Fragment of Original Cornerstone in memory of the founding of the University of the South
Item
- Legacies Classification
- Memorial Type
- Memorial Context
- Title
- Background and Context
- Physical Description
- Memorial Inscription
- Creator/Participating Person(s)
- Date created, installed or dedicated
- Historical Period
- Location: Institution, City, State
- Learn More About this Subject
-
Memorial Object
-
Object
-
Fragment of Original Cornerstone in memory of the founding of the University of the South
-
At the annual celebration of Founders' Day at the University of the South on October 10, 1929, the Episcopal Bishop and University Chancellor Thomas Frank Gailor dedicated a fragment of the University's cornerstone, which had been placed in the wall of All Saints' Chapel. According to legend, U.S. Army troops had dynamited the marble cornerstone during their advance in July 1863, but more reliable recent research indicates they used tools to break it up. Soldiers took fragments as souvenirs, and some were returned to the University, sometimes with apologies. The fragment dedicated in 1929 had been in the possession of long-time Sewanee resident Sarah Barnwell Elliott, daughter of one of the University's founding prelates. "We are assembled this morning,” Gailor explained, “to commemorate the wisdom and virtue of the great men, who, sixty-nine years ago, laid the corner stone of this University. And it is fitting that this fragment of the original corner stone, destroyed during the Civil War, should be placed here in the wall of our chapel, as a perpetual memorial of our Founders and a challenge to succeeding generations…" Elliott and Gailor were eloquent defenders of the “Lost Cause,” which erased slavery’s role in the founding of the University and in causing the Civil War. Both used their influence, as in this case, to cultivate and preserve Sewanee’s Lost Cause image as, in Elliott’s words, “the child and heir … of the Old South.”
-
Small rectangular piece of marble, embedded in south wall of All Saints' Chapel, and bearing an inscription.
-
THIS IS A PIECE OF THE FIRST CORNERSTONE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH
LAID OCTOBER 10, 1860
DESTROYED DURING THE WAR 1860・1865
-
October 10, 1929
Position: 142 (236 views)