Discoveries in the Darkroom - Civil War Cannons
Friday, April 9th, 2010 | Uncategorized
Wayne Field, West Chester, PA, ca. 1900. Photo by Joseph Thorne.
Talk about things that aren’t there anymore- you would have to be a real old timer to recognize this view showing Wayne Field, the old Agricultural Fairgrounds with West Chester State Teacher’s College, as it was known then, in the background. Today this corner of Rosedale Ave. and New Street is sprouting new dormitories and buildings for the West Chester University of today.
This is the first photograph I have seen of the cannons at Wayne Field to commemorate Camp Wayne. During the Civil War, Camp Wayne operated for less than a year on this site. It began on May 4, 1861 serving as a training camp for recruits and as protection for West Chester. The 9th and 11th Pennsylvania Regiments were the first to arrive and slept in the horse sheds on straw. The 1st and 7th Pennsylvania Reserves arrived later to better conditions. Cabins were hastily erected. Here the men drilled and waited for their orders. Local men who enlisted in the 97th Pennsylvania received their first training here.
In June of 1861 a Griffith patent cannon was sent to Camp Wayne by the Phoenix Iron Company, Phoenixville for the use of the ‘Phoenix Artillerists’ who were training there. This mention in the Village Record of June 22, 1861 is the only mention of cannon in use at the camp.
The highlight of Camp Wayne’s history was a visit from Governor Curtin on November 12, 1861 to present the colors to the 9th Regiment. The visit was reported in great detail in the Village Record November 16, 1862.
After an unsuccessful attempt to torch the camp by Southern sympathizers, Governor Curtin ordered it to be dismanteled as reported in the Village Record, January 18, 1862.
I am interested to hear from readers where the cannons came from that were installed at Wayne Field to memorialize Camp Wayne. As far as we know, these cannons met a patriotic end in the scrap metal collection during World War II. Pamela Powell, Photo Archivist
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