{"id":7557,"date":"2018-10-18T19:57:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T19:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/?p=7557"},"modified":"2018-10-18T19:57:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T19:57:29","slug":"wheelings-world-war-i-soldiers-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archivingwheeling.org\/blog\/wheelings-world-war-i-soldiers-memorial","title":{"rendered":"Distance Lends Enchantment: Wheeling’s WWI Memorials"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This article is part of a series about Wheeling during the First World War. The series will lead up to a centennial observation of Armistice Day (now known as Veteran\u2019s Day) to be held on November 11, 2018<\/a> at 2 pm at the Doughboy monument at Wheeling Park. If you are a descendant of a WWI veteran or nurse, please contact us at lunchwithbooks@yahoo.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

The War to Ends Wars<\/h2>\n

The \u201cGreat War\u201d had raged in Europe for three years before the United States joined the conflict on the side of the Allies in April 1917. What H.G. Wells optimistically dubbed, \u201cthe war that will end war<\/a>\u201d is now known as the First World War because, of course, instead of ending wars, it led to a second, far for destructive international conflict just two decades after the November 11, 1918 Armistice.<\/p>\n

That was enough time for a whole new generation of farm and factory boys to follow their fathers and grandfathers onto the blood-soaked battlefields of France and Germany. In most important ways, the Second World War was merely the continuation of the first. It follows that memory of the first is often overshadowed by what happened twenty years later.<\/p>\n

It has now been nearly a century since that celebrated Armistice. In this series of posts, we will present an overview of Wheeling\u2019s involvement in the First World War. And on November 11, 2018 at 2 pm at the Spirit of the American Doughboy Statue at Wheeling Park<\/a>, the City of Wheeling will remember those who served on the centennial of that Armistice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Wheeling Intelligencer front page, November 19, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4.7 million Americans served in the American Expeditionary Forces in WWI, and more than 116,000 died. 58,000 of those Americans came from West Virginia, and 5,000 of those West Virginians were killed or wounded (1,120 killed in combat). More than 3,000 from Ohio County served. Reports differ, but somewhere between 70 and 100 were killed.<\/p>\n

Like most young American men of the era, those from Wheeling harbored a romantic notion of war, it having been more than 50 years since the American Civil War ended. Thousands of Wheeling men eagerly registered for the draft in 1917. As many of these men left jobs at places like the B.& O. Railroad to train for war, women (first generation Rosie the Riveters) filled in for them. Other women served as Army Nurses.<\/p>\n

Many if not most of Wheeling\u2019s WWI soldiers served in the U.S. Army\u2019s 80th Division, known as the Blue Ridge in honor of the mountains. Most were trained at Camp Lee<\/a> Virginia near Petersburg under the command of Colonel Robert S. Welsh. A large number from our area served in the 314th Field Artillery<\/a>. They started shipping in large numbers to the trenches of France by summer 1918. A few months after that, local casualties were listed in the Wheeling newspapers almost daily.<\/p>\n

When the war ended with the Armistice signed at 11 am Paris time on November 11, 1918, Wheeling joined the rest of the nation with its own raucous, spontaneous celebration. Policemen fired their guns into the air, firehouses rang their bells, factories all along the Ohio blew their steam whistles, drivers caused their cars to backfire, and 20,000 joyous people jammed the streets of downtown Wheeling.<\/p>\n

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The Faris Memorial<\/h2>\n
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A little over a week after the celebration subsided, Wheeling\u2019s citizens scrambled to honor and memorialize those who served. The first plan to be revealed is perhaps the most interesting Wheeling WWI monument \u2014 the one that was never built.<\/p>\n

