WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A school for the deaf in Connecticut has begun restoring a 165-year-old monument that honors the schools founder, Thomas Gallaudet.
The American School for the Deaf said it will cost between $180,000 and $200,000 to restore the obelisk-like monument that hasn’t been on display for nearly 100 years.
The school hopes to have the restored monument on its front lawn by September, the Hartford Courant reported.
Jean Linderman, who is in charge of the schools archives, said the monument was dismantled when the school moved from its Hartford campus about a century ago. But the school did not end up putting the full monument back on display because some felt it resembled a grave marker, and a stone worker stored the large marble slabs in his barn.
In the mid-1920s, the school decided to replace the monument with a bronze statue and sold pieces of the monument to fund its replacement, Linderman said.
According to Linderman, the school decided to bring what remained of the monument back to the West Hartford campus in the 1950s, but left the pieces exposed to the elements.
“It’s a sad story,” Linderman said. The pieces “weren’t lost or mysteriously misplaced. We chipped them up and sold them.”