The historical marker honoring the first Hebrew congregation in Robeson County once sat near Water Street and Elizabethtown Road, now the site of a traffic circle.
Photo contributed by J. J. Prats and The Historical Marker Database
LUMBERTON — For a little over a century an obelisk stood over the doors of the Lumberton courthouse. That monument memorialized the Confederacy. On the night of Nov. 21 the county commissioners voted to remove the monument.
A short distance from the obelisk there is a traffic circle where there was formerly a traffic circle. Once a squat white building with a green awning stood at the crossroads near a small stone. Inscribed in the rock was “Robeson County’s First Hebrew Congregation Was Established On this Site Circa 1908.”
The marker was removed at some point and not returned to its original spot.
The Robesonian asked Lumberton’s Deputy City Manager Brandon Love what became of the marker.
“It was carefully removed by the City of Lumberton’s Public Works staff,” Love said, “placed on a wooden pallet, and is currently in storage at one of our warehouses.”
In 2018, a century after the congregation was established, Robeson County and the City of Lumberton resolved to construct a memorial park containing several monuments.
“The plan is to re-install the marker in the new memorial park once it is complete,” Love explained, “Also, we will place it in such a manner that it will be as close to the original location of the Jewish Synagogue as possible.”
Copeland Jacobs can be reached via phone at 910-416-5165 or via email at [email protected].
