Notable Monuments
There are several notable monuments in Cypress Hills. These are listed in the order that they were erected:
- The 1881 Garfield Memorial Oak Tree (Union Grounds, Section 1 F, on Cypress Way and Metropolitan Way). On Nov. 3, 1881, the James A. Garfield Oak Society of Brooklyn planted an oak in honor of the slain 20th President of the United States. Following a storm in 1944 that damaged the oak, a new one was planted. At one time an iron fence encircled the memorial.
- The Ringgold Monument (Union Grounds, Section 1B). This large obelisk was erected by veterans who served under Colonel Benjamin Ringgold’s command in the Civil War.
- British Navy Monument (Section 2, Grave No. 36). In 1908 workers at Fort Hancock, New Jersey, uncovered a buried earthen brick vault with the remains of a number of men. It was determined this was the crew of a British Navy vessel that perished in 1783 while sailing homeward following the Revolutionary War. On March 5, 1909, the remains were moved to Cypress Hills and interred in a single grave. The headstone—a large granite monument that bears the names of 14 men—was erected in 1939.
- The French Cross to honor French Sailors (Section 3). This 12-foot (3.7 m) granite cross was erected in memory of 25 sailors of the Republic of France Navy who died when their ammunition ship blew up in New York Harbor in October 1918. The remains of three sailors were repatriated to France; 22 are interred in Cypress Hills. Each has a gray granite headstone with a bronze plaque on top.
- Second Division AEF Monument (in front of rostrum).
- The Eagle Monument (Cypress Hills Section 2, The Mount of Victory). This unique hand-crafted monument of fieldstones was created by cemetery laborers around 1934. An American eagle, carved in stone was placed atop the stone pyramid.
Read more about this topic: Cypress Hills National Cemetery
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or monuments:
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)