On February 22, 1919, a patriotic women’s group called the Daughters of the Flag appeared before the Township of West Garafraxa asking permission to use the north corner of Market Square for a cenotaph. At the April meeting, the Recreation Committee requested $500 to give the returning soldiers a ten-dollar gold piece each. The Township held two welcome receptions for its returned soldiers that year, one in June and another in November.
In the summer of 1920, the West Garafraxa Township Memorial Committee visited Cater and Worth Marble and Monuments in Galt. They chose a statue of a soldier carved in Italian white marble, standing at ease beside a grey granite stone with the names of the fallen set in metal lettering. It was designed by E.M. Worth of Cater and Worth Marble and Monuments in Galt. The engraving was completed by Cater and Worth, while the life size statue is the work of Italian sculptors and was imported from Italy.
In a ceremony on July 31, 1921, the cenotaph was unveiled by former Township Reeve John Gregson, whose son David Gregson was killed in 1915, and by 16-year-old Robert K. Hanna, who lost his father, John Sidney Hanna, in 1917. The cenotaph was rededicated on June 29, 1946.
The statue was removed in 2008 because it was showing considerable wear and a granite replacement statue was installed. The original statue was restored by Conservator Patty Whan and now stands outside the Archives wing of the Wellington County Museum and Archives.
