Bird Bath

Aspiring Eagle Scout spruces up namesake
Daniel O'Sullivan, an aspiring Eagle Scout, is sprucing up a decaying granite eagle.
The monument, which sits on a hillside near the entrance to the Haldane campus, was erected in 1899 by Daniel and Julia Butterfield when the property was their estate, known as Cragside. Daniel Butterfield, a Civil War general credited with writing "Taps," commissioned the statue to memorialize Gen. George Washington and his 3rd Regiment, which was posted during the Revolutionary War at Constitution Island.
Over the decades, the eagle had become grimy, with moss, mildew and dirt filling every crevice. Parts of the beak and the feathers have broken off.
O'Sullivan, a senior at Haldane High School who is a member of Troop 437, based at the Garrison Fish and Game Club, said the idea for the project came from Principal Julia Sniffen. "There have been people in town who wanted to get the eagle restored for quite some time," he said. An Eagle Scout project restoring an eagle sounded "perfect," and he liked the project better than his initial idea to build a Little Free Library box.

O'Sullivan's plan is to clean the eagle, build a flower bed around the base and install an informational sign. He considered trying to restore the eagle's broken beak and wings but decided the monument was too fragile. "I don't want to mess it up," he said.

To pay for materials, O'Sullivan recruited his mother, Tara, to organize a GoFundMe campaign, which quickly raised $700.
On Oct. 11, O'Sullivan led a team of volunteers bearing scrub brushes that included other Scouts, his younger siblings James and Margaret, his parents and his grandparents. They used a cleaner called D/2 Biological Solution that's typically used to clean headstones. O'Sullivan said he expected to finish the project by this week.
After his bird work, O'Sullivan will have two merit badges remaining - cooking and communication. Scoutmaster Gary Gunther said Troop 437 has had several Eagle Scouts in recent years, including twins Louis and Patrick Ferreira, who graduated from Haldane in 2024. Louis built standing desks for the high school, while Patrick constructed a gaga ball pit at Tots Park in Cold Spring. O'Sullivan's classmate, Daniel Campanile, who has received his Eagle Scout rank, made improvements at Village Green Park in Nelsonville.
O'Sullivan hasn't settled on what he wants to do after graduation next year. He enjoys fixing cars and is studying auto mechanics through Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES. As the drummer for a rock-punk band called Michigan, he is also interested in music production.