Prince County Soldiers’ Monument

In July 1919, a group of Great War Veterans paraded into the town's Square for a program of speeches, music and fireworks. A year later citizens gathered for a ceremony to mark the arrival of a German gun, presented to the town for winning a provincial competition for Victory Loans and a second larger German gun, that was part of a countrywide distribution, was placed in the Square. In July 1922, a memorial to commemorate the Prince County lives lost in the Great War, known as the Soldier's Monument, was unveiled and dedicated.

The Square is valued as a reminder of the sacrifices made by Prince Edward Islanders during past conflicts. In 1938, the park was officially renamed Memorial Square in honour of those whose names were inscribed on the Soldier's Monument. The names of local men who lost their lives in the Second World War and Korean War were added to a stone plaque that rests immediately in front of the memorial. The unveiling ceremony took place on May 6, 1956.

Atop the monument, Emanuel Hahn’s bronze soldier is caught in the moment. He has just left his trench and is breaking across No Man’s Land. Wearing battle kit with a Lee-Enfield in his right hand, the soldier is in full stride, running headlong toward the enemy.

Hahn’s Summerside statue caught the eye of Lt.-General Arthur Currie. Currie played a key role in planning the Canadian success in the battle for Vimy Ridge and commanded the Canada Corps during its achievements in the final year and a half of the First World War.

After the war Currie assumed a new role as Principal of McGill College in Montreal. Directly across the St. Lawrence from Montreal is the community of Saint-Lambert and Currie decided to underwrite the cost of building the Saint-Lambert war memorial. Currie determined that there should be a design that reflected well and truly on the men of the Canada Corps, men for whom he felt enduring affection and esteem. He decided that the Saint-Lambert monument should feature the same statue as Summerside. The Summerside figure only appears here and at Saint-Lambert. 

The black granite plates were added in a 1988 refurbishment and the bronze sculpture was restored in 2012.

Emanuel Hahn moved to Toronto at the age of seven with his family of artists and musicians from Germany, in 1888. He studied commercial design and model-making at Toronto Technical School and Ontario College of Art and Industrial Design. At 25 years old Hahn began a nearly lifelong contract with Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. Two years later, he also started work as a studio assistant to sculptor Walter Seymour Allward. Part of his duties included assisting on Allward’s significant works such as the South African War Memorial in Toronto.

In 1912 Hahn began an association with the Thomson Monument Company of Toronto. It was there, along with several assistants, he made the many war memorials that are found across Canada: Fernie, British Columbia; Killarney and Russell, Manitoba; Alvinston, Bolton,  Cornwall, Hanover, Lindsay,  Malvern, Milton, Petrolia and Port Dalhousie, Ontario;  Gaspe, Quebec; Moncton, New Brunswick; Springhill and Westville Nova Scotia.

Hahn is probably most famous as the designer of the Bluenose on the back of the Canadian dime and the Caribou on the back of the Canadian quarter. He was a victim of anti-German sentiment in the years following the Great War, when his design for the Winnipeg Cenotaph was rejected in 1925.

The base lists 233 names of those from Prince County killed in WW1, as well as battle honours and the poem Onward by A. Beatrice Hickson:

O Canada, the blood of all thy sons

Cries out today from fair and glorious deeds

And spirit legions of Immortal Ones

Who died to serve their country and its needs

Pledge thee anew, by their white Honour Roll

To loftier issues born of sacrifice

Bidding thee keep, unstained, that nobler soul

Which they have ransomed with so great a price