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May 14, 2025

Chestertown Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Chestertown

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Talbot Begins Process for Confederate Monument’s Removal; Easton Panel OK Will Be First Step

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Following the Sept. 14 vote for its relocation, Talbot County officials are beginning initial steps to remove the Confederate monument from the courthouse green.

The administrative process includes seeking approval from the town’s historic district commission for the monument’s removal and likely will require a bid process for its removal and relocation.

As that process continues, those who have been working to keep the monument at its current location are seeking out possible Talbot County sites for its relocation.

The county currently is preparing an application to Easton’s Historic District Commission, Talbot County Council Vice President Pete Lesher said he was told by staffers.

An application would need to be submitted by Monday for the monument’s removal to make the commission’s Oct. 11 agenda, Lesher said Wednesday in an email. If the application is heard Oct. 11, the commission could take action at its Oct. 25 meeting.

“The HDC application is the appropriate first action ,” Lesher wrote. “No steps have been taken on the physical removal until we get through this initial action.”

Lesher said he wasn’t yet aware of a bid process for the monument’s removal, but said “the county has rules for the disbursement of funds, and I am sure this project falls within them.”

Asked about the possibility an appropriate site for the monument could be located in Talbot County, he said “No one has proposed to me an alternative site.

“It seems that a publicly accessible site that is associated with the Talbot Boys named on the monument — such as the Cross Keys battlefield — would be hard to equal,” Lesher wrote.

“Others searched for over a year to find a site, without success,” he said. “I give (Councilman Frank) Divilio great credit for finding and securing such a suitable and appropriate site.”

Since the Sept. 14 vote, David Montgomery, president of Preserve Talbot History, has said several Talbot County sites have been offered for the statue’s new location.

In a Wednesday afternoon email, Montgomery said the group has not had any “formal discussions with Council members about possible sites.

“We are still doing our homework and hope to have something solid to discuss soon,” he wrote.

Montgomery added that several site characteristics have been discussed. Those are:

• Physical feasibility, that the site be accessible to moving equipment and provide a stable base.

• Public access, now or in the future, so that the educational purpose can continue.

• Security, so that random or political vandalism can be discouraged.

Divilio, who previously had joined a 3-2 council majority in voting against the monument’s removal, introduced an administrative resolution during the Sept. 14 council meeting to move it to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Va., “a private park, under the custody, care, and control of Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation….”

The resolution requires the monument’s removal and relocation to be paid by private funds.

Although the foundation had agreed to take the monument, its executive director sent a letter shortly before the Sept. 14 meeting noting the foundation’s monuments policy supports keeping a monument at its original location, with relocation within the county the next best option.

However, the letter also reiterated the foundation’s willingness to accept the monument and become its permanent steward “if and when it is evident that the monument will not and can not remain safely” in Talbot County.

Divilio was joined by Lesher and Councilman Corey Pack in voting Sept. 14 for the resolution. Pack had sought the monument’s removal from the courthouse grounds last year, but his measure was only supported by Lesher.

As a result of the Sept. 14 vote, the federal lawsuit seeking the monument’s removal from the courthouse green is on hold.

After years of debate, protests, letters, emails, public comment, several votes against removal, and the lawsuit, a majority of the Talbot County Council voted Sept. 14 to relocate the monument to a battlefield site in Virginia.

Three days later, a federal judge granted a motion for a limited stay, putting the case on hold for 30 days and requiring a joint status report by the end of that period.

An attorney for Talbot County sought the stay in a Sept. 16 consent motion, noting “Removal of the statue is the central issue in this litigation.

“Because the statue is a historic structure within the meaning of local preservation laws, some additional administrative steps are required before removal is effected, including a public hearing before the local commission charged with certifying that removal is appropriate under the related local regulations,” Kevin Karpinski, the county’s attorney in the case, wrote in the motion.

Karpinski said the attorneys for the organizations and individuals who had filed the lawsuit had “graciously consented to this request for a stay.

“The County respectfully submits a temporary stay is in order to: 1) permit the parties to determine whether a compromised solution is a possibility in light of this recent development and pending developments in the administrative process; and, 2) to avoid unnecessary consumption of the Court resources,” he wrote.

 

 

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Md. Attorney General: “It’s Time for the ‘Talbot Boys’ to Go”

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The state’s chief legal officer has joined the growing chorus calling for the Talbot County Council to move the Confederate monument from its prominent position on the courthouse lawn.

In a Wednesday statement, Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh said:

Md. Attorney General Brian Frosh

“Situated prominently on the front lawn of the Talbot County Courthouse in Easton, Maryland, a 6-foot monument greets jurors, litigants, witnesses, courthouse employees and other members of the public. It is inscribed, ‘To the Talbot Boys.’ The statue depicts a soldier with a Confederate flag draped over his shoulder and pays tribute to 96 local men who fought for the Confederacy and whose names are inscribed in the statue’s base. Many of the men were slave owners or belonged to slave-owning families.

