NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — The Northampton County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday night to remove the Confederate monument that has stood at the county’s courthouse green in Eastville for more than a century.
The 3-1 vote, with Supervisors John Coker, Oliver Bennett and Betsy Mapp voting in favor, came just under a week after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Supervisor L. Dixon Leatherbury voted against the motion, with Supervisor Dave Fauber absent.
The county has now put out two bids, for someone to accept the monument and for someone to remove it.
Supervisors had been considering what to do with the monument after calls for its removal over the summer in the wake of racial injustice. Art Carter, a former Northampton supervisor and physician, had recommended the addition of a monument to the county’s Black Union troops next to the Confederate one.
The county so far doesn’t have a timetable for when the monument might be removed, Deputy County Administrator Janice Williams said. She says cost estimates for removal have ranged from $8,000 to $60,000.
When the monument is removed, the only Confederate monument on Virginia’s Eastern Shore will be in Parksley. The Parksley monument has been a point of contention for several years, and the town faced criticism over the summer after it voted to sell it for $1 to a Confederate group. However the town later said it did not own the statue and canceled a public hearing.
