Fort Huntington Memorial (1916)

The following is from a 1916 Cleveland Leader article found in the Cleveland Institute of Art Scrapbook:

A bronze model of the old gun on the Public Square, draped with a replica of the battle flag of 1812, will be the memorial to be erected on the northwest corner of the new courthouse grounds, commemorating Fort Huntington, built during America’s second war with Great Britain.

This was decided last night at a meeting of the council committee and representatives of eleven local patriotic orders in the council chamber, as the only available site of the forgotten structure.

It was voted to adopt a model submitted by Joseph C. Motto and Stephen A. Rebeck, sculptors, 11634 Euclid ave.  Motto and Rebeck are pupils of Herman N. Matzen, of the Cleveland Art School, who will supervise their work on the monument.

The memorial will be ten feet in length and the gun will rest on a marble slab, upon the surface of which inscriptions may be made.

The Cleveland Topics reported on July 1, 1916 that Motto and Rebeck “have just finished a model for a new setting for the Perry Cannon in the Public Square, to be used when the cannon is transferred to the new City Hall, the base to be in granite, while the flag draping the cannon will be in bronze.”

I have no further information on this work: no knowledge of whether or not it was actually executed and if so whatever became of it.  I have also been unable to find the current location of the cannon.

REFERENCES

“Fort Huntington Memorial to Stand in Courthouse Park,” Cleveland Leader, 1916, found in the Cleveland Institute of Art Scrapbook.

“Cleveland Sculptors at Work,” Cleveland Topics, July 1, 1916, p. 21-22.