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Lincoln’s First Memorial

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Exactly 158 years ago Saturday, Abraham Lincoln would succumb to his wounds, but his name and likeness have been immortalized. However, many do not know that the first monument to the fallen president originated with a Marietta resident named Charlotte Scott.

Charlotte was born near Lynchburg, Va., and enslaved to three different Scott family members. The last in 1861 to Margaret Scott, wife of Dr. William Rucker. From the outset of the Civil War, Dr. Rucker’s steadfast loyalty to the Union cause compelled him to aid the Union army as a civilian scout. It also led to his capture and imprisonment in July 1862, charged with bridge burning and murder. With serious threats directed against his family in a case that became contentious in both the North and South, the Ruckers (including Charlotte) were relocated by Federal and Confederate authorities for their own safety. During this evacuation, Charlotte was freed and accompanied the family to Marietta, residing for the duration of the war at 311 Putnam St.

Charlotte continued as a paid domestic servant for the Ruckers for the remainder of the war. However, on April 15, 1865, word of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and death reached Marietta and a local minister went to the Rucker home to break the news. When informed of this shocking news, Charlotte retreated to her bedroom and immediately returned carrying $5, her first earnings in freedom. She gave this money to Rev. Cornelius Battelle (grandfather of Battelle Institute founder Gordon Battelle) saying, “The best friend of the colored people is dead. He ought to have a monument, and I’m gonna give the last cent I have for it.”

Battelle recounted Charlotte’s story and turned over her donation to local lawyer, Gen. Thomas Church Haskell Smith. Smith, in turn, gave it to James Yeatman, Western Sanitary Commission President, and the idea of the Emancipation Memorial was formed. Over $17,000 would be raised solely from former slaves and freedmen, the majority donated by U.S. Colored Troops. President Grant unveiled this memorial statue on the assassination anniversary in 1876, with the keynote speaker Frederick Douglass and Charlotte in attendance. It became the first monument in America depicting a person of color, the first to be fully funded by African-Americans, and it was placed at the first public site to bear Lincoln’s name (Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C.).

This monument depicts Lincoln invoking the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those enslaved in the South. The man at Lincoln’s feet, described as breaking from his shackles and rising to his feet, was modeled after Archer Alexander (ancestor of boxing legend Muhammad Ali), who was facing re-enslavement by the courts after his escape before Lincoln’s order was enacted on Jan. 1, 1863.

After the war, Charlotte was given four acres of land by the Ruckers and returned to live with her family in freedom on the Scott Plantation in Virginia until her death on Jan. 24, 1891. In a time when death notices were usually limited to just a few newspapers lines, Charlotte’s obituary in the Marietta Register took up over a full-page column.

The Civil War Round, table of the Mid-Ohio Valley will be dedicating a marker telling Charlotte’s extraordinary story on June 17.

It will be installed at Marietta City Hall near where her house once stood. With this marker, Charlotte’s role in the creation of the first memorial to Abraham Lincoln will live on!

Scott Britton is executive director of The Castle and a member of the Washington County Historical Society. To learn more about the Washington County Historical Society, call 740-373-1788 or visit wchshistory.org.

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