Centuries-old town of Chatham gets new monument commemorating the Revolutionary War

A newly installed granite boulder near the Godfrey Windmill at Chase Park will soon bear a bronze plaque featuring the names of 50 Chatham families whose sons, fathers and brothers fought in the Revolutionary War.

Organizers of the war memorial, which will be officially dedicated Monday, say it’s about time.

“Every war has a memorial, except the Revolutionary War,” said Bill Cullinane, who plays Colonial-era miller Benjamin Godfrey at town events and museum days.

World War I veterans and casualties are commemorated on the grounds of the Chatham Community Center, the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are remembered at the Oyster Pond Brick Walk, and memorials of the Civil War and World War II can be found at Sears Park and the traffic circle.

Frank Messina, chairperson of the Chatham Historical Commission, said selectman Dean Nicastro, an attorney and history buff, was the one who pointed out the war memorial gap about two years ago.

“I said, ‘Here we go, we’ve got another job,’” Messina said.

The job entailed selecting a granite boulder from a site in Orleans and ordering a bronze plaque at a cost of $7,000 to $8,000.

Tom Smith of Minglewood Homes, Inc., who is a member of the Revolutionary War Monument Working Group, donated the cost of the stone.

Community Preservation money covered the plaque, Messina said.

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The working group also paid for Cullinane, 90, to literally switch hats.

A retired Needham High School history teacher, Cullinane usually wears a miller’s cap with his breeches, linen shirt, white stockings and buckled shoes when playing Godfrey, who in 1797 built the windmill now located at Chase Park.

But before he constructed the windmill, now renovated and in working condition, Godfrey was a colonel in the Revolutionary War.

“Godfrey’s quite a character,” Cullinane said. “He was at the siege of Boston with the Barnstable militia. He was the highest ranking officer in the town.”

On Monday Cullinane will make an appearance as Colonel Godfrey, with a new tricorn hat of the style worn by George Washington and a new vest as well.

The Memorial Day celebration will start at 10 a.m. at the Chatham Community Center, then around 10:30 a.m., Cullinane will stand up and invite people to join him at Chase Park for the dedication of the new Revolutionary War monument.

After the ceremony, he’ll serve cider and cornbread he is baking Sunday, Cullinane said.

The memorial plaque will include the full names of Godfrey and some other leaders but also the surnames of more than 40 other Chatham families whose sons, brothers and fathers served the Continental Army.

If the full names of all the Chatham residents who fought in the War of Independence were included, the memorial stone would “be 10 feet tall,” Messina said.

In addition, including the surnames is also a way to honor the fighters’ mothers, wives and daughters, who kept businesses and households running when the men were away, Messina and Cullinane said.

"It's (the names of all the streets in Chatham," Messina said.

Chatham, which was incorporated in 1712, was a hardworking and even hardscrabble town at the time of the Revolution, Cullinane said.

The local economy depended on cod, which was sold to the French, and salt mills to salt the cod.

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“It was not a pink shirt and green shoes town at that point,” Cullinane said. “They had run out of soil. Look around, it’s a pile of sand.”

Residents knew how to put up a fight.

In what historians say was Chatham’s only military action during the War of Independence, the town’s militia fired at and chased off a British privateer trying to seize three unmanned vessels as prizes of war on June 20, 1782.

The Battle of Chatham Harbor is commemorated by a small monument near the Chatham Lighthouse overlook parking area.

Monday’s march from the community center to the new Revolutionary War memorial in Chase Park will include fife and drum players and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, Cullinane said.

The number of marchers is being limited to 20 to 25 for traffic consideration purposes, but additional participants are encouraged to join the group at Chase Park, which has several parking spaces.

It’s time for the centuries-old town to remember the fight for independence, Cullinane said.

“That’s how the country was formed — the Revolutionary War.”

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Memorial for Revolutionary War will be dedicated Monday in Chatham