Bunker Hill Monument

“ The sunbeam, stealing through the lofty window at one end of the transept, made a bar of light on the blue air, hazy with incense, one-tenth of a mile long, before it fell on the mosaics and gilded shrines of the other extremity. The grand cupola alone, including lantern and cross, is two hundred and eighty-five feet high, or sixty feet higher than the Bunker Hill Monument, and the four immense pillars on which it rests are each one hundred and thirty-seven feet in circumference! ”

“ Daniel Webster said in his speech at the dedication of Bunker Hill monument: ‘Bunker Hill monument is completed. There it stands, a memorial of the past, a monitor of the present, a hope of the future. It looks, speaks, acts!’ So this assembly is a monitor of the present, a memorial of the past, a hope of the future. I see boys and girls around me. Boys, you will be men some day. Girls, you will be women some day. May you become good men and women, intelligent men and women, a credit to yourselves and your country. ”

“ It is raised above the earth as a lofty sign which will teach coming generations a great lesson in a way that books never can. The American sculptor, Greenough, who designed the Bunker Hill monument, wrote: “The obelisk has a singular aptitude in its form and character to call attention to a spot memorable in history. It says but one word, but it speaks loud. It says, ‘Here!’ That is enough. It claims the notice of every one. No matter how careless, how skeptical or illiterate the passer-by may be, he can not escape the appeal of a monument.”—New York Star. ”

“ I am aware that what is called "advanced art" looks with scorn on anything so simple and bald as an obelisk, more especially when it is made up of a thousand pieces, instead of being a monolith shaft. Yet the Bunker Hill Monument, of which the design was furnished by one of our earliest and best artists, Horatio Greenough, is one of these complete obelisks, and Webster was proud to apostrophize it as "the true orator of the day," when he was pronouncing his own incomparable oration. ”

“ We passed the green hill on which stands Bunker's Hill Monument. It is inexpressibly grand in its massive simplicity, being only huge blocks of granite narrowing in such imperceptible proportion to the summit, that the pyramidal ending seems in perfect accord with the broad base. No railing surrounds it. There is no decoration or inscription: it stands alone in its majesty, sufficiently raised to be a landmark to the whole town. Our road led through Charlestown, where the seafaring population chiefly live close to the harbour. ”

“ Every day Boston spreads out her environments just that way.
Bunker Hill monument is 221 feet in height, and has been entirely paid for. The spectator may look at the monument with perfect impunity, without being solicited to buy some of its mortgage bonds. This adds much to the genuine thrill of pleasure while gazing at it.
There is a Bunker Hill in Macoupin County, Illinois, also in Ingham County, Michigan, and in Russell County, Kansas, but General Warren was not killed at either of these points. ”

“ In Rome the foundation is often the most expensive part of an edifice, so deep must they dig to build on the living rock.
Fifty feet of Bunker Hill Monument is under ground; unseen and unappreciated by those who tread about that historic shaft, but it is this foundation, apparently thrown away, which enables it to stand upright, true to the plumb-line through all the tempests that lash its granite sides. A large part of every successful life must be spent in laying foundation stones underground. ”

“ In the midst we behold the octagonal mausoleum, surmounted by four small cupolas around the central dome, which towers as high as Bunker Hill monument.
Where we stand above the world, everything beneath our feet and around us is made of white marble. There is no tinge of color on the four minarets, but within them the central pile is covered with delicate traceries that look like flowering vines. They are verses from the Koran; every letter is [199] black marble inlaid in the white, and ornamented with jasper, agate, cornelian and lapis-lazuli. ”

“ When Bunker Hill monument was still incomplete interest flagged. Money was gone. Work came to a full period. An appeal was made to the women of the land to hold a great fair to obtain the wherewithal so that the builder should bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying Grace, grace, unto it. Subscriptions and contributions hurried to its aid from every section and it rose to "meet the sun in his coming," "to be the last object on the sight of him who leaves his native shore and the first to gladden his who revisits it." It is not good for man to work alone. ”

“ To climb a few score steps would be an easy task to our sturdy forebears, and to say that one has “climbed the Bunker Hill Monument” is a boast that hundreds of thousands of tourists to Boston have been proud to make for over 100 years. Baldwin may have been right again, as he usually was.
Baldwin specified that the monument should be square with the compass, a common Egyptian practice. As built, however, it is oriented to fit the redoubt (southeast corner) of the battle fortification. ”

“ The glacial wall is a rugged, uneven mass, with clefts and crevices, towering pinnacles and domes, higher than Bunker Hill monument, cutting the air at all angles, and with a stupendous crash sections break off from any portion without warning and sink far out of sight. ”

“ Unlike the Washington Monument, which had to be completed by government funds, the Bunker Hill Monument was financed practically wholly by private means. Our independent ancestors did not count much on government aid in the building of a memorial to relatives or neighbors who had died in the battle; such monuments were personal matters. Of the total collected amount of about $134,000, only $7,000—a grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—came from other than private contributions. (The amount raised to build the monument is roughly equivalent to $1,000,000 in modern money.) ”

