Title: Of Yankee granite : An account of the building of the Bunker Hill Monument
Author: Cameron, E. H.
Language: English
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                           OF YANKEE GRANITE

          _An Account of the Building of Bunker Hill Monument_

                            By E. H. CAMERON

                             [Illustration]

                With a Foreword by John Silsbee Lawrence


                                 BOSTON

                    Bunker Hill Monument Association

                                  1953



Copyrighted 1952 by the Alumni Association of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and reprinted 1953 by their permission.



FOREWORD


_Had the British bullet that went through the hat of Major Samuel
Lawrence of Groton near Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775 been aimed a bit
lower, some thousand descendants of Major Lawrence would not have been
born and I should not now have his dispatch wallet, nor his letter
explaining the battle and mentioning General Dearborn, my first wife’s
ancestor. The Bunker Hill Monument might not have been built; the
Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company might not have been
developed; various charitable institutions might not have had adequate
financial support and the dams at Waltham, Lowell and Lawrence might
not have been constructed to provide the power to operate textile
mills. John Brown might not have been sent by the Emigrant Aid Society
of Boston to Kansas, where he called his camp Lawrence, now one of the
flourishing cities of Kansas. Had Major Lawrence been killed we should
not have had a Lawrence as Mayor of Lowell, or as Ambassador to the
Court of St. James. Two Bishops of the Episcopal Church, a President of
Harvard College, the present Senator Saltonstall, and many young men
and women now actively interested in the problems of our nation might
never have been born and I should not have qualified for membership in
the Society of the Cincinnati._

_From reflecting upon the bullet that came so close to disposing of
Major Samuel Lawrence at Bunker Hill I was led to the history of
the monument commemorating the battle, in the building of which his
son--and my great-grandfather--Amos Lawrence took a leading part.
Much has been written about Bunker Hill Monument, but the splendid
article by Mr. E. H. Cameron in_ The Technology Review _for May 1952
and June 1952 summarized its history so well that I was anxious
to have it available in more permanent form. Mr. Cameron and the
editors of_ The Technology Review _very kindly gave permission for
this reprint, and Mr. Walter Muir Whitehill, Director and Librarian
of the Boston Athenæum, has seen the pamphlet through the press. Mr.
Whitehill has also selected the illustrations, and has included in
them a hitherto unpublished drawing, owned by the Boston Athenæum, of
Bunker Hill Monument under construction in 1837. This was obviously the
source for the somewhat inaccurate wood engraving published in_ The
American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, _III_ (1839),
404 _and subsequently reproduced in later accounts of the monument.
The illustrations include portraits of the two largest individual
contributors to the building of the monument--Amos Lawrence and Judah
Touro, the Jewish merchant of Newport, Rhode Island. I am grateful
to the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company and the Redwood
Library and Athenæum of Newport for furnishing photographs of these
portraits and permitting their reproduction, and to Mr. T. Temple Pond,
President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, for allowing this
reprint to be published by the Association._

                                                    JOHN S. LAWRENCE



_OF YANKEE GRANITE_



PROLOGUE

    On Saturday, 17 June 1775, on a fortified hilltop farm near
    Bunker’s Hill, Charlestown, Mass., a volunteer force of American
    citizens faced the professional soldiery of the world’s strongest
    nation. When their scant supply of ammunition gave out, the
    survivors retired in good order, to learn later that 140 of their
    neighbors and other companions had been killed in the fight. Their
    battle is therefore registered as an American defeat. It proved
    to be a striking victory, however, for historians agree that the
    Battle of Bunker Hill set the pace that led to ultimate victory in
    the American War of Independence. This little force of farmers,
    mechanics, tradesmen, and professional men had demonstrated how
    Americans should fight, when their independence is threatened.

    On the field where the battle was fought, the Bunker Hill Monument
    has now stood for over a century, the rugged lines of its granite
    masonry symbolizing the enduring strength of the stern spirit of
    American independence that it commemorates.


