In March of 1981 someone trespassed on our property and damaged one of our cannons. I wish I could say this was the only time such a thing has occurred, but people occasionally find it amusing to tag our statues, especially Lion’s Bridge. While we don’t have much information about this specific cannon, research has indicated that is a French 12-pound Naval cannon, ca 1700, purchased by us in 1935.

While doing their rounds in the morning, two of our security guards found the barrel of this cannon in two pieces. Someone had removed a portion of the fence near the entrance to our grounds and somehow removed the muzzle from the barrel of the cannon.

For whatever reason, they appear to have thrown or dropped the muzzle against the bottom of the column shown in the picture. The guards came to the conclusion that someone was trying to steal the piece and then dropped it on their way out. That doesn’t make much sense to me as they could have just walked away with it since they had already taken down a portion of the fence. I’m also not sure what the pocket knife was used for, but the pictures give me a good chuck as it looks like a scene you would see on CSI. My conclusion is that this was done by someone who was probably bored and just looking to be destructive, otherwise they would have taken the muzzle with them. Why people enjoy destroying someone else’s property is beyond on my understanding, but this was not the first time someone has damaged a piece on our property and it certainly wasn’t the last.