The weather might be a bit chilly, but it’s still hard to beat a good stroll through a local park. Here’s what LebTown captured on a recent trip to Monument Park, at 8th and Lehman Streets in Lebanon.
All photos by Will Trostel.
The park’s main feature is the monument itself, which sits at the center of the block. Comprised of a 30-foot pillar and surrounding mound, the monument was the creation of the Women’s Monument Trustees, a group of local women who erected it in 1869. Stacks of cannonballs are placed on each of the monument’s four corners, and an additional cannonball is perched on top of the pillar itself.
The idea for a monument honoring the 93rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, the volunteer regiment from Lebanon that served in the Civil War on the side of the Union, was conceived in 1867. Previously, the site had served as the troop’s camp, named Camp Coleman.
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Debbie Coleman, wife of George Dawson Coleman and a member of the prominent Coleman family, had a “deep interest in the welfare” of the regiment and raised money for a monument to the fallen soldiers of the county beginning in April 1867.
According to the Pennsylvania Civil War Volunteers, the regiment lost 274 men in all. Of these, 161 enlisted men were killed in battle or mortally wounded, and 111 men died to disease. The details of the regiment’s history in the war are available online in the public domain book Red: white: and blue badge, Pennsylvania veteran volunteers. A history of the 93rd regiment, known as the “Lebanon infantry” and “One of the 300 fighting regiments” from September 12th, 1861, to June 27th, 1865.
To the north, across Monument Street, is St. Mark’s United Church of Christ. St. Mark’s recently became the new home of the congregation of St. John’s United Church of Christ, which predated the Civil War and closed in June. St. Mark’s has history of its own, with origins as a Sunday school on the north side of the town established in 1885.
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