By Miles Layton

EDENTON — The local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has formally withdrawn its endorsement of a relocation agreement for Edenton’s Confederate Memorial, setting the stage for a renewed push to return the monument to its original 1906 site on the Chowan County Courthouse Green — and a direct appeal to the Chowan County Commission Monday night.

Michael Dean, commander of the SCV Edenton Bell Battery chapter, said the group voted unanimously at its April 27 meeting to rescind its previous vote of confidence in the Memorandum of Understanding between the Town of Edenton and Chowan County — and that attorneys are being notified accordingly.

“The terms of the agreement were that the memorial would be erected within so many days of its removal,” Dean said. “That time is long expired, so we are considering the agreement no longer valid, a point to be raised by our attorneys in the appeals process.”

The MOU, approved by the Edenton Town Council and the Chowan County Board of Commissioners in the spring of 2025, called for relocating the Confederate monument from its base at South Broad Street to Veterans Park behind the Chowan County Courthouse. The Edenton Bell Battery voted 7-6 in favor of endorsing the MOU at a contentious July 2025 meeting — a narrow majority that now appears to have collapsed entirely.

Though the matter is still being adjudicated by the courts, it feels like the monument should have been re-erected by now — the statue was taken down at midnight Labor Day weekend at the tail end of August — but so far, it’s only been gathering dust at the Chowan County Detention Center.

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Legal landscape shifts

Dean said the chapter’s legal posture has also strengthened in recent months, pointing to appellate court rulings in Alamance and Gaston counties that he said effectively neutralized a countersuit filed by an opposing group.

“The countersuit by another group is now pretty much dead on arrival due to appeals court rulings in Alamance and Gaston County in which the plaintiffs could not prove the memorials caused any harm, a point made locally,” Dean said.

That finding, he said, changes the calculus for all parties. The SCV’s attorneys, working in consultation with the N.C. Division and national SCV leadership, have opened the door to dropping the organization’s own lawsuit — if local officials will negotiate a compromise that both sides can accept.

“Our attorneys checked with the NC Division and national SCV to agree with dropping our lawsuit if we could come to a compromise with the town which would save them much time and more money,” Dean said. “We see people who fail to compromise as bad.”

A related lawsuit involving Tyrrell County’s Confederate statue remains active in the court system as well, adding regional weight to the legal backdrop surrounding these monuments.

Appeals court ruling in Gaston County

A recent North Carolina Court of Appeals decision may lend additional legal weight to the SCV’s position. See our story here. A three-judge panel ruled that the presence of a Confederate soldier monument outside the Gaston County courthouse does not violate constitutional rights unless plaintiffs can demonstrate it actually prevents access to the courts — a higher bar than opponents of such monuments have typically argued.

The Gaston County case dates to 2020, when the county NAACP branch, joined by other civil rights organizations and individual taxpayers, filed suit contending that a Confederate soldier statue atop a roughly 30-foot obelisk outside the courthouse created an atmosphere of racial hostility and signaled bias within the justice system. The appeals court rejected that argument.

The ruling’s reasoning — that symbolic discomfort alone does not constitute a constitutional violation — could influence how judges evaluate ongoing disputes involving Confederate memorials in Chowan and Tyrrell counties, where similar claims have been raised. Dean cited the decision as evidence that opponents of such monuments face a steeply uphill legal path.

Harbor Town’s collapse reframes the debate

Dean also pointed to the demise of the Harbor Town development project — the original stated rationale for relocating Edenton’s monument — as fundamentally undercutting the town’s position.

“The original plan to have it removed was due to town plans for the Harbor Town development, which is now defunct,” he said. “Now that the Harbor Town project is dead, the town has lost its reason to move the memorial.”

The monument has stood at the foot of South Broad Street since the 1960s, when it was moved from its original location on the 1767 Chowan County Courthouse Green. The MOU had proposed a further move to Veterans Park, at the corner of East Queen and Court streets, adjacent to the Chowan County Detention Center — a site that drew objections from some veterans’ groups.

Harbor Town collapsed!? See our story here.  

Where should it go? Members weigh in

Ahead of Monday night’s commission meeting, Dean said he conducted an informal canvass of chapter members and a broader online poll to gauge sentiment about alternative sites. The results pointed strongly in one direction.

“Every other response was to place it back in its original place on the old courthouse green where it was placed in 1906,” Dean said. “That space is owned by the county per the GIS website.”

Of the chapter members he contacted, Dean said only one favored the Veterans Park location specified in the MOU, and only one held out for returning the statue to its current spot on South Broad Street. Two members supported a small county-owned park on Virginia Road, where the former hospital once stood. The remaining members backed the courthouse green.

An online poll of non-SCV members reinforced that preference. Dean said he asked respondents: “Other than on Broad St., where would you like to see the memorial installed?” The result, he said, was 30 to 1 for the old courthouse green.

Dean argued the location satisfies concerns raised by multiple stakeholders. “The general consensus was that it is historically correct, avoids the recent objections from some veterans, and is insulated off Broad St. to please some merchants,” he said.

A direct appeal to town and county

Dean made no effort to disguise the impatience behind the chapter’s position, addressing town officials directly.

“Come on, Mr. Mayor and Town Council,” he said. “Make yourselves look good by compromising, save taxpayer money from continued litigation, and get the monkey off your back.”

The Chowan County Commission has maintained throughout the dispute that it is committed to litigation as needed to uphold state law governing the placement and relocation of Confederate memorials, and has noted that no state funds are available to offset legal costs. The commission, as steward of county property, has a duty to protect county interests — a posture that has kept it engaged in the courts even as the practical path forward has remained murky.

Dean is expected to address the commission at Monday night’s meeting, where the SCV’s rescission of the MOU and its preferred relocation site are likely to be the central items for discussion.

Whether town and county officials are prepared to entertain a return to the courthouse green — bypassing the MOU’s Veterans Park site entirely — remains to be seen. But Dean said the legal and political winds have shifted enough that continued inaction carries its own costs.

“I was in a conference call with our legal team by week’s end,” he said, referring to the days following the April 27 chapter meeting. The SCV, he indicated, is prepared to move — either toward compromise or back toward the courts.

The Confederate Memorial honoring Chowan County’s 47 men who died in the Civil War has been at the center of a years-long dispute involving local governments, preservationist groups, veterans organizations, and the courts. With the MOU now effectively repudiated by the chapter that once provided its narrowest margin of community support, the path to resolution appears no clearer — and potentially more contentious — than at any point in the proceedings.

The Chowan County Commission meets on Monday evening. Check back for updates from that meeting.