Where is West Conshohocken’s Civil War Cannon?

Commemorating West Conshohocken’s Sesquicentennial

Where Is West Conshohocken’s Civil War Cannon?

By Jack Coll

8-12-24

     West Conshohocken had a terrific parade and memorial service on Memorial Day, 2024,  complete with the Upper Merion High School Marching Band and a bus load of veterans.  The service held at the borough’s monument celebrates the borough’s long and rich history of West Conshohocken’s residents who have served our country in the military.

     Donna and I drove through the West Conshohocken intersection a few days later and I glanced over at the monument and it hit me!  Where’s the cannon, the monument had a cannon, or a gatling gun on wheels at the monument for a number of years.  A gatling gun is a rapid-firing firearm that shoots like a machine gun but can look like a cannon.

     The thought of the missing cannon struck a memory of another cannon that had gone missing in West Conshohocken borough years ago.  The missing cannon from years ago was a civil war relic.  I remembered the story of the missing cannon from yeas ago because it was cast right here in Conshohocken.

     When I arrived back at my house, I headed straight to my third floor library, pulled the West Conshohocken Monument file and grabbed a circa 1930’s monument photograph and there it was, the civil war cannon along-side the monument, well it turns out there’s a history of the cannon gone missing, so here’s a little background history on the West Conshohocken missing cannon.

     The Civil War relic was manufactured in Conshohocken at the Schuylkill Iron Works once owned and operated by Jawood Lukens who resided in a small stone mansion once located at Sixth Avenue and Fayette Street.  By the 1930’s Lukens home was turned into a dentist office, occupied by Doctor Joseph Leary, along with several apartments above.  The house was demolished in the early 1950’s to make way for a Sunoco Gas Station.  In the early 1980’s the gas station was removed and a convenience store now occupies the site.  

     Back to the cannon, James Morrison Sr., a well known Conshohocken resident at the time turned the cannon, made of brass, at the Schuylkill Iron Works for the George Smith Post 79, G.A.R., (Grand Army of the Republic”), who’s headquarters was located at Third Avenue and Forrest Street at the time. (The building still stands today as an office building)  When the Post disbanded, because of depleted membership, the cannon was presented to the borough of West Conshohocken for use in decorating the memorial plot that had been constructed at the west entrance of the Matsonford Bridge over the Schuylkill River and dedicated on Armistice Day, 1923.

     Several years later the mystery of the missing canon began.  In the wee hours of a hot July night in 1931, the cannon was stolen from the soldiers memorial plot, and started a six-day long mystery about its disappearance.  Investigators that basically included West Conshohocken’s only cop determined that someone with an automobile had backed their car up in the middle of the intersection and attached the cannon, that was mounted on a gun carriage to the back of their car and rode off with it.

     A fellow by the name of Thomas Brady who lived on North Sixty-second Street in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia notified the West Conshohocken authorities after reading of the missing cannon in the Philadelphia Inquire that a cannon matching the description of the lost instrument of war, was in his possession.  Brady told the authorities that he found the cannon lying along Lancaster Pike, near Overbrook.  He explained that there had been a terrible storm that had swept through this section.  The investigators had to determine if the storm was strong enough to carry a 300 pound cannon more than six miles to Brady’s front yard in Overbrook.  They determined that more logical that some motorist passing the memorial plot during the late night howling storm took the cannon from its place as a prank, or with the hope of realizing something from its sale, and later abandoned it.

     West Conshohocken Burgess Joseph McElhatton worked quietly on the case of the missing cannon with the aid of the Pennsylvania State Police.  Members of the American Legion Post at Overbrook noticed the unusual ornament on Brady’s front lawn and became a bit suspicions and had planned to make inquiries about it. Burgess McElhatton had stated at the time that Lower Merion Police and the Philadelphia Police Department together with the West Conshohocken authorities would investigate the unprecedented theft. 

     The cannon was returned to its proper place along-side the West Conshohocken Shaft monument.

     When interviewing residents about the theft, one resident recalled that the cannon had claimed an eye and hand of Daniel Freas, a Conshohocken resident, at a Fourth of July celebration when it exploded as Freas shot it off, in a salute.

     Eight years later in May of 1939, the Conshohocken Recorder headline read:

“WEST SIDE STARTS SLEUTHS TO FIND THIEVES WHO STOLE A CANNON”

     The first line in the article read: “Oh where, oh where, has our cannon gone?” paraphrasing the ancient doggerel about a doggy.  The article went on to say, for the second time in eight years, working under the cover of night someone made off with West Conshohocken’s 300 pound cannon from the monument area.

     This theft was a little different, this time they didn’t bother to take the wooden, two-wheeled carriage on which the cannon rested, they simply lifted the cannon, and off they went.  The late night theft was discovered by Daniel McTamney, who was a West Conshohocken Street Supervisor at the time. 

     Once again, West Conshohocken Burgess Joseph McElhatton immediately notified county detectives of the theft, and stated at that time that “drastic action would be taken against the thief or thieves.”  It was believed at the time because they left the carriage behind, that the brass cannon would be melted down for scrap prices.

     I could not find any evidence of the civil war cannon ever being recovered following the second theft.  However, that does not mean it wasn’t recovered, I simply cannot find any follow-up articles or information on the stolen cannon.

The original monument was demolished in 1952, to make way for the Schuylkill Expressway ramps in West Conshohocken.  The construction of the Schuylkill Expressway seventy five years ago was the beginning of a nightmare that will never end for the borough.  The new monument was relocated to a small island coming off the Matsonford Bridge where it looked great, but the location made it nearly impossible to hold services at the monument.  So, with the construction of the new Matsonford Bridge in 1986, the monument was relocated to its third location at the corner of Ford and Front Streets in front of Borough Hall.

     With all of that being said, I do know that a second cannon once stood proudly at the borough’s new monument location at Front and Ford Streets in front of the West Conshohocken Borough Hall, and now that cannon seems to be missing.  Is it simply out of sight out of mind, stored in a borough garage, has the cannon been relocated?  Have we been cast back some ninety years to a case of another stolen or missing cannon.

     Nothing has ever come easy for the borough of West Conshohocken, everything they got they got the hard way, perhaps the borough is a reflection of its residents, I call both the borough and its residents “gritty.”  For one hundred and fifty years now the borough and its residents have had to grind-it-out and because of it both the borough and its residents are tough as nails.  If you want to take-on the West Conshohocken borough or its residents, you better bring a lunch, because they are gonna give you all you can handle. 

     If you have any theories on either of the missing cannons, feel free to comment.

     Hapy Birthday West Conshy, enjoy your celebrations!