About 40 years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, all New England was
deeply stirred by a pamphlet published by Major General Henry Dearborn
who had taken part in the engagement. The pamphlet accused General
Israel Putnam, one of the most revered of the Revolutionary heroes,
of incapacity and cowardice in the battle. Thereupon, the Battle of
Bunker Hill was fought over and over again, at the wharves, sail lofts
and ropewalks of Boston, and in all places where men gathered to work
and to talk about the events of the day. Crowded nine inside and five
on top of the jolting four-in-hand stagecoaches from Boston, friends
and foes of the popular Revolutionary hero would wrangle over his
conduct at the battle. It would be a long argument, at five miles per
hour, with little room for gestures. With tankards in hand, by the
warm fireplace in the low-ceilinged tavern of the village where the
coach would stop for the night, the passengers could express their
convictions more forcefully, and the Battle of Bunker Hill would
become a very live topic indeed. The furor over the Putnam-Dearborn
controversy became secondary, however, as the bald fact was realized
that, aside from a small wooden column, no memorial existed on the site
of one of the most famous military engagements of American history.

In the good Yankee fashion a group of prominent citizens conferred
over their Madeira wine and coffee on ways to correct this humiliating
situation, and in the year 1823, these men formed the Bunker Hill
Monument Association, to solicit private contributions sufficient to
build a monument on Breed’s Hill, where the battle had been fought, in
the town of Charlestown, now a part of the city of Boston, Mass.[1]

      [1] From the start, the site of the battle seems to have been
          called Bunker Hill, although it was actually fought on
          Breed’s Hill. The probable reason for this inaccuracy
          is that Bunker’s Hill was then 110 feet high, and the
          adjacent 62-foot-high Breed’s Hill was considered only
          a spur of the higher summit. Certainly, a contemporary
          British military map is entitled, “A Plan of the Action
          at Bunker’s Hill.”

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.) Aside from two donations of
$10,000 each, the individual gifts ranged from a few at $1,000 to many
at $0.25 each. Naturally, such a scheme of financing took a long time,
and 18 years elapsed before the monument was dedicated. At a critical
period, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, started
by Paul Revere and others, years earlier, joined with the Bunker Hill
Monument Association to raise funds and help direct operations. At a
still more critical period, the women of New England held a fair which
brought in over $30,000, and the completion of the monument was assured.

Surely, the record of no other national memorial provides such a true
cross section of American democracy as exhibited in the roster of the
rich, those of moderate means, and the poor but independent citizens
whose contributions made possible construction of the monument.

The magnitude of American structures of the year 1825, when the
cornerstone of the monument was laid, was largely limited by the
physical strength of those who had to build them--men, horses, and
oxen. To raise the huge stones of the monument to such dizzy heights
was a tremendous undertaking with the crude construction methods of the
day. The builders of the monument had much to inspire them to devise
better methods, however, in the examples of other enterprises in this
virile period of American development. Steam navigation had already
made notable progress in America, and while the lower courses of the
monument were being laid, the first steam locomotives began to appear
on the young American railroads. Canals, waterpower developments, and
many new industries were being started in the young democracy.

A great contribution of the builders of the monument to the record
of achievements of this period was their demand for granite in huge
quantities to build it. This demand inspired the construction of the
Granite Railway at Quincy, Mass.--America’s first railroad.

The story of the promotion, design, and construction of the monument is
therefore doubly intriguing. It gives a vivid picture of the status of
construction methods of the period, when America stood on the threshold
of the age of machinery. It also reveals the spirit of audacious
determination of our construction forebears as they developed their
unprecedented processes from which our present marvelously efficient
methods of construction have sprung. The spirit of the builders of the
monument is worthy of that of the heroes of the battle, which their
masterpiece has now commemorated for over a century.


_The Obelisk_

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. They were associated with Daniel Webster and
young Edward Everett, both of whom later became Secretary of State;
with Thomas Handasyd Perkins (still revered in Boston as the man who
endowed the Perkins Institution for the Blind), merchant prince of
Boston, with the famous artists, Washington Allston and Gilbert Stuart;
and their monument followed the classic lines of the model submitted by
Horatio Greenough, a Harvard student, who later became a noted American
sculptor.

