patriotic verse

E.T. Wickham was very patriotic. Many of his statues had patriotic themes. The World War II Memorial, Alvin York and Patrick Henry statues, as well as his flagpoles come to mind.

E.T. had two flagpoles on his property on Buck Smith Road. One was located next to the World War II Memorial and the other was located next to his log cabin. The flagpole by the cabin stood next to the Chief Tecumseh statue . The bottom of this flagpole was encased in concrete and enscribed with the quote you see above from the American Flag poem written by Father Constantine Pise.

curious bird

Perched high atop the flagpole by the cabin is this curious bird. Is it eagle, turkey,goose or some hybrid?
E.T. never said. This unknown bird had large wings cut from tin and attached to its concrete body.

Look back at the previous photo to see the location of the flagpole and bird in reference to the log cabin.

pioneer cabin

After raising a lot of tobacco and nine kids, E.T. and his wife Annie decided in 1952 that it was time to move from the hollow to the ridge. He had hundreds of acres from which to choose a building site but he finally decided on a stretch of land on Buck Smith Road. There was never any thought about hiring contractors to build the cabin. In the pioneering spirit he built the cabin ground-up using rough hewn logs from a barn he helped build when he was only 15.

The cabin was small, measuring only 11 by 27 feet. Its hard to imagine there were three separate rooms in the cabin. It even had a fireplace in one of the rooms. The kitchen had a small concrete sink that was fed by gravity from a roof-mounted tank. It could not have been comfortable but it suited his needs and it was close to where he wanted to build his statues.

liberty bell

Most of the Wickham statues are now in disrepair. Time and vandals work to destroy all. This section of the Liberty Bell remains.

work break

The year is 1963 and E.T. is shown taking a break from building this statue to honor local and national politicians he admired. One of the politicians is President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated that year. Estes Kefauver, senator from Tennessee, and Patrick Henry,the patriot, were other political figures he admired. Robert Kennedy was added six years later in 1969.

politicians

The four figures represented in this statue are Estes Kefauver, Patrick Henry, John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. When the statue was dedicated in 1963 it only had three figures. The fourth figure of Robert Kennedy was added in later. This photo is a rare one actually showing Robert Kennedy. In front of the podium is a concrete sculpture of the cracked Liberty Bell.

chicken wire, rebar, and concrete

E.T. Wickham is shown here sculpting the Sam Davis and Bill Marsh statue. He was 82 when he began work on this statue in 1965 and it took him about six weeks to complete it.

All the life-size concrete statues were built with the simplest of materials. He would use rebar or steel pipe as the base. Then he would fashion chicken wire around the metal to form the body and limbs. Finally cement was applied and formed using a trowel to create the statue.

More information about the handshake statue is available from Wickham Stone Park Davis-Marsh

handshake

This statue shows Civil War hero Sam Davis and bearded Bill Marsh shaking hands near the end of the war. Sam Davis is known as the boy hero of the Confederacy because he was only 21 when hanged for espionage by the Union Army.

Get souvenirs of this statue from the online Wickham Stone Park Gift Shop.