder, one of the town’s meaningful Civil War Memorials. Dedicated in 1913 by the Grand Army of the Republic Post 60, an organization of Union veterans who served during the Civil War. This is the first monument that I have seen that has the full text of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address delivered on November 19, 1863, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
The memorial reflects the important role that Civil War veterans played in shaping public memory during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Grand Army of the Republic, known as G.A.R. became one of the most influential veteran’s organizations in American history. Across the country, its members worked to honor fallen soldiers, preserve the memory of the Union Cause, and remind future generations of the sacrifices made during the Civil War.
By the time this monument was dedicated in 1913, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address had already become one of the most important statements of national purpose and democratic ideals. The speech transformed the meaning of the Civil War by describing it as a test of whether a nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could endure. For Civil War veterans, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, captured a deeper meaning of the sacrifices made by those who fought and died during the war.
The veterans who placed this monument here understood that remembrance is about carrying ideals forward into the future. The Gettysburg Address Boulder stands as a reminder that democracy and civic responsibility are values that belong in communities like Franklin.
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Spanish-American War Memorial
Among the memorials on the Franklin town common, ist his mounted naval style gun and plaque commemorating Franklin residents who served in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The gun is a direct physical reminder of how warfare was changing at the turn of the twentieth century, when modern naval power began reshaping America’s role in […]
Welcome Sign
One of the things that makes Franklin unique among American towns is proudly displayed on this welcome sign: it is the home of the nation’s first public library. The story begins in 1778 then the town, newly incorporated, chose to name itself after Benjamin Franklin. The citizens asked Franklin for a bell for their town […]
Franklin Soldiers and Sailors Monument
Standing on the Town Common in Franklin is the town’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a lasting tribute to the men of Franklin who served in the Civil War dedicated on Memorial Day. May 30, 1903, the monument was commissioned during the great wave of Civil War remembrance that swept across New England in the decades after the […]
