Halifax County Attorney Glynn Rollins was instructed by commissioners today to talk to local organizations, most likely the Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter, about taking ownership of a stone marker and tablet honoring a CSA general which since 1929 has been located on the grounds of the Historic Courthouse complex in Halifax.
Rollins told the board at its meeting neither the state nor the North Carolina United Daughters of the Confederacy claims ownership of the monument honoring CSA Army Brigadier General Junius Daniel.
Minutes of the Halifax County UDC, which are now in the hands of the Roanoke Rapids chapter, show the state Historic Commission most likely provided the tablet while the inscription on the monument was drafted by members of the now-defunct Halifax County UDC.
The rock was purchased by the UDC, which paid $293.23, Rollins said. “When the bill came in they only had $255.33 to pay for it so they were short $37.90.”
County commissioners back during the time before the monument was erected in 1929 paid the difference.
Rollins said the state UDC’s view is once the monuments were placed on county or town property they became the property of the government on whose grounds they were placed.
In the 1980s Rollins said the county moved the rock about 25 feet northeast. “We moved that rock at least once which indicates taking some control over it … No one wants to own the rock or the tablet. That probably means we do just due to the fact we’ve taken care of it and did what we needed to do with it from time to time.”
In Gaston County last week, Rollins said commissioners there reached an agreement on moving a confederate monument by conveying it to the local SCV chapter.
By conveying it to the SCV there would be no stringent guidelines which require removal to a place of continued prominence or rules which say if the monument started out in a cemetery or museum it can’t be located elsewhere.
If ownership of the monument is transferred to another organization that organization could place where it pleased, including the confederate cemetery in Weldon, Rollins said.
When asked for board consensus on how to move forward all commissioners agreed that talks with organizations which might have an interest in taking the monument continue. “The best scenario we could hope for would be to get the Sons of the Confederate Veterans to take it and then it’s not our responsibility,” said Commissioner Linda Brewer.
