BUILDING THE MONUMENT

The Rumsey Monument, Shepherdstown, WV

Congressman A. R. Boteler, an early Rumsey advocate, was the first to think of a Rumsey monument. Around 1890 he began corresponding with the Norfolk and Western Railroad for the present site, where the railroad had a small quarry and a rock crusher. But Boteler died in 1892, and real efforts began in 1906, with the re-forming of the Rumseyan Society for the purpose. It was likely spurred by New York's preparations to celebrate Robert Fulton's centennial. The Society was granted money by the WV Legislature, and raised local money as well. This was also a time in which Civil War monuments all over the country were being erected, and in 1913 the Forbes Granite Company of Chambersburg, who had done some of the Civil War monuments at the Antietam battlefield, were hired to build the monument, as well as steps and a railing. The Monument itself was completed in 1915, and in 1917 Mill Street was connected to the park.

The first Society President, George M Belzhoover, Jr, published a short history of Rumsey in 1900. He was the Jefferson county prosecutor, and his pamphlet featured quite lawyerly, though not quite scholarly, advocacy of the inventor. Judging from the wording, he was also the author of the inscription on the Monument's bronze plaque. Artistic license on the plaque was also taken in the representation of Rumsey's steamboat, sculpted as being about the size of a small rowing skiff, with a steam engine uncomfortably close to the lone boatman's knees.The Rumseyan Society donated the Monument and park to the town in 2007.

Click on a thumbnail image below for a larger photo.

The Rumseian Society • P.O. Box 1787 • Shepherdstown, WV 25443 • 304.876.6907
Promoting understanding about James Rumsey and the invention of the steamboat since 1983

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