Not even the winds and waves of Hurricane Ike could budge the 1863 cannon from the lawn of the Orange County Courthouse. The cannon is embedded in concrete and has been on the lawn for decades. But it almost disappeared during World War II. One prominent woman wanted to use it for scrap metal to help fight the Axis powers. After all, it was made of brass and weighed 1,200 pounds. That would be a generous donation to the defense effort. The story is another in the strange tales of the U.S. government cannon ending up in a Confederate state.
Local lore relates the cannon was left by a re-enactment group from Jasper who came to fight the Orange Rifles in what was called a “sham battle.” The cannon misfired and blew off the arm of a young man. Captain E.I. Kelley, head of the Jasper group, was so distraught that he left the cannon in Orange.
The October 5, 1942, Orange Leader has a headline “Pioneer Suggests Old Cannon be Converted Into Scrap For Victory.” Mrs. Addie Hart, who would have been 80 or 81 at the time, was the widow of Judge John T. Hart. She had lived in Orange for 63 years, according to the newspaper, which means she moved to town in 1879.
She was also the last surviving member of the Ladies Civic Club, founded in 1908. The newspaper reported she had a letter from Captain Kelley of Jasper indicating that the cannon belonged to the ladies club. The letter corrected what the paper said was “a common belief in Orange that the cannon was a Confederate weapon.” The “belief” obviously didn’t involve a lot of study. The engraving on the lip of the barrel says “Revere.” Researchers have found it was made by Revere Copper Co. of Boston, Mass. The company was related to the original Paul Revere Co., according to later information from the Smithsonian Institute.
Mrs. Hart said the cannon was brought July 4, 1905, for the sham battle between the Jasper group and the Orange Rifles. The battle was at Anderson Park, a field at Cypress Avenue and 12th Street. “Many Orange people recall when the gun was fired during the sham battle in 1905 one of the Jasper men sustained the loss of one arm and one eye, and another member of the company was less seriously injured,” the Leader said.
Captain Kelley had left the cannon in her care until the state needed it, according to the letter she showed to the Leader.
Whether the cannon stayed at Anderson Park for a while isn’t explained in the 1942 article. “After the wooden wheels of the cannon had rotted, the gun was moved to the court house square and mounted on concrete as it stands today,” the newspaper wrote. The concrete today appears to be decades old.
The current courthouse was completed in 1938 and was built in front of the 1898 courthouse, which burned after offices had been moved into the “new” courthouse. The cannon was in the yard when the “new” one opened.
The October 1977 issue of Las Sabinas, the quarterly journal of the Orange County Historical Society, had an article called “The Mystery of the Courthouse Cannon.” The story was based on clippings from columns in the 1960s by Leader editor J. Cullen Browning. He reported that local lawyer Louis Dugas Jr., who had once been a state representative and was an amateur historian, joined with Congressman John Dowdy to get information from the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institute.
Browning had also received a phone call from Mrs. Ruby O. Young of Bridge City, who told him she watched the cannon accident. She recalled it being around 1900 and she was standing by her father, George Harvey Sr., near a picket fence at the intersection of Orange Avenue and 15th Street. That is in the same block of the 1942 description of Anderson Park. Today, that’s the block with the city natatorium and the old track at West Orange-Stark Middle School.
Mrs. Young told Browning the cannon had fired once and men were “swabbing it out with a long-handled brush soaked in water.” Then someone put a pouch made of cloth (some said silk) holding gun powder into the muzzle. It exploded and shattered the man’s arm. Browning wrote most people recalled the young man’s name was Blake and he worked at the Jasper Newsboy. “Captain Kelley cried like a baby,” Mrs. Young said. Dr. Sholars, who was captain of the Orange Rifles, treated the young man. Captain Kelley left the cannon in Orange.
Browning reported a lot of people believed the cannon was part of a U.S. ship captured by Dick Dowling’s Confederates at the Battle of Sabine Pass. He said the captured ship had been brought to Orange. However, the Battle of Sabine Pass had been on September 7, 1863. The Las Sabinas article reported the National Archives showed the cannon was purchased by the U.S. government on November 23, 1863, after Dick Dowling’s victory.
Browning said Henry McKay told him he had heard the cannon had been captured from U.S. forces during a battle in Louisiana and had been taken to Jasper.
In the 1942 Leader article, Captain Kelley’s letter to Mrs. Hart said the cannon was turned over to the Jasper Rifle Company in 1888 by a General King. He said three similar cannons were brought to Texas and at the time of the letter were in a state park in Austin.
The Las Sabinas article in 1977 used the information from the National Archives and Smithsonian. The cannon was one of 19 light “12-pounders” purchased on November 23, 1863, from the Revere Copper Co. in Boston. It was modeled on an 1857 cannon model known as the “Napoleon.” “No one know how it got to Texas,” the article said. -Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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