I've been meaning to talk for some months about a monument in Hillsborough, North Carolina. It's a monument mostly to the old state house and I guess Daniel Boone. But an inscription at the bottom is what really caught my attention: "In this tablet is metal recovered from the U.S.S. Maine." Thanks to the magic of the internet I now see that there are a bunch of monuments cast from metal recovered from the Maine. The Central Park Maine Monument in New York contains some. An annual report of the DAR (which was printed as a Senate Document) says 1000 Maine Memorial tablets were cast in New York and distributed by the Navy Department. At least one is in North Carolina and it looks like there's one at Valley Forge — haven't seen it, but I'll look for it next time I'm there.
Happy Labor Day, everyone. I'm looking forward to an exciting semester!