City workers will fit new wheels onto the two Civil War-era cannons at the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument this week at Pottsville's Garfield Square.
"It will be just in time for Flag Day," Daniel E. Kelly, city superintendent of streets, said Monday.
Flag Day is Friday, according to the White House's website, whitehouse.gov.
While the 2-inch wide, half-inch thick steel rims are original, the rest of the 49-inch high wooden wheels had to be replaced.
In March, the Pottsville Joint Veterans Council commissioned Colonial Trading Co., Stevens, Lancaster County, to construct the wheels at a cost of $2,679.80.
"They're made out of hickory. That's the only thing we make wagon wheels out of," Jay Jones, co-owner of Colonial Trading Co. and Custom Wagons LLC, Nicholasville, Ky., said Monday.
City workers picked the wheels up June 5. On Monday, Kelly and his crew put coats of flat black exterior paint and primer on them at the city garage, 425 E. Railroad St.
"We should be able to put them on the cannons either Wednesday or Thursday," Kelly said.
While the wooden wheels on the Garfield Square cannons only lasted nine years, the hickory wheels that Colonial Trading Co. constructed should last up to 50, Jones said.
"But it depends on how well they are maintained," he said. "There are two things that just don't mix, and that's wood and water. You've got to keep the wood protected. If they're not sealed properly, they can deteriorate in five or six years."
The last time the wooden wheels were replaced was in 2004, according to records at the Schuylkill County Historical Society, Pottsville.
The joint veterans paid Stafford Wheel and Carriage, Coatesville, Chester County, $2,600 to replace the wheels in September that year. The joint veterans are part of The City of Pottsville's Garfield Square Committee, which works on the upkeep of the grounds there.
The wheels had been replaced a few times over the years, but Robert C. Bedford, joint veterans president, wasn't sure how many times.
The cannons' history goes back to the late 1800s.
The 1864-model, 12-pounder "Dahlgren Boat Howitzers" were delivered to the city in 1892, according to information compiled by Leo L. Ward, longtime historical society president, who died in May 2008.
On Monday, Dr. Peter Yasenchak, historical society executive director, found Ward's file on the cannons.
"There are two Civil War cannons in Garfield Square that have been silently guarding the Soldiers and Sailors Monument designed by artist August Zeller and dedicated October 1, 1891," according to Ward's report compiled in July 2000. "On June 18, 1892, through the efforts of Congressman James B. Reilly, the two 12-pounder howitzers with field carriages were loaned from the United States League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, to the Monument Park Association."
The cannons, made of bronze, were designed by Navy Lt. John A. Dahlgren in 1848, according to the report.
"The guns were designed to be mounted in the bow of a boat so that they could be pivoted in any direction," Ward wrote. "When the boat landed on shore, the guns could be removed from the bow and placed on a field carriage that was carried on the boat."
Only 456 of these types of cannons were made, according to the book, "Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War" by James C. Hazlett, Edwin Olmstead and M. Hume Parks, published by University of Illinois Press in 2004.
There are engravings on each cannon that state both were made at Ames Mfg. Co., Chicopee, Mass.
The one on the east side of the monument is "No. 364" and the one on the west side is "No. 365."
The committee conducted $48,000 in improvements to the grassy, memorial-filled island in the 500 block of West Market Street in 2009. This included the replacement of a flag pole, the installation of an underground electrical system and 10 new lamps to illuminate the square's centerpiece, the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which was established in September 1891. The electrical service was upgraded from 100-amp to 200-amp service, and a new irrigation system was put installed, according to Kelly and Thomas A. Palamar, city administrator.
The group hired A.R.T. Research Enterprises Inc., Lancaster, in 2010 to replace a sword on the square's Soldiers and Sailors Monument at a cost of $3,200.