To the amazingly talented architects and engineers of Egypt, 50
centuries ago, the Bunker Hill Monument would have been a simple
structure to design and construct. To these ancient builders, it would
have appeared to be merely a somewhat stubby shaft, devoid of the
beautiful, deeply carved hieroglyphic record which ornamented their
own obelisks from base to pyramidion (apex), and it would be a simple
thing to erect. In fact, some would say that the monument is really not
an obelisk, for it is built of many stones of a few tons weight each,
whereas a single stone composed a typical Egyptian obelisk. Such stones
sometimes weighed as much as 500 tons. They were transported hundreds
of miles and by some now unknown method were erected to the vertical
position by manual labor.

Like the Egyptians, the modern engineer would also call the monument
easy to design and build. Today’s light, thin-walled chimneys of
comparable height, pose much harder problems of stability against wind,
and their designers feel fortunate when a chimney can rest on as firm
a foundation as the glacial drumlin soil of Breed’s Hill. Why, then,
was the erection of the monument considered such an unusual feat at the
time?

The answer is obvious: the monument was built in the days of hand
labor supplemented by animal power, and hand labor to the independent
Boston mechanic of over a century ago did not mean hundreds of slaves
tugging in unison to the drumbeat of an Egyptian timer, while an
overseer cracked his whip. And the builders had determined to construct
their monument of one of the hardest of building stones--New England
granite--in the use of which there was then little precedent.

When the Bunker Hill Monument Association offered a prize of $100
for the best design of a monument, many plans, mostly of columns,
were submitted. The Board of Artists of the Association (Daniel
Webster, Gilbert Stuart, Washington Allston, Loammi Baldwin, and
George Ticknor), who had to pass upon the submitted designs, favored
the Greenough model based on an Egyptian obelisk of ancient Thebes.
Although the directors had strongly favored a column, they yielded to
the judgment of the Board of Artists and adopted the obelisk design
instead.

Upon the adoption of the successful design, a committee, of which
Loammi Baldwin was chairman, was appointed to “report a design of an
obelisk.” Baldwin was a Harvard graduate, who had studied abroad under
the patronage of Count Rumford.[2] He had become one of America’s most
prominent engineers. Baldwin was responsible for the construction of
the dry docks at the Charlestown and Norfolk Navy Yards; planned a
canal tunnel (later built as a railroad tunnel) through the Hoosac
Mountain; and was active in surveys for an adequate water supply for
Boston, in the day when Boston people got their water from wells.
Baldwin and his associates on the committee first went to the Boston
and Roxbury Milldam (now Beacon Street), from which the monument would
be prominently visible across the Charles River. Miniature models of
different dimensions were mounted on the Milldam fence and were viewed
from a definite distance to the rear. In this highly practical manner,
the size of the most striking monument on distant Bunker Hill was
determined.

      [2] The famous scientist, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn,
          Mass., who later became an English citizen, and who
          established the fact that heat is a form of motion.

The Baldwin Report on the design of the Bunker Hill Monument,
described as neatly handwritten, was one of the valuable documents
in the literature of early American engineering history. It ranks
with the “Private Canal Journal” of DeWitt Clinton,[3] who promoted
the Erie Canal; the report on American railroad standards of 100
years ago by Captain (later General) George B. McClellan of Civil War
fame; Roebling’s report on the proposed Brooklyn Bridge; and similar
historical documents that describe the methods from which the present
processes of promotion and construction have sprung.

      [3] William W. Campbell, _Life and Writings of DeWitt
          Clinton_ (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1849).

As shown in the table of dimensions which follows, the monument, almost
exactly, is built to the dimensions of the Baldwin Report,[4] which was
influenced by the Greenough model.

  Height, above ground                                  220 ft.
  Sides of monument, at ground level                     30 ft.
  Sides of monument, at base of apex                     15 ft.
  Height of apex                                         12 ft.
  Minimum wall thickness, at base                         6 ft.
  Diameter of circular interior, at base                 18 ft.
  Height of masonry elements:
      78 main courses, each with height of         2 ft., 8 in.
       5 courses in apex, each with height of      1 ft., 8 in.
      Height of capstone                           3 ft., 6 in.

      [4] Measurements given above have been taken from: _Baldwin
          Report_ (1825)--Loammi Baldwin; _Plans and Sections of
          the Obelisk on Bunker’s Hill_ (1843)--Solomon Willard;
          _History of the Battle of Bunker’s (Breed’s) Hill_
          (1875)--George E. Ellis.

