Cannon for a Soldiers’ Memorial

A cannon in the postcard

A postcard carrying a 1905 copyright shows Shamokin’s Soldiers’ Monument rising above a cannon on a wheeled carriage. The small piece of artillery sits at the monument’s base, making an unmistakable part of the memorial scene. The card preserves something the earlier paperwork cannot: a view of a cannon actually in place.

The effort to obtain such objects had a much longer history. Lincoln Post No. 140 of the Grand Army of the Republic appears in congressional proceedings and local newspaper notices over more than two decades. Together, those records show veterans and their supporters pursuing military objects for a commemorative setting.

Requests in Washington

In 1880, Representative Killinger introduced a bill to donate condemned cannon and cannonballs to Lincoln Post at Shamokin. The House read it twice and referred it to the Committee on Military Affairs. That entry records a request and its next procedural step; it does not record a delivery.

A separate proposal followed in 1896. Representative Kulp introduced a measure seeking four condemned cannon and four pyramids of cannonballs for Lincoln Post’s Soldiers’ Monumental Association. It went to the Committee on Naval Affairs, which later reported the bill without amendment. The quantities belonged to the proposed donation. They cannot be taken as a count of cannon installed at Shamokin.

Two newspaper announcements

In August 1899, Mount Carmel’s Daily News reported that Major John G. Butler, an ordnance officer at the New York arsenal on Governors Island, had shipped two cast-iron, 24-pounder flank-defense howitzers to Lincoln Post. The notice connected the weapons with plans to adorn the Soldiers’ Circle in Shamokin’s cemetery.

Another brief notice appeared in the Danville newspaper in May 1902. It credited the late Congressman Rufus K. Polk’s efforts with securing two condemned cannon for Lincoln Post and said they would be placed in the soldiers’ circle. Polk had died that March. The announcement linked his work in Congress with a memorial project beyond his own town.

The reports describe different stages: a reported shipment in 1899, and a presentation with intended placement in 1902. They do not explain whether the notices concerned the same two weapons. Neither supplies an installation date.

What the view preserves

The 1905 postcard adds the visible cannon beside the monument to this record of requests and announcements. Its image does not identify the gun’s serial number, show every side of the memorial, or account for a second cannon. It is therefore a view of at least one installed piece, not proof of the entire earlier shipment.

Even within those limits, the surviving record tells a clear local story. Cannon were sought for Lincoln Post’s memorial work long before the postcard was made. A newspaper reported weapons being sent; another reported a presentation through Polk’s efforts. The postcard finally shows artillery sharing the monument’s commemorative space.