Civil War Statue
The Common’s most prominent feature is the Civil War Memorial, one of the first of its kind in Massachusetts, erected in September 1867. The pedestal bears a dedicatory inscription and the names of Deerfield men who died in the war, while the names of battlefields and prisons where they died are carved into horizontal bands on the pier’s shaft. A life-size statue of a Union soldier originally topped the monument, but natural deterioration of the stone over the course of 150 years led to its removal in 2015. It has now been conserved and is on display in the town office building in South Deerfield. An exact replica of the statue was installed in the late spring of 2019 through donations and the joint efforts of the Deerfield Historical Commission and the Academy, including the Deerfield Class of 1969 on the occasion of their 50th Reunion.