Department of Conservation

AUGUSTA, Maine – (May 24, 2001) The Department of Conservation’s Bureau of Parks and Lands is re-dedicating the World War I Sailors and Soldiers Memorial at Maine’s Route 1 gateway in Kittery on Thursday, May 31, 2001 at 10:00 a.m. Maine Governor Angus King will be the featured speaker at the re-dedication ceremony, which celebrates the restoration of the memorial and will be held at the memorial’s site in John Paul Jones Memorial Park. The re-dedication event is open to the public.

The Sailors and Soldiers Memorial was the first state-sponsored veterans’ memorial. Its development was conceived and supervised by Maine Governor Percival Baxter, who dedicated the memorial first in 1924. The memorial features a granite plaza area and a large, bas relief bronze sculpture by Boston sculptor Bashka Paeff. With its powerful, central figures of a woman and child, the sculpture’s design represented dramatic and innovative imagery for war memorial sculpture that, even today, is striking.

The sculpture and its surrounding granite elements had deteriorated significantly since the memorial’s installation in 1924-1926. The bronze sculpture had corroded and discolored. The four large granite urns flanking the memorial had been removed and vandalized and two had been thrown into the river nearby. Through public and private grant sources, a major restoration project was conducted last fall and winter that resulted in the restoration of both the bronze and granite.

Thursday’s re-dedication ceremony will also feature the re-installation of a time capsule in the memorial. In 1924, Governor Baxter placed a time capsule in the memorial’s granite plaza. During the recent restoration project, the time capsule was removed and its contents examined. The old contents and additional new material will be deposited in the new time capsule, which will be set into the plaza by Governor King.

The re-dedication will also feature remarks by United States Navy Commander Leonard G. Goff, color guards, veterans’ groups and music by the Shapleigh Middle School Band. A reception, hosted by the Kittery Foreside Committee, will follow the ceremony, and will be held in John Paul Jones Memorial Park. The Bureau of Parks and Lands administers John Paul Jones Memorial Park.

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