“ Bunker Hill Monument now stands upon the spot where Prescott's redoubt was thrown up. II. Plowed Hill.—This fort was upon the summit of the eminence, commanding the Mystic River and the Penny Ferry. It was in a direct line from Charlestown Neck to Winter Hill, further northward. III. Cobble or Barrell's Hill.—In consequence of its strength, the fort on this hill was called Putnam's impregnable fortress. This was on the north side of Willis's Creek, in full view of Bunker and Breed's Hills, and commanding the whole western portion of the peninsula of Charlestown. ”

“ A monument is in course of erection, but it proceeds very slowly for want of funds. It is characteristic of the people that funds should fall short for this object, while they abound on all occasions when they are required for charitable, religious, or literary uses. The glory of the Bunker Hill struggle is immortal in the hearts of the nation, and the granite obelisk is not felt to be wanted as an expression. ”

“ In the introductory note to the preceding Address, a brief account is given of the origin and progress of the measures adopted for the erection of the Bunker Hill Monument, down to the time of laying the corner-stone, compiled from Mr. Frothingham’s History of the Siege of Boston. The same valuable work (pp. 345-352) relates the obstacles which presented themselves to the rapid execution of the design, and the means by which they were overcome. ”

“ All at once the traits of some immediate ancestor may come to maturity unexpectedly on one of the branches of your character, just as your features at different periods of your life betray different resemblances to your nearer or more remote relatives.
But I want you to let me go back to the Bunker Hill Monument and the dynasty of twenty or thirty centuries whose successive representatives are to sit in the gate, like the Jewish monarchs, while the people shall come by hundreds and by thousands to visit the memorial shaft until the story of Bunker's Hill is as old as that of Marathon. ”

“ The entire edifice constitutes the highest public building in America not located on a mountain, being sixty-eight feet higher than Bunker Hill monument, and twenty-three feet higher than the steeple of Trinity Church, in New York City. ”

“ Few modern architects, engineers, or contractors are privileged to work in such distinguished company as did architect Solomon Willard, engineers Loammi Baldwin and Gridley Bryant, and contractor James Sullivan Savage, who designed and built the obelisk which is called the Bunker Hill Monument. ”

“ It is a shame to speak of her as parsimonious or as failing in any benevolent duty. Those who charge her with being dilatory should remember that haste is not always speed. It took more than a quarter of a century to erect Bunker Hill Monument; the ladies of Boston completed it. It took nearly half a century to erect a monument to George Washington in the City founded by him, named for him, and by his act made the Capital of the Nation; the Government completed it. New York has already shown that she will do far better than this. ”

“ The notion of spitting an the sharp point of the pyramidion is supremely absurd. Not less so is the substitution of a low hipped roof for am acute pyramidion, or the making of a window in the face of the pyramidion or of the shaft, both which atrocities were committed in the Bunker Hill Monument. ”

“ The history of the establishment begins in the seventh century; but the present edifice was not begun till after 1150, and it was not completed till 1472, and had been twenty years finished when Columbus discovered America. It is in the form of a cross, with a magnificent square central tower at the intersection, 213 feet high, or only seven feet lower than Bunker Hill monument, though it has not that effect of height. There are two other towers flanking the west front. These are each 196 feet high. They end with an elegant light parapet, and turrets at the four corners and centres. ”

“ Today, Bunker Hill Day is a huge neighborhood festival, with block parties and a skillfully routed parade which seems to pass every house on the hill. They who enjoy things most are the children of working people, not of the wealthy families that once lived in the sightly dwellings of Bunker Hill. Each boy or girl can give a visitor the story of the battle in detail, and recite the precise dimensions of the monument. (They collect from tourists for this information, for it is one way by which Charlestown youngsters get their spending money.) ”

“ As for the kind of monument such as I see from my library window standing on the summit of Bunker Hill, and have recently seen for the first time at Washington, on a larger scale, I own that I think a built-up obelisk a poor affair as compared with an Egyptian monolith of the same form. It was a triumph of skill to quarry, to shape, to transport, to cover with expressive symbols, to erect, such a stone as that which has been transferred to the Thames Embankment, or that which now stands in Central Park, New York. ”

“ The principle in human nature which leads to the erection of mounds is living and active to-day. The shaft which surmounts Bunker Hill is but a modern way of memorizing an event which in earlier ages would have led to the erection of a mound, and the polished monument which marks the resting place of some distinguished man was raised for the same purpose as the mounds heaped over the chiefs and warriors of another age. ”

“ The funeral was scarcely over, when Shah-Jehan began to build the tomb of his wife.
In our country when we think of a monument, it is a granite shaft or a marble block; we place it in a cemetery, and plant vines and trees around it. In commemoration of many great and good men we sometimes build a high monument—like that on Bunker Hill—where we can climb to the top and look over the country, telling each other how grand the nation has become because of the patriots [196] beneath us who gave their lives for our liberty. ”

“ Let our conception be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extedn our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be, OUR COUNTRY, OUR WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of Wisdom, of Peace, and of Liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration for ever! ”

“ If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the 17th of June, 1775 would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. ”

“ Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief, that popular governments, though subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not always for the better, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is impossible. The principle of free government adheres to American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains.
And let the sacred obligation which have devolved on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. ”