Decoration Day at Shamokin’s Soldiers’ Monument, 1871

Business paused in Shamokin on Decoration Day, May 30, 1871. Military organizations and civic societies formed a procession to the cemetery, where a soldiers' monument was dedicated before the graves of the dead were decorated. The contemporary report estimated about six hundred men in the parade.

The monument was designed and built by Daugherty of Sunbury. Its marble rested on granite brought from the Gettysburg battlefield. The reported inscription named Lincoln Post No. 140 of the Grand Army of the Republic and recorded the dedication date.

Preparation had begun before the holiday. Earlier notices described the arrival of the granite base and the cemetery company's allocation of ground for soldiers' burials, to be cared for by the Grand Army of the Republic. The ceremony brought the completed monument into that landscape of graves and remembrance.