Bridgeton seeks to restore vandalized Civil War monument

It is a forlorn sight in what should be a place of honor. The statue of a musket-bearing Civil War soldier, in Bridgeton City Park for nearly a century, is headless, the top of the musket broken off, too.

"Who would gain by this? Why would someone even think to do it?" said Bridgeton Chief of Police Mark Ott. "This isn't even just a chip off the base. Someone had to get up 10, 12 feet and work hard to break off a huge piece of granite."

Bridgeton, the seat of Cumberland County, has had a tougher time than most places in South Jersey during the last couple of decades. Nearly half its 25,000 residents are Hispanic, many of them immigrants whose opportunities to work have decreased as farms have become housing developments.

The number of stores and restaurants downtown has decreased, and when county offices close up there is little street life. Crime has gone down in the last five years, but gang activity is up, according to a survey released by state police last year that found about 600 members of 14 different gangs in the city.

The 1,100-acre park has always been Bridgeton's jewel. The desecration of the Civil War statue, discovered Dec. 6, is painful, said Mayor Albert Kelly.

"It is where we all go to have some peace," Kelly said. "We have had so little crime there. It's the place Bridgeton honors, no matter what else is going on."

Ott said the musket from the eight-foot-tall Georgia Ebony granite statue was found near the piece's 14-foot base. The head, partly mutilated, showed up a few days later in a ditch several hundred yards away.

"There had been rain not long before, and it was probably buried in a puddle," said Ott, who believes the vandals did not realize how heavy the head was and just dropped it. He said the department has offered a $100 reward for information leading to an arrest. "I believe we will eventually find out who did it."

A circular drive connects the sites in the park. The Veterans Park section, which has the Civil War statue and monuments to all the major wars since then, is the first opening off the drive. There is also a small zoo, where admission fees are deposited in an honor box; bike and hiking trails; and the new Jim Hursey Memorial Stadium, lovingly named after a deceased maintenance man.

The statue was installed in 1915, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, and placed elsewhere in the park. It was moved to its current site in the 1930s, according to Bridgeton Recreation Director Melissa Hemple.

"I don't think it was a hate crime," Hemple said. "But someone had to really want to do this. It's a monumental effort."

Into the breach has come Rich Mendoza, a retired music teacher in the Deptford schools and an amateur Civil War historian. He is captain of the "re-created" 12th N.J. Volunteer Infantry Company K, which mustered out of Bridgeton from a building that still stands at the corner of Commerce and Laurel Streets, Mendoza said.

Mendoza, 65, who grew up in Deptford and lives in Voorhees, will emcee a benefit concert Saturday to help pay for reconstruction of the statue. The Libby Prison Minstrels, a group in which he plays guitar, will be joined by a brass band, a fife-and-drum group, and a balladeer, David Kincaid, all doing Civil War-era music. The event will be held at the Marino Center on Washington Street in Bridgeton. Tickets are $10 and available through Bridgeton City Hall (856-455-3230).

"We should all be mindful of our history," said Mendoza, who says he got excited about the Civil War as a 10th grader during a Deptford High School trip to Gettysburg. He started collecting war artifacts and now has thousands of letters, bullets, uniform parts, and weapons, some of which are now displayed in an exhibit of New Jersey memorabilia at Morristown's Macculloch Hall Historical Museum.

The Bridgeton statue, which originally cost $1,876, was one of many around the country dedicated during the 50th anniversary of the war's end, Mendoza said.

"Soldiers were dying off and this was going to be the last big chance to remember them," he said. Though there was no real fighting in New Jersey, the 12th New Jersey was a fierce fighting force in Virginia and elsewhere. About 60 percent of its men died in the war.

The statue must have been expensive, Mendoza said, because of the granite. Kelly said the city does not yet know what restoration will cost: He believes it will be about $10,000, but it could be three times that. The concert is a start, he said.

"I'm convinced that once Civil War buffs hear about it, many will contribute. They will see the senselessness and it will, eventually, bring some good to Bridgeton," Kelly said. "The park is our special place, and this will make people realize what we have."