ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The Confederate memorial removed from Downtown St. Augustine Wednesday has arrived at the location of its new home, the Trout Creek Fish Camp.
The company that is moving the 50-ton memorial, which is in two pieces including the base and an obelisk, had to remove the statue from the barge and was removed on a remote-controlled dolly before placing steel plates underneath to support the structure.
A St. Johns County deputy said the statue may not make it to its final spot within the Trout Creek Fish Camp until Saturday around noon.
The memorial was removed from Downtown St. Augustine weeks after city commissioners voted 3-2 to remove it from the Plaza de la Constitución. Protesters demonstrated against its removal, saying the memorial honors the city's history.
The moving process involved a deal of fanfare, with a private ceremony held Thursday afternoon for the veterans whose names are listed on the memorial, with some of their descendants in attendance. The ceremony included a 21-gun salute and the playing of "Taps."
It took 90 minutes to move the memorial three blocks from the plaza to the bayfront Wednesday.
The memorial was loaded onto a barge just before 2 p.m. Thursday, which headed up the Intracoastal Waterway and north up the St. Johns River to Jacksonville. The barge passed through downtown Jacksonville around 1 a.m. Friday.
From there, the barge traveled down to the Trout Creek Fish Camp in west St. Johns County, 20 miles away from its original location.
The man in charge of moving the memorial, Jeremy Patterson, said a group of protesters assaulted him last week in St. Augustine. He said that violence is part of the reason his family business, Progressive, which moves large and historic buildings, chose to move the memorial by barge.