What Remains: Learning About Maine Populations Through Burial Customs

Monuments

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Another way many communities honor their dead is through monuments. In the wake of the Civil War (1861-65) especially, local groups, primarily women, would gather community funds in order to create monuments to fallen soldiers. Monuments also honor other figures from a town, state, or country's history. How do monuments differ from headstones? How are stories told in monuments, and what do they tell us about communities?


Alonzo Stinson monument, Eastern Cemetery, Portland, ME. MMN #84557.

Sargent Alonzo Stinson's gravestone also functions as a monument. He was a member of Company H of the Fifth Maine Regiment in the Civil War, and was killed in battle in 1861 at the age of 19. His headstone features war regalia as well, but in the form of the kind of rigid knapsack with a blanket roll at the top that infantry soldiers would carry with them. His stone is also backdated: it was presented by surviving members of the Fifth Maine Regiment to the City of Portland in 1908, when it was dedicated in Eastern Cemetery.

MMN item #84457.