After standing in Rockville for more than 100 years—two of which involved intense debate about whether it should stay—a statue depicting a Confederate soldier has been removed. Its ownership has been transferred to White’s Ferry.

The statue was dedicated in 1913, on Jefferson Davis’ birthday and 50 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, in downtown Rockville. The solider’s head may have been modeled after Confederate veteran (and Rockville’s mayor from 1898-1901) Spencer C. Jones, according to the non-profit Peerless Rockville. In 1971, it was moved to its present site near the courthouse.

Amid debate about what to do with the statue, someone spray painted Black Lives Matter on the monument in 2015.

“My motivation in wanting the statue moved is simple and straightforward. Montgomery County residents fought on both sides of the tragic conflict that so divided our nation more than 150 years ago,” said County Executive Ike Leggett in a statement. “However, this statue is inaccurate because it pays tribute only to the Montgomery County young men who fought for the Confederacy, not also to those County residents who fought to preserve the Union and free those held in bondage.”

Officials announced back in February that they had found a new home for the statue, on land owned by the proprietor of White’s Ferry. Montgomery County is paying for the relocation effort.

After protests in other places over the removal of Confederate iconography, officials were guarded in making the move.

“No one expected what occurred [elsewhere], and there were problems. We wanted to be particularly carefully that we planned for the unexpected,” David Dise, director of the Department of General Services, said in an interview with Montgomery Community Media. “We did keep the actual move date quiet in order to forestall any concerns of unrest.”

While getting to this point date took years of discussion and negotiations, the work of it turned out to be relatively easy. The movers unexpectedly discovered that the statue is hollow, meaning it is significantly lighter than the original 30,000-pound estimate (Dise says its probably somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 pounds).

“Moving a statue, although it’s the first time we’ve done this … this one is pretty easy as it goes. It’s not one of these big, huge statues you see in Washington. It’s relatively easy to handle,” Dise said. “There’s nothing really complicated about it, except moving it around the building.”