Henderson County’s Revolutionary War Monument at First and Main

At the corner of First and Main streets, on the courthouse square near Central Park, stands a rough-faced granite monument that is easy to pass without noticing. Its three bronze tablets preserve the names of 44 Revolutionary War soldiers and patriots associated with Henderson County.

The monument was not completed all at once. Its tablets were added in three stages over nearly six decades.

The Original 1916 Tablet

The first tablet was erected in 1916 by the General Samuel Hopkins Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Its inscription states that it was placed in memory of Revolutionary soldiers buried in Henderson County.

The tablet names General Samuel Hopkins, Colonel Wynn Dixon, Colonel John Cannon, Colonel Gabriel Green, Major John Holloway, John Martin, Joel Gibson, Colonel Nathaniel Powell, Colonel William Marshall, Captain John Furna Cannon, Isham Sellers, and Edward Davis Bennett.

A Second Tablet Dedicated in 1932

A second bronze tablet was unveiled on Saturday, October 1, 1932. The following day, the Sunday Gleaner and Journal reported on the ceremony under the headline, “Tablet Honoring Heroes of 1776 Dedicated Here.”

Mrs. Harry E. Thixton, chair of the DAR chapter’s historical research committee and the state historian, presided. The high school band, dressed in new purple-and-gold uniforms, played John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” while Robert Addison Posey raised the American flag. N. Powell Taylor delivered the principal address and called the monument a “shrine to patriotism.”

Descendants pulled a cord that drew aside a flag and revealed the new tablet. It records Lieutenant Turner Anderson, Joseph Cabell Jr., Nancy Morgan Hart, John Hart, Lieutenant John Harrison, Sergeant John Hughes, Abraham Hatchett, Captain Blackman Moseley Sr., Lewis Rouse, Dr. Joseph Savage, Captain Obadiah Smith, Thomas Smith Sr., and Sergeant William Walker Jr.

The 1974 Addition

A third plaque was placed on the monument on March 2, 1974. It added 19 names: Lieutenant Colonel Charles V. Clay, Thomas Baker, Edward Baldwin, Jacob Barnett, Michael Book, William Brown, Joseph Butler, Maston Clay, James M. Edwards, William Frazier, Taliaferro Grigsby, Peter H. Mathews, John Moss, John Ramsey, Michael Sprinkle, Josiah Stone, George A. Sugg, Jacob Upp, and Samuel Williams.

Together, the three tablets form a lasting roll call of Henderson County’s connection to the American Revolution. More than a century after the first plaque was installed, the monument continues to occupy a prominent place in the center of Henderson—between the courthouse, Central Park, and the downtown streets traveled every day.