Late last December I learned that roadside memorials like the one shown here are somewhat controversial. I weighed in on the topic here and here, saying I encountered them often but didn’t have a photo of one. But just tonight I found out that I do. This one is almost a mile south of where I took the photo in the last post. (I see nothing wrong with stopping every mile to take a photo.)
There is even a wikipedia article about roadside memorials. It has links to more articles about the controversy.
I’m on the side of letting them be. They are a part of life that is not standardized, bureaucratized, and regulated. At least in Ohio, people just put them up. They don’t ask anybody’s permission. They don’t fill out any paperwork. They just do it. In some other states there are attempts to regulate them.
In some extreme cases there can be safety issues. But I suspect that for some people, there is simply an urge to reach out and regulate that which isn’t yet regulated.
The urge to regulate is not just a feature of modern society. Back in the winter of 1996-1997 before this project of bicycling to history sites took shape, I was spending evenings in the library looking for reminiscences about the Black Hawk war in Michigan. I encountered two anecdotes that I wish I could find again. But at the time they weren’t what I was looking for, so I didn’t record anything about them. I’ve gone back many times, checking and re-reading many of the materials I thought I had looked at back then, but without being able to find them.
One of them was someone’s recollection of a young and vigorous Winfield Scott at the Dearborn armory, shirt-sleeves rolled up, selecting weapons and equipment by lantern-light for the troops that were on their way to fight Black Hawk. The author noted the contrast with the image of “Old Fuss and Feathers,” as Scott came to be known later in life.
The other is about the urge to regulate. It was about an early township meeting in Jackson County, Michigan. Someone at the meeting wanted to enact an ordinance to prohibit the selling of whiskey to Indians. When it was pointed out to him that that meant the Indians would take their business elsewhere, he then wanted to enact an ordinance requiring people doing business with Indians to have whiskey available for sale. That episode epitomizes the urge to regulate. But I have not been able to find the anecdote again, despite much searching. I don’t know if the name of the person was given, but if it was, I’d look hard for more information about him and some way to make a Sunday afternoon bicycle ride out of it.
Back to the photo. The land on the right side of the road is Section 4 of Township 7S, Range 7E. That on the left is Section 5. A Shelby County history says this about the settlement of Jackson Township, of which this land is a part:
So far as we have been able to ascertain, but one family, that of James McCormick, came here as early as 1831, from Greene County, and entered land in section 34. The year 1832 shows no accessions, so far as we can learn, while the following year it appears Andrew Nogle came from Fairfield County and occupied land in section 30. Again, the year 1834 only shows the arrival of Thomas Cathcart, who came here in March from Montgomery County and entered land in the northwest corner of section 33. The next year it appears David Snider came from Montgomery County, and William Johnston, who settled in section 20. In 1837 John W. Knight entered land in section 17, Jeptha M. Davis in section 4…
The land across the road, on the right, was the land purchased by this Jeptha M. Davis. (I looked it up online at the GLO land patent database.) The land patent certificate says he was from Clark County. In checking the records for Section 5, the section where the memorial is placed, I learned that the land directly in front of the camera was also purchased by a man from Clark County, a James Elliott. It looks like that purchase was made a couple of years after Davis’s.
It could very well be that Elliott and Davis had also been neighbors back in Clark County.