          Data from old records do not always check modern
          measurements. For example, a modern reference gives the
          height of the monument as 221 feet.

[Illustration: Bunker Hill Monument under construction in 1837

Reproduced from a hitherto unpublished drawing in the Boston Athenæum]

[Illustration: Bunker Hill Monument as proposed

Reproduced from an 1834 certificate of membership of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association in the Boston Athenæum]

[Illustration: Section of Bunker Hill Monument

Reproduced from Solomon Willard, _Plans and Sections of the Obelisk on
Bunker’s Hill_

(Boston, 1843), Plate V]

As described in the Baldwin Report, the circular winding staircase is
composed of granite steps, starting with a width of about four feet and
narrowing as the ascent is made. Baldwin called for “places of repose”
(landings) at intervals. Modern architects call the part around which
a circular staircase winds, the “newel.” Baldwin’s newel is a hallow
wall, 10 feet in diameter at the base, about two feet thick.

Thus, the monument was designed by an engineer, not an architect.
Baldwin violated a common rule for the proportions of ancient Egyptian
obelisks, that the pyramidion should be as high as the base is wide,
which is one reason why the Washington Monument is so beautiful. One
regrets that architect Willard, who picked up where Baldwin left off,
did not see fit to modify the Baldwin lines. There seems never to have
been any question as to the monument’s material: granite, the native
New England stone. Although we admire the Bunker Hill Monument for its
somber strength, it cannot be called a structure of beauty, as is the
lighter-tinted and finer-textured marble Washington Monument, with its
sharper apex.

We can also speculate on why Baldwin made the monument wholly of
granite. At today’s prices, the circular inner surface of the shaft and
the circular chimney, or newel, around which the stone staircase winds,
would be of tremendous cost. The dressing of the stone for a square
inner area would be much cheaper.

Before criticizing Baldwin on his ponderous stair design, which could
be replaced by a light, modern fire escape, we should look at the
status of the tiny American iron industry of his day. The ironmasters
were recovering from the decline of activity in the War of 1812, during
which they had lost their British market. Baldwin would know that
certain early railroad promoters estimated that granite tracks mounted
with iron plates would be less expensive than the English-rolled rails,
which the Americans could not produce. With masons in Massachusetts
receiving about $0.18 an hour, granite was considered cheaper than
iron. Baldwin therefore designed his stairway of granite, with a
massive granite chimney “newel” to support the inner ends of the
treads. Long before the monument was completed, however, a square
staircase of either cast iron or wrought iron could have been produced,
economically, by American ironmasters. It was then too late to make the
change, however.

At about the time of the completion of the monument the first
mechanical elevator was exhibited, but there was no room for an
elevator at Bunker Hill--the newel was in the way. 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.
Structurally, Baldwin designed a sound foundation, 12 feet deep, built
of six courses of stone with no small rubble that might deteriorate
through the years. He specified that the starting level of the base of
the monument should be established at the best elevation to avoid an
uneconomical distribution of the excavated earth; today we would say
that he balanced cut and fill.

The modern building contractor finds the estimate that went with the
report both practical and quaint. He will find that the digging of the
pit for the foundation of the monument was figured in “squares,” at
$2.00 each; and since a square meant eight cubic yards, hand excavation
was therefore priced at $0.25 per cubic yard. This price must have
included the expense of shoring; also the pumping that such a deep pit
would require. Baldwin proposed to dig a deep well on the site (today
called a test pit), which would not only indicate the adequacy of the
soil, but would also furnish water for construction purposes. Much
water would be needed to mix the lime and sand mortar for the monument
as well as for the Roman cement, for which the estimated 100 casks were
figured at $7.00 each.[5]

      [5] “The use of natural cement was introduced by Mr. Parker,
          who first discovered the properties of the cement-stone
          in the Isle of Sheppy, and took out a patent for the sale
          of it in 1796, under the name of ‘Roman Cement.’”--Edward
          Dobson, _Rudiments of the Art of Building_ (London: John
          Weale, 1854).

Masonry was then estimated in “perches,” and by a little arithmetic,
the modern contractor will learn that a perch was then equal to 25
cubic feet, or nearly a cubic yard. The 784 perches of masonry for the
foundation were priced at $10 per perch, including “stones, hammering,
mortar, laying, etc.”

