The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Heroes or not?
Officials take fresh look at Capitol statues
HARTFORD — The State Capitol, completed in 1878 as a tribute to the Civil War, features dozens of statues, mostly of men, some of whom in the early years of Connecticut killed Native Americans and owned slaves.
None of those immortalized in marble is more controversial than John Mason, an English-born soldier who came to the state in 1632 and by 1635 led the state’s combat against pirates — and according to a guide book was a “valiant commander” during the French and Indian War.
In 1637, however, as the head of the state militia during the Pequot War, he defeated the Eastern Pequots, with help from the Mohegan Tribe, at the battle of Mystic.
Most recently, his statue in Windsor, which he founded and where he lived, has been the target of
criticism. The Windsor statue, owned by the state, not the town, was moved from Groton in 1996 amid a similar controversy, according to a Windsor town history.
While state officials haven’t discussed what might be done with the statues during this Black Lives Matter era and the growing campaign against institutionalized racism, Gov. Ned Lamont and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said Wednesday that there’s still room to acknowledge historic figures who represent the state’s diversity.
In fact, there are at least six vacant platforms — called niches — around the third floor of the exterior of the Capitol building, including two spaces flanking the statue of Gov. Ella Grasso on the south facade of the building overlooking the governor’s parking space.
Grasso, the first woman in the nation elected governor in her own right and not following the death of a spouse, died in 1981. Her marble likeness was placed in the niche in 1987 at the cost of $65,000, the equivalent today of about $150,000.
Eric Connery, facilities administrator for the Office of Legislative Management, which runs the State Capitol complex, said Wednesday that Grasso’s statue was the first erected in nearly 100 years.
Connery, interviewed outside the Capitol while inspecting the building for an upcoming exterior cleaning, said that during a recent evaluation of the nearly two dozen statues and carved plaques commemorating early founders of the state, as well as Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I and governmental service honorees, at least a couple of the men apparently owned slaves.
“We’re entering uncharted territory,” Connery said when asked what the governmental process would be to either remove statues or commission and place new ones up in the niches.
Mason’s likeness, holding a sword, looms over the North Entrance of the Capitol, above the steps where Black Lives Matter rallies have gathered in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, members of the General Assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus held a news conference there in advance of the upcoming special session and members admitted they did not know Mason was above them, standing between Roger Ludlow, who set up laws for the English colony, and Theophilus Eaton, who helped found New Haven in 1638 and was the colony’s first governor.
Also on the Capitol’s exterior is a decorative marble sculpture commemorating Mason with allies from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes attack on a Pequot fort in Mystic.
Other sculptures honor David Humphreys of Derby, who recruited the first Black regiment in the country, in 1781, then later founded the first planned factory village in the country, Humphreysville, located along the Naugatuck River where Seymour is located today.
Another, David Wooster, whose marble sculpture was put into its niche in 1917, led a division of Americans during the American Revolution, was wounded by British troops during the battle of Danbury in April 1977 and died about a week later.
Another statue, of Alfred Howe Terry, involves the story how he rose in rank to major general during the Civil War, stayed in the Army during the post-war westward expansion and ordered a brash general named George Armstrong Custer to avoid engaging with Native Americans in June 1876, just before Custer led to 7th Cavalry to a complete defeat in the Little Bighorn River valley of Montana.
“I’ve got to confess I don’t know much about the John Mason situation,” Lamont told reporters Wednesday during a Census-related news conference outside The Travelers headquarters. “It’s tricky. When it comes to a Confederate statue, these are people who took up arms against their country, and that’s not tricky for me. Those should go down. They should not be celebrated in the public space. At best they should go to museums where we can learn from their example.”
Lamont said that white men are overrepresented in commemorative Capitol art.
“As I look at a lot of these other statues I see whether they are out of context and the times,” Lamont said. “I like a little more diversity I see in the statues around the Capitol.”
“I will always say to young people when they come to visit the Capitol that Ella Grasso is the only female,” Bysiewicz said. “There are no statutes of people of color or other women. I know we’ve got seven other spots just waiting for heroes or ‘she-roes.’”
Inside the Capitol is a plaque commemorating the women who fought for the right to vote 100 years ago. And one of the newest pieces of art is a life-size, 2008 statue of State Heroine Prudence Crandall, who in 1833 opened a school for African American girls that operated for a year and a half before neighbors burned it down. With Crandall, in the sculpture, located in the South Lobby, is one of her Black students.