The 7-foot-tall bronze sculpture of a Confederate soldier that previously sat on the Daviess County Courthouse lawn is officially headed to Potter’s Field.
An agreement was reached between the City and County governments to transfer a small piece of property within Potter’s Field, owned by the city, to Daviess County Fiscal Court.
Potter’s Field, which is a pauper’s cemetery and is also called City Cemetery, spans 3.78 acres and is adjacent to the east side of Elmwood Cemetery.
Fiscal Court unanimously approved their portion of the agreement during their meeting Thursday, while Owensboro City Commissioners unanimously approved their half last week.
The transfer or property is specifically for the purpose of housing only the bronze sculpture of a Confederate soldier. The statue was removed from the base on May 31 and has remained the property of Fiscal Court, while the granite pedestal was given to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and was moved to the Battle of Panther Creek site on U.S. 431.
Per the agreement, the City will also grant to the County an easement across the remainder of Potter’s Field, for the purpose of maintaining the statue and the portion of property it sits on. The City will pay no expense related to the maintenance of the portion of property or the statue. The City will still own and be in charge of the upkeep of the rest of Potter’s Field.
Judge-Executive Al Mattingly previously said that the decision to relocate the statue to Potter’s Field is a way to honor the Citizens Advisory Committee’s recommendation as closely as possible. That committee was formed following the Fiscal Court’s decision to remove the Confederate monument from the courthouse lawn, and was tasked with finding potential relocation sites for the base and/or statue.
Originally, and based on some feedback from the public, the committee considered recommending moving the statue to Elmwood Cemetery. However, committee members said Elmwood officials would not accept the statue on their grounds. (City officials also had no interest in moving the statue to either of their museums.)
Mattingly said with Elmwood not a viable option, Potter’s Field was the closest they could get.
According to a plaque in Potter’s Field, the burial ground served from 1873-2000 “as the final resting place for gamblers down on their luck, average citizens without money for graves and others who died far from home with no one to claim them.”
According to the plaque, “No one is sure how many men, women and children are buried here. It is believed they number nearly 1,000.”
However, it is documented that there are several Black people buried in the field along with both Union and Confederate soldiers.
“We have heard that there are lots of Black folks buried in Elmwood Cemetery and Potter’s Field, as they are all over most of the cemeteries that have these Confederate statues. But there are lots of Confederate soldiers buried in that field as well,” Mattingly said previously.
The Owensboro chapter of the NAACP was also consulted for the decision since they were the initial petitioners for the relocation of the monument. When the conversation of moving the statue first came up, the request included moving the monument to a place of historical context.
The new placement of both the sculpture and base fulfills that request, Owensboro NAACP President Rev. Rhondalyn Randolph said previously.
“By putting this sculpture in an appropriate historical context, this gives the community a chance to work together to form an appropriate narrative,” Randolph said.