The report of Baldwin contains no computations on the structural
stability of the monument. If the modern structural designer wishes
to investigate how near the safe limit the monument has been tested
by Boston’s occasional hurricane winds, he has available the major
dimensions given in the Baldwin Report, and the drawings of Willard’s
classic _Plans and Sections of the Obelisk_ from which to make this
simple computation.

Such computation shows that the monument is so heavy that a hurricane
wind has an almost imperceptible effect on its stability. When it
is subjected to a 100-mile-per-hour wind, the resultant force is
displaced only a fraction of a foot from the center of the 50-foot-wide
foundation. The maximum load on the soil is about five tons per square
foot--a safe bearing load on “the bed of clay and gravel which composes
the soil of the Hill” as described in an old account. The same account
speaks of “great pains having been used in loosening the earth, and in
puddling and ramming the stones.” Surely, our construction ancestors
would not have purposely disturbed the underlying soil, in an attempt
to improve upon the natural bearing strength of one of the firmest
of foundations: glacial hardpan. Like any good builder, they were
undoubtedly merely puddling with water the earth backfill around the
completed foundation.

Baldwin knew that granite would not deteriorate when exposed to the
alternately hot and cold temperatures of Boston. Half a century
later, the engineers who transported an Egyptian obelisk (one of the
Cleopatra’s Needles) to Central Park, New York, learned that the lovely
textured syenitic granite of the Nile Valley was markedly inferior to
New England granite in weather resistance, although it had kept its
surface intact for centuries in the mild climate of Egypt. To protect
Cleopatra’s Needle in New York, a paraffin coating was found necessary.

Baldwin soon resigned from the building committee, partly because
of the press of other work, but largely in protest against a clause
which made its members, all of whom freely donated their services,
financially responsible for the estimate. Promptly after accepting
his resignation, the directors revised this clause. In reviewing the
quaint old methods, the question arises: Would modern estimates be more
accurate if the consulting architects and engineers had to pay for
overruns?


_Transient Cornerstone_

On 17 June 1825, the cornerstone of the monument was laid with
impressive ceremonies. As the colorful procession marched up Bunker
Hill to the stirring rendition of “Yankee Doodle” by the drummer of
Colonel William Prescott’s regiment, who, 50 years before, had been in
the battle, the rear of the procession was just starting from distant
Boston Common. The little Boston of over a century ago was crowded
with visitors who had come from places as remote as South Carolina by
stagecoach, sailing vessel, or on foot, to hear the great speech of
Daniel Webster, President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association,
and America’s first orator of the day. Years earlier, Chaplain Joseph
Thaxter had paid the last offices to dying soldiers in the battle;
now, he invoked God’s blessing on the young American republic, as 40
veterans of the battle sat in a place of honor.

The most important visitor, of course, was General Lafayette, who,
as a good Mason, spread the mortar on the stone when it was laid by
Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts,
John Abbot. As the battle’s only monument up to this date had been
erected by the Masons, it was considered appropriate that the permanent
monument should have its cornerstone laid with the Masonic ceremony.
A little later, this procedure was sharply criticized during the
Antimasonic period, which occurred before the monument was finished.[6]

      [6] Joseph Warren, the outstanding hero of the battle, was
          Grand Master of Freemasons for North America.

Many of the spectators knew that the cornerstone records would later
have to be moved, for the plans of the monument were hardly started.
Now, the box with its old newspapers, Continental currency, and other
data is within a stone at the monument’s northeast corner, and the
original cornerstone stands in the center of the foundation.

With his usual generosity, Daniel Webster presented the copyright
of his famous speech to the Bunker Hill Monument Association. The
copyright was sold for $600, which was the second largest single
contribution up to that date.


_The Leading Character_

Solomon Willard, architect and superintendent of the Bunker Hill
Monument, developed the methods for the quarrying, dressing,
transporting, and erecting the huge stones of the monument that started
granite on its way to becoming a principal material for massive
structures in America for half a century, until reinforced concrete
took over. (Today, granite is used extensively as a protective facing
for concrete, for highway curbing, and for memorials.)

