Camp Merritt Memorial Monument
The Camp Merritt Memorial Monument, located at Knickerbocker Road and Madison Avenue, Cresskill, New Jersey, was dedicated on May 30, 1924. General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing gave the dedication address. New Jersey Governor George Sebastian Silzer, as well as many dignitaries attended along with a crowd of twenty thousand.
The monument was dedicated to remember the 578 people who died at the camp, as well as the camp itself. Most of the 578 died because of a worldwide influenza epidemic. The monument is a 65 feet tall granite obelisk, modeled after the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The 65 foot tall monument is inscribed with the names of fifteen officers, 558 enlisted men, four nurses, and a civilian who died at Camp Merritt during the war. The monument was constructed by Harrison Granite Company of New York with granite from the Stoney Creek Quarry in Connecticut. A former soldier and Artist Robert Aitken commissioned the relief sculpture of a helmeted soldier on the one side of the base of the monument.