Benedict Arnold Memorial Made In Vermont

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[chance33_98]

Benedict Arnold Memorial Made In Vermont

Vt. Stone Carver Makes Slate For Traitor's Grave In England

POSTED: 3:51 pm EST March 31, 2004 UPDATED: 4:09 pm EST March 31, 2004

The most controversial figure of the Revolutionary War is about to get a new gravestone.

Benedict Arnold was a war hero in the battles on Lake Champlain who turned traitor and defected to the British. But soon his gravesite in England will be honored with a memorial created by a Vermont artist.

Walter Celley is a stone carver at Rock of Ages working on a slate that in May will be added to Arnold's crypt in an English churchyard. How does Celley feel about working on a memorial to an American turncoat?

"I don't mind at all. We all have to do what we have to do, I guess," Celley said.

A spokesman for Rock of Ages, Bob Caron, explained why the company is making a marker to honor a traitor.

"We think that everybody deserves to have a memorial, and we understand his notorious past, but we also understand his legacy and how important he was to our country, and we think that's important to be noted," Caron said.

The $15,000 memorial is being paid for by Bill Stanley, a retired stockbroker from Norwich, Conn., who has been leading a movement to recognize Arnold's contributions to the American Revolution before he switched sides and tried to sell West Point to the British.

"Benedict Arnold was really one of our greatest generals and turned the battle of Saratoga in our favor to the extent that after that battle that we won, the French came and supported us, and we probably would not have won the revolution without Benedict Arnold," Caron said.

Arnold, alongside Ethan Allen, seized Fort Ticonderoga from the British and then led America's first naval fleet to head off the British invasion in the battle of Valcour, paving the way for an American victory.

"He's the classic tragic hero in that he has all these wonderful qualities, yet he had that Achilles' heel," Caron said.

Celley's slate, which will replace a peeling painting that now marks the graves of Arnold, his wife and daughter, will refer to the "enduring friendship" now felt between the British and Americans.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Walter Celley is a stone carver at Rock of Ages working on a slate that in May will be added to Arnold's crypt in an English churchyard. How does Celley feel about working on a memorial to an American turncoat?

With any luck Mr. Celley will be available to do the marker for Jim Jeffords grave when the time comes.

[Publius]

Does anyone know why he turned traitor?

Click on the link in Post #9.

[Publius]

The monument is in England, so there is no legal violation involved.

[mewzilla]

Well, my Green Mountain Boys ancestors are spinning...

[namvetcav]

Your point seems completely absurd in the context of this matter. You perhaps want to e-mail the Founding Fathers and have them correct their misguided bellyaching about George III in the Declaration of Independence? Sure, the American and French revolutions were actually reactions to the underlying bureaucratic arrangements in the allocation of resources and distribution of rewards. I'll bet you're on solid ground . . . in the fussbudget reductionist club. In any case, it is deplorable that any American should contribute 15K to the memory of Arnold even if he was demented enough to think he was merely supporting Lord North and some MP's and not acting against the best political development in human history.