LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - JUNE 4, 2023 by Lynne Belluscio On Monday, Memorial Day, as we put out the red poppies – each with a white ribbon with a name on it, I explained to the students who were helping me, that these poppies represented the over 250 men and women from LeRoy who served during World War 1. On the small stoneWW1 monument, there are the names of the twelve who died while in service during World War 1. On the other side, is the WW 2 monument with the names of the 31 men from LeRoy who died in World War II. I’m not sure how many men and women from LeRoy served in World War II and I’m not sure how many served in the Korean War, although we know that one name, Milt Thomson is on the Korean War bench. And there are two names on the Vietnam War bench - Gary Scott and Harry VanAlst. As I looked up at the stone monument, there were the names of the 11 men who fought in the Revolution and the 79 men who fought in the War of 1812. And there are 244 names listed in the Civil War. A little research is needed to determine which of the men died in the Civil War. The monument was erected by the local Grand Army of the Republic in 1906. (For the record, the photograph in my book about the history of LeRoy, is wrong. The captionmentions that the photowas taken in 1906, which is impossible, because the “new” high school is in the background, and it wasn’t built until 1910-1911.) While I was counting names on the tall monument, I noticed a name under the foot of the soldier. I had never noticed it before, and I wasn’t too sure if I was reading it right. So I asked my tall grandson to check. He said that the name was Bureau Bros of Philadelphia. Thanks to google, more of the story emerged. Bureau Brothers was a foundry established by two French i m m i g r a n t s , Achille and Edouard Bureau in the 1870s. It was one of America’s most noted foundries. Some of the nation’s more famous artists and sculptors had work cast by Bureau Brothers. At the time the LeRoy statue was cast, the foundry was located in downtown Philadelphia at the corner of 21st Street and Allegheny Avenue. It later moved to North Philadelphia. There is a list of some of the work that was done by Bureau Brothers, but the LeRoy statue is not included, and I cannot find a similar striding soldier. And so far I cannot find anything about the sculptor. Bureau Brothers cast a lot of statues including Major General George Henry Thomas in 1879 which is located in the Thomas Circle in Washington D.C. The sculptor is John Qunicy Adams Ward, who is most famous for his larger than life statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall in New York City. There is a Civil War soldier in Elmira which was dedicated to the 107th New York Volunteers and although no sculptor is listed, there is an identical statue in Laurel-Hill Cemetery, in Philadelphia. It was cast in 1883 and is attributed to Achille Bureau. So perhaps, Achille Bureau was also a sculptor. Another statue at Gettysburg, dedicated to the 42nd New York Infantry, was designed by John Boyle and erected in 1891. A statue of General Grant mounted on his horse is located in Philadelphia and was cast in 1898. The statue of General Wayne on horseback is located in Valley Forge National Park and was cast in 1903, about the time the LeRoy statue was cast. Most of the Civil War Union Statues are the “Sentinel” Statues – a soldier standing leaning on his gun. This is common with many Confederate statues. The statue in LeRoy of a striding Union soldier, holding his rifle with a pack on his back is not very common. Terry Krautwurst discovered information about the sculptor. It was sculpted by Rudolph Schwartz of Indianapolis, and most of his work was done in that area. It was reported in the LeRoy Gazette in March 1905, that the statue was to represent a soldier on march, with a gun over his shoulder. So, as you drive around this summer, take a look at the Civil War soldiers standing guard in our rural towns. In nearby Caledonia, in the circle, is a sentinel soldier. That monument, like the one in LeRoy, is dedicated to the soldiers of the Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. It was dedicated in 1900 by the citizens of Caledonia. Names on the War Monument
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