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Back in the early days of the Marine Corps, word reached Commandant William Burrows at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia that a young Marine lieutenant had been insulted by a Navy officer aboard ship. Burrows wrote to the insulted officer and related to him how another Marine, Lt. Anthony Gale, had appropriately resolved a similar situation.

Gale had been called a ‘rascal’ aboard the USS Ganges by Navy Lieutenant Allen McKenzie. Receiving no satisfaction from the captain of the Ganges, Gale called the offending McKenzie out on the pier in Boston and shot him dead.

Saturday morning, Marines, Gale family members and local officials gathered to unveil a monument recently placed in front of the courthouse, honoring Gale, the man with a keen sense of honor.

Gale fought the French aboard the Ganges, led the Marines on the USS Constitution against the Barbary pirates and was cited for gallantry defending Fort McHenry against the British during the War of 1812. Gale’s passions: women, liquor and fighting, though appropriate for a young officer, were his ultimate undoing in the Marine Corps, but many think it was his concept of honor and general disdain for Navy leadership that really caused his demise and his ultimate arrival in Lincoln County.

For many years, Gale was the Marine Corps’ lost commandant. Appointed to that position in 1818, then-Lieutenant Colonel Gale was immediately at odds with Secretary of the Navy Smith Thompson who frequently countermanded Gale’s orders in a dismissive and offensive manner. Gale made a final attempt in a letter to Smith to sort out their chain of command issues, and it might have been his letter that precipitated his dismissal from the Marine Corps in 1820 and not alcoholism and indecorous behavior the Navy alleged in his court martial.

Gale retired to Stanford, near his wife Catherine Swope’s family, where he successfully fought a long-distance battle to have his court martial overturned and retirement stipend paid, albeit 15 years after his dismissal. From there, Gale passed into relative anonymity. The usual documents of life in the county at that time, wills, titles and census results, contain his name, but no trace of his grave can be found, and this has confounded Marine Corps historians because it is a tradition to lay a wreath at the grave of each former commandant each Nov. 10.

It confounded Gale’s great-great-great-great nephew Richard McCunney of Bradenton, Fla., who attended the memorial service Saturday, as well. Over the years he has worked with the Marine Corps Historical Branch, military historians and local researchers, and they all pretty much agree that Gale’s final resting place is in the Campbell family cemetery near McKinney, though his grave is unmarked.

Perhaps, Gale’s grave will ultimately be revealed, but until then Marines will lay a wreath at the memorial on the courthouse lawn every year.

John Proffitt, of the Fox-Barnett-Demrow Funeral Home, worked with the Marine Corps League of Kentucky creating the monument, sold the marble marker to the League at cost and set it for free. Zeddie Harmon of the Lexington detachment of the Marine Corps League thanked Proffitt for his assistance, as well as former judge-executive Buckwheat Gilbert for allowing the stone to be set adjacent to the county’s veterans’ memorial.

Now that a suitable memorial has been set for this colorful commandant, only one piece of the puzzle remains -- a picture. There are portraits of all of the former commandants hanging at Headquarters Marine Corps, with one exception, Lt. Col. Anthony Gale.

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