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Frederick F. Faris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On November 18, 1918, the Wheeling Intelligencer<\/em> reported that famed local architect Frederick Faris<\/a> would design a Great War memorial for the men who died in France from Wheeling and Ohio County. The massive memorial was to be built at the summit of Wheeling Hill and would feature an astounding view:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe old proverb, that \u2018distance lends enchantment\u2019 to the view, can be truthfully said of the memorial if erected on Wheeling hill, as the view from the monument itself would be inspiring, showing the mounded hills of Belmont and Ohio counties and the historic Ohio river, with its graceful curves washing the shores of the two great states; the windings of the old National pike over hills and through the valleys of the Little Mountain and Buckeye states, with Wheeling and her suburbs in the foreground.<\/p>\n

The plans call for a park 2000 feet long and 300 foot wide, with a macadamized boulevard encircling, with entrance and exit from Grandview<\/p>\n

avenue and Twelfth street; in the exact center of the park will be a shaft 150 feet high and the base to be a hall of fame and tablets on the wall containing the names of every soldier who served in the war just ended, in all about 4,500 in Wheeling and Ohio county.<\/p>\n

At the foot of the shaft will be four groups of statuary, representing the four different fighting units of the army and navy. In the center of each half of the park, on both sides of the shaft, two lakes, each 80 by 600 feet, will be placed, to take the place of the unsightly water tanks, now situated on top of the hill.<\/p>\n

On the west side of the park, toward the city proper, the plans call for an open air speaking place, with the speaker\u2019s stand and stage below the base of the wall, and seats, tier upon tier rising up until they joint the top of the wall. From the speaker\u2019s stand will extend a broad flight of steps down to West Chapline street, with platforms at intervals to relieve a continued flight of stairs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The Faris rendering as it appeared in the Intelligencer on November 18, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Faris was confident it could be built of concrete at the low cost of $250,000 ($4.5 million today) and that this cost could be reduced even further by \u201cutilizing the immense amount of limestone in the hill for building purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the idea for the elaborate memorial \u201csprang Minerva<\/a>-like\u201d from the mind of Walter B. Hilton, editor of The Wheeling Majority<\/em>, a socialist newspaper.<\/p>\n

According to the Intelligencer<\/em>, \u201cEverybody who read about [the memorial] is heartily in favor of it and promise their hearty support\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kiwanis Club stepped up first, donating $1000.00 to the cause. Enthusiastic endorsements quickly followed from the Wheeling Chapter, American Association of Engineers, Baltimore Lodge No. 6, Knights of Pythias, and the Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly, some of whose members had been killed in the war.<\/p>\n

Endorsements from Wheeling\u2019s \u201cprominent\u201d citizens were also heralded, including one who anonymously proclaimed,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe soldiers will soon be coming back from the camps and I would like to see the project well under way when they begin to arrive and by the time the boys arrive home from overseas, the structure to be under way and they can see that we have not forgotten them but will he building a lasting monument for the deeds they have done \u2018somewhere in. France.\u2019 to crush hideous kulture [sic] and have made the world a decent place to live in.\u201d [Intelligencer<\/em>, 11-19-1918]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On a visit to Wheeling from Charleston, State Commissioner of Labor Sam B. Montgomery, seemingly unmoved by the horrific reality of mechanized trench warfare, expressed his regret for the soldiers who never got to leave the camps:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, I hear that Wheeling and Ohio county has started a movement to build a memorial to their men who served in the army for those who made the supreme sacrifice in France, to those who bared their breasts to the bullets of the Hun, for those who offered their heart\u2019s blood, but were denied the glorious privilege by the signing of the armistice while they were still in camp in this country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Intelligencer<\/em> itself endorsed the project, editorializing that there was to be a \u201cpatriotic building and park dedicated to those who have made the supreme sacrifice \u2018over there\u2019 and those who left Wheeling and Ohio County to serve the cause of liberty\u2026\u201d relieving the unsightly barrenness of \u2018the hump\u2019 as a big stride to a city more beautiful\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Looking to Wheeling Hill above the suspension bridge where the Faris memorial would have been built, the \u201cbarrenness of \u2018the Hump'\u201d is plainly visible in this 1905 image from the OCPL Archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Such a monument would indeed have been a grand addition to Wheeling Hill. Unfortunately, enthusiasm for the project lost steam, most likely due to the prohibitive costs. By Valentine\u2019s Day 2019, the last reported planning meeting was postponed. The committee of \u201cprominent citizens\u201d had seemingly given up, somewhat desperately calling for input from citizens who were \u201cdesirous of bringing the memorial project to a fitting form\u201d and urging them \u201cto submit plans and suggestions to Mr. French Walton, secretary of the committee,\u201d whose offices were at the Market Auditorium (where Faris had his offices).<\/p>\n

