Statue awaiting move to new pocket park on Main Street
County hopes to have
work done in time for
battle’s 225th anniversary
FREEHOLD — The original "Columbia Triumphant" or "Liberty Triumphant" is getting ever closer to its new home in a park on East Main Street next to the Monmouth County Hall of Records Annex.
The parking lot that surrounds the pocket park where the statue will be placed has been undergoing a major reconstruction and repaving project which is nearing completion, according to Monmouth County Engineer Theodore A. Giannechini.
Giannechini said that originally it was planned to build the pocket park at the same time, but he noted that funding for that part of the project was not immediately available. He said the park area has been curbed off about 30 feet from Main Street.
Jeff Valiante, a member of the Monmouth County Planning Board staff who has been coordinating the statue project, said the park which will be the home of the historic statue is 30 feet deep and 104 feet wide.
The statue itself is currently stored away in a county building on Kozloski Road in Freehold Township, Valiante said.
Valiante said about $25,000 has been raised in donations for the purchase of the statue from an Ocean County resident for $15,000 and its restoration. He said building the park and placing the statue in it will cost about $50,000.
"The county will fund the rest of the project," Valiante said. "We are hoping that the park will be built later this year or early next year. The county is anxious to have the statue in place because plans are already under way to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth in 2003. Along with the area where the Battle of Monmouth Monument is located on Court Street, this new park will be a focal point of the celebration."
Valiante said donations are being accepted for the project. Anyone wishing to make a donation should contact Valiante at (732) 431-7460.
The statue that is scheduled to be placed on Main Street was the original one on top of the Battle of Monmouth Monument when it was completed in 1884. A rededication of the monument was held in November 1984.
The saga of the "Liberty Triumphant" statue began on Aug. 15, 1894, when a bolt of lightning struck it during a violent storm. The lightning strike did considerable damage to the lower half of the statue.
A new statue was placed on the Court Street monument in 1896.
However, there were plans to repair the original statue and place it in a prominent spot near the Monmouth County Court House (now the county Hall of Records on Main Street).
However, little was heard of the statue for the next 50 years until the late 1940s when it was found almost buried in mud in the mess that was the triangle between West Main, South and Throckmorton streets.
At that time a Freehold junk dealer, now an Ocean County resident, rescued the statue and moved it to his property. He had discovered the historic relic near the railroad tracks which border the triangle.
That was the last anyone heard about the statue until local furniture dealer Carl N. Steinberg, a former Freehold Borough councilman known for his restoration of historic films about the borough and the town’s original firehouse on Throckmorton Street, entered the picture.
"I heard what happened to the statue," Steinberg said in a December 1999 interview with the News Transcript. "I was able to locate the person who found it and contacted him, but he said he had no intention of letting it go, so I forgot about it."
Steinberg’s interest in the statue was renewed in 1999 when the Freehold Center Partnership and county officials began planning for a new pocket park on East Main Street. The Ocean County resident who had the statue was contacted and eventually agreed to sell it to the county.

