Philip Wright (right), chapter president of the Sons of the American Revolution and Ben DuBose, also of the SAR, remove a roadside sign marking the last naval battle of the Revolutionary War. The sign and accompanying monument, currently in front of the Canaveral Port Authority headquarters, is being relocated to Veterans Memorial Park in Merritt Island.
From Florida Today: Group moves Port Canaveral battle marker over dispute
PORT CANAVERAL — The Sons of the American Revolution is taking its cannon and going to a new location, after it could not work out a dispute with Port Canaveral officials.
The organization has had a replica cannon and historic marker on display near the Canaveral Port Authority Maritime Center office building off George J. King Boulevard, commemorating the last naval battle of the American Revolution, which took place on March 10, 1783, a few miles south of Cape Canaveral.
But officials of the Sons of the American Revolution, a lineage society, were concerned about a $50 fee instituted by the port for events like the annual parade the organization held there and the potential for other costs in future years that they feared could reach as high as $1,000.
While the need to reimburse those costs was waived for the 2011 parade, held in March, there was no guarantee that a waiver would be approved in the future, said Ben DuBose, chairman of the Florida State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution Last Naval Battle Committee.
So DuBose and others in the organization felt it was time to move the replica of an 18th-century cannon, the cannon base, the historic marker and a footstone somewhere else. On Tuesday, the items were removed by a crew from Able Monument & Sandblasting of Titusville, aided by DuBose and Philip Wright, president of the 110-member Brevard Sons of the American Revolution chapter. The items are headed for the Brevard Veterans Museum on Merritt Island, where the group plans to have its future parades.
The cannon monument was dedicated in 2007 and was a project of the Brevard chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, six local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Cape Canaveral Navy League. DuBose said the parade, presented annually since 2007, draws an average of 150 marchers and a similar number of spectators.
Port officials noted that, even with this historic display removed, Port Canaveral’s nearby Jetty Park has a granite monument with plaque honoring John Barry, commander of the Continental Navy frigate Alliance in the 1783 battle. The plaque was installed in 1990 and is the site of an annual John Barry Day celebration.
Barry’s ship and another one were carrying Spanish silver coins from Cuba to Philadelphia that would be used to support the Continental Army when they engaged three British ships. The Alliance drove off the British frigate Sybil after a 40-minute battle.
Barry, whose strategy is credited with winning the battle, later would become a commodore and is considered by some historians to be “the father of the U.S. Navy.”