A very similar idea was later incorporated into a wider \u201cCity Plan for Greater Wheeling,\u201d prepared by Pittsburgh engineering firm Morris Knowles for the Wheeling Improvement Association in 1920, an original copy of which is now part of the Robert L. Levenson Papers<\/a>, Ohio County Public Library Archives. A memorial similar to the one proposed by Faris was to be a part of a municipal park on Wheeling Hill. \u201cAs a Memorial,\u201d the plan reads, \u201c\u2026there is scarcely a feature that could not be appropriately used to commemorate Wheeling\u2019s participation in the Great War.\u201d An architect\u2019s rendering shows a structure similar to the Faris drawing (except that the orientation was East-West rather than North-South on Wheeling Hill) seen above.<\/p>\n

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Topographical Map of the Proposed Wheeling Hill Park. The Faris memorial would have run approximately from the reservoir on the north to the hill above 11th Street on the south.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Aviator<\/h2>\n
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The first actualized WWI monument in Wheeling (and in the entire state), was the Aviator statue, dedicated on Armistice Day 1925. The 7 foot bronze designed by sculptor Augustus Lukeman to honor Captain Louis Bennett Jr.<\/a> (the founder of the West Virginia Flying Corps and a heroic pilot who was killed in action in August 1918), stands on the campus of Linsly School and is dedicated to \u201call Americans who sacrificed their lives in the World War.\u201d Charles Lindbergh<\/a> famously visited the Aviator in 1927.<\/p>\n

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The Doughboys<\/h2>\n
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Photo by S. Duffy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the site of the centennial of the Armistice in Wheeling, we selected the Doughboy at Wheeling Park, dedicated, as it is, to \u201call who served in the World War 1917-1918.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Wheeling Doughboy\u2019s rifle has been missing for many years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wheeling\u2019s Doughboy is actually one of 140 still standing nationwide in 38 states. Mass produced during the 1920s and 1930s, these identical monuments are collectively known as \u201cSpirit of the American Doughboy,\u201d and were designed by sculptor E. M. Viquesney. It is said to be the most-viewed example of outdoor statuary in the United States (after the Statue of Liberty) although many people don\u2019t even realize they\u2019ve seen it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1931, Wheeling\u2019s pressed copper Doughboy was forged at McCurdy\u2019s Monument Works on Chapline Street. His faded green patina and missing rifle evince the passage of time and the work of vandals.<\/p>\n

The dedication was an elaborate affair. Thousands packed the park to witness the ceremony led by the Service Star Legion, a group founded by the mothers of Great War veterans.<\/p>\n

Click HERE<\/a> to learn more about Wheeling\u2019s Doughboy.<\/p>\n

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The Martins Ferry Doughboy<\/h2>\n

Though often confused with the Viquesney, the Doughboy statue in Martins Ferry is actually a cast bronze from the \u201cOver the Top\u201d series designed by sculptor John Paulding<\/a>, who beat Viquesney to the copyright office. The statues are similar, but many of the details are different. The Paulding version is charging rather than standing, for example, and his right leg is supported by a brace. The dedication plaque on the Ferry Doughboy, more inclusive than most, reads, \u201cIn commemoration of the patriotism of our boys and girls who went forth to the call of their country to serve in the World War and in memory of those who died that liberty might live.\u201d The Ferry Doughboy was also commissioned by the Service Star Legion mothers.<\/p>\n

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Other Local Monuments<\/h2>\n