Critics want statue's arm set right

The Washington Times ^ | September 9, 2007 | Sonja Barisic

[Turret Gunner A20]

Christopher Newport was the captain of one of three ships that carried the America's founding colonists 400 years ago and his likeness has been memorialized in bronze at the university named for him in Newport News, Va. Some alumni and history buffs want the monument to get a hook like the one that replaced the right arm Newport lost in battle 17 years before coming to Jamestown.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — The swashbuckling sea captain who helped found America's first permanent English settlement lost his right arm in battle nearly two decades before bringing the colonists to Jamestown 400 years ago.

But you wouldn't know it to look at a 24-foot bronze statue of Christopher Newport, with all his limbs intact, that stands at the edge of the campus of the university named for him.

Some annoyed alumni and history buffs want the monument to get the hook — as in the prosthetic that Newport is thought to have used.

[Turret Gunner A20]

Why the devil do some people have to tinker with history?

[cripplecreek]

Cut ees arm off!

[Tallguy]

"It's like doing a statute of Babe Ruth and showing him thin," Mr. Marshall said, referring to the rotund slugger, "or doing a statue of Willie Shoemaker, a jockey, and showing him 6 feet tall."

This is the kind of "Public Art" that prevailed in the Soviet Union & (still does in) Cuba.

It also sounds like the University president might not be aware that the historical figure for which his school is named lacked a portion of his right arm. Doesn't say much for him.

[em2vn]

“.....as in the prosthetic that Newport is thought to have used.”
Pretty slim reason to want the statue changed unless it can be proved that he in fact was missing a limb and replaced it with a hook.