“Most monuments honoring those who fought on behalf of the Confederacy were not erected in the years following the end of the Civil War or in cemeteries where fallen soldiers had been traditionally honored. Rather, support for these statues spiked around 50 years later, during Jim Crow segregation, where their placement in city centers and around government buildings could reinforce the country’s racial hierarchy and its rejection of the gains made during Reconstruction. In the 1950s and 60s, as support for civil rights began to swell, the erection of Confederate monuments surged once again.

“Courthouses are places where our State and federal constitutions guarantee equal justice under the law. Like similar monuments erected during the Jim Crow era and beyond, the ‘Talbot Boys’ belies this promise. It serves as a painful reminder not just of the deadly acts many committed to support slavery and the degradation of Blacks. Worse, it suggests that these ideals are still endorsed within our most critical institutions. It is not simply a vestige of slavery and white supremacy from long ago, but a sign of enduring resistance to racial equality.

“For years, the Talbot County NAACP and other community members have lobbied for the ‘Talbot Boys’ statue to be taken down and recently joined with the Office of the Public Defender to sue the County for its removal. But residents of Talbot County should not have to await the end of protracted litigation to rid public property of this documented symbol of hatred, intimidation, and inequality. It’s time for the ‘Talbot Boys’ to go.”

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Talbot Officials Ask Court to Dismiss Lawsuit Seeking Removal of Confederate Monument

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Talbot County officials want a federal lawsuit seeking removal of the Confederate monument from the county courthouse grounds dismissed, according to Wednesday court filings.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender and the Talbot County NAACP filed a lawsuit in May seeking the removal of the monument from the grounds of the Talbot County courthouse lawn in Easton. Plaintiffs and advocates argue that the statue’s presence is racist and unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs say the presence of the monument on the courthouse lawn violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection of laws. The lawsuit charges that the monument’s location is “facially discriminatory.”

But in a Wednesday motion to dismiss the case and a memorandum supporting that motion, attorneys for the county argue that the plaintiffs “have failed to state any claim upon which relief may be granted.”

“The Complaint alleges no specific example where any client of either Ms. Petticolas or the OPD was deprived of due process or equal protection due to the presence of the Talbot Boys statue on the Courthouse lawn,” the memorandum reads.

Attorneys for the county argue that the plaintiffs haven’t done enough to prove that the statue’s presence is discriminatory. The memorandum charges that plaintiffs “failed to identify any occasion that, because of the mere presence of the Talbot Boys statue, any Plaintiff or other member of the public was denied access to the Circuit Court or prevented in any way from petitioning the County for redress.”

The county, in the memorandum, also argues that the statue issue is a “political question.”

“The County respectfully submits that the issues raised by the Complaint are inherently local and not ones calling for the intervention of a federal court.

“This is so because the question of when, or where, Confederate symbology transgresses into an area of unlawfulness transcends judicial determination, just as does fashioning manageable judicial standards for resolution.”

The county’s attorneys further argue that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction in the case.

“The law governing this Complaint establishes Plaintiffs lack standing to bring any of the claims asserted,” the memorandum in support of the county’s motion to dismiss reads. “And, even if standing were not an issue, Plaintiffs have failed to state any claim upon which relief may be granted. For these reasons, the Complaint should be dismissed in its entirety.”

The memorandum also argues that all claims are barred by limitations, noting that the limitations period on all civil claims is, at most, three years:

“The Complaint alleges that Ms. Petticolas has ‘been obliged to pass by’ the statue for fourteen (14) years. The OPD’s alleged injuries are coextensive, at least, with the injuries alleged by Ms. Petticolas.

“Mr. Potter allegedly has been ‘directly involved with removal of the statue since 2015’ and became aware of its meaning when he was first involved with advocating for a statue of Frederick Douglass. The NAACP has been ‘for years’ speaking out against and advocating for removal of the statue, and its injuries must be, at least, coextensive with Mr. Potters.

“There can be no bona fide dispute that if Plaintiffs incurred an actionable injury, a point not conceded, the cause of action accrued when Plaintiffs first observed the statue as an offensive symbol, which, on the face of the Complaint occurred for all Plaintiffs well before the limitations period for Complaint began to run.”

Advocates have been lobbying for removal of the Talbot Boys statue from the courthouse lawn in Easton for years. Talbot County Council members rejected a proposal to move the statue last year, although rallies to remove the monument have continued.

Read the full memorandum here:

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By Bennett Leckrone

John Griep contributed to this article.

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Rally Marks Juneteenth, Urges Talbot to Move Confederate Monument from Courthouse Lawn

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Speakers at a Saturday, June 19, rally note the designation of Juneteenth as a federal holiday and urge the Talbot County Council to move the Confederate monument from the courthouse lawn.

This video is about 10 minutes long.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.