Suspected Drunk Driver Crashes Into Civil War Monument On Main Street
Jason Graziadei •
A suspected drunk driver smashed a car into the Civil War monument on Main Street Wednesday night, sending him to the hospital and damaging the nearly 150-year-old monument.
The driver of the vehicle was the sole occupant of the car, and he was transported to Nantucket Cottage Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to first responders at the scene.
Nantucket Police identified the suspect Thursday morning as Lucas Araujo Franca De Brito, a resident of Folger Avenue, and he was charged with drunk driving, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of property damage, speeding, and failure to stop. He will be arraigned in Nantucket District Court on Monday.
The vehicle Franca De Brito was driving appears to have travelled up Gardner Street, collided with the side of the monument as it entered the intersection, and rolled over on its roof before coming to a stop on Milk Street.
A source told the Current he had side-swiped another vehicle and was fleeing that accident when the rollover happened, leading to the additional charge of leaving the scene.
The damage to the monument appeared limited to the base and guardrails of the structure. One of the large, heavy pillars of granite that surrounded the monument was dislodged and thrown nearly 20 feet away up Milk Street.
The crash prompted a large response by the Nantucket Police Department and Nantucket Fire Department, including heavy rescue apparatus.
Officially called the Nantucket Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, the massive obelisk on Main Street was dedicated in May 1875 as a tribute to the 74 Nantucket men who died in the Civil War serving in the Union forces.
According to Nantucket historian Frances Karttunen, “Work commenced in October 1874. One of the millstones from the recently demolished Roundtop Mill was recycled as the base for the obelisk on which were inscribed the names of Nantucket’s Union dead, seventy-three in all. On May 29, 1875, Nantucket’s Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument was dedicated. The American Civil War had been the first in which the Nantucket community had participated. Previously, Quaker pacifism had kept Nantucketers out of combat, but to the Civil War the island sent three hundred thirty-nine of her sons, fifty-six over the town’s quota. Of those who went to war, only the names of the men who died appear on the Monument.”