It is impressive to note the universal respect for the integrity and
ability of this early American architect which all the records of
the monument stress. In the drama of the building of the Bunker Hill
Monument, he played the leading part, and his character resembled the
sturdy structure which he designed in detail and erected. During his
18 years of service in the construction of his masterpiece, the Bunker
Hill Monument, he would accept no recompense except for his expenses,
deeming it his duty to work without pay on such a patriotic venture. He
was also a substantial contributor to the building fund.

A self-educated man, who had learned architecture with sufficient
thoroughness to become a teacher in the subject, he had also become
proficient in the various sciences. Starting as a carpenter, Willard
had proved both his craftsmanship and artistry by becoming an adept
carver of ships’ figureheads and models, including a model of the
Capitol at Washington.

At the time the monument was begun, Willard was one of the leading
architects of Boston. Typical of an architect’s versatility, he had
played an important part in the change from the heating of buildings by
wood-burning fireplaces and Franklin stoves, to hot-air furnaces, using
either wood or coal. As an expert in furnace heat, he was called in for
advice in the design of the heating system of America’s most important
building, when the President demanded that the national Capitol should
have adequate heat.

Appointed in October, 1825, to the combined position of architect
and superintendent, Willard spent the following winter on the plans,
models, and computations required to develop the construction details,
from the over-all dimensions of the Baldwin Report. During these
preliminary steps, Willard experimented with a promising machine for
dressing the stones. The selection of the Bunker Hill Quarry in Quincy,
Mass., was made after Willard had made a careful search for suitable
stone, in which he was said to have walked 300 miles. The right to
quarry, at Quincy, sufficient granite for the monument was purchased
for $325. Part of the amount to be provided by the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts was to have been supplied by the cost of the dressing
of the stone (then called “hammering”) by the convicts of nearby
Charlestown State Prison. The convicts, however, were obviously not
sufficiently independent to work on this shrine of independence, so
this procedure was not adopted.


_Up-To-Date Quarry (Circa 1825–1843)_

From various old American and English records of masonry construction,
it is possible to construct an account of how the stones for the Bunker
Hill Monument must have been quarried and dressed. The old names are
used for the tools and methods, and the modern mason will find many of
these old descriptions quite familiar.

The hornblende granite of the Quincy region was (and is) of very
uniform texture and varies only in color, from gray to dark gray. In
Quincy, Willard would find that both “sheet” and “boulder” quarry
formations occurred: the joints in the ledge of the sheet areas making
the granite appear as if stratified, and hence more easily removed; but
the huge, rounded boulders in the other areas, measuring up to 40 feet
across, had no joints. Rows of holes were drilled by hand (at least 25
years would elapse before practical power-rock drills became available)
and large blocks loosened from the ledge or boulder, probably by
wedges, possibly by light blasts of gunpowder. At this stage the
quarried block was called “quarry-pitched.” Stone of the smaller size
for the monument was split from these blocks along lines of holes in
which wedges were driven. These were probably of the plug-and-feather
type, in which an iron wedge with an acute angle is fitted between two
semicircular iron feathers, which taper in the opposite direction to
that of the wedge, and thus fit the hole drilled in the stone, nicely.
Granite has no cleavage planes, like slate; but a routine of smart
taps on the plugs, back and forth along the line, soon splits the stone
along a fairly smooth face. Two lewises (an ancient device), attached
at about the quarter points of the top of the stone, were used to lift
it. Three members make the lewis: a flat center bar with an eye at
the top, the center bar being flanked by two wedge-shaped side pieces
which are thicker at the bottom of the hole, and these also have eyes
at the top. The wedges are inserted first, then the center bar slipped
between; thereafter any lifting pull on the three bars is bound to
expand the lewis to fill the hole and lift the stone, for the hole is
drilled wider at the bottom than at the top.

With Solomon Willard’s well-rendered isometric drawing of each stone
for a guide, the stonecutter dressed it, first selecting the best face
for the “bed” (bottom) and hammered it to a plane surface, determined
by shallow channels (chisel drafts) cut diagonally across the stone.

From this surface, the stonecutter laid out the other faces, including
the “build” (top), by his good mason’s square or template. The texture
of the visible face was “tooled,” that is, the marks of the chisel
remained visible. Quincy granite is a quality product, taking a high
polish, but the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument desired no polish
on their monument. Today, the surface of the monument shows faint,
well