On August 23, 1999, Michelle Blum wrote a story for the Wheeling Intelligencer called, "Missing Civil War Artillery Piece."
     A Wheeling man, Joe Johnston, wanted to know what happened to the cannon that once sat in front of Wheeling's former City Building at the corner of 16th and Chapline streets.
     According to Johnston, the last time the cannon was seen was in 1958 when the cannon was taken to the city's garage on 19th Street in East Wheeling.
     There were originally two cannons in Wheeling during the Civil War but the article does not say what happened to the other one. However, there is no indication there were ever two cannons on the grounds of the City Building after the war.
     The following article, probably from the World War II era when scrap metal drives were common, was published in a Wheeling newspaper, date unknown. It was submitted by Virginia Simms Toney, the great-great granddaughter of Captain John Carlin of Battery D, First West Virginia Light Artillery.
     The article clearly states that this cannon had been at the city-county building since the Civil War. Perhaps Johnston was mistaken when he said the cannon was last seen in 1958.

     The Civil War cannon which has decorated the lawn of the city-county building here since 1865, today starts on its way to be a weapon against the Axis.
     The antique gunnery piece will be donated to the Ohio county war scrap collection as city officials and county dignitaries look on.
     The cannon is said to have been used by the Carlin's Battery, a unit recruited from the Island section. It served the Union army during the Civil war and was brought here shortly after the conclusion of the conflict. County officials are said to be custodians of the piece and Saturday they released it to the salvage committee.
     U.S. Army officials recently requested city and county officers here to donate any such equipment to salvage drives. Promise is said to have been made that the pieces would be replaced with modern equipment after the war. Wheeling park has an antiquated cannon as has Linsly Institute.
     The cannon here weighs more than a half ton. It is estimated and is of excellent metal for war purposes.
     The Civil war piece will be loaded on a salvage collection truck at 2 o'clock this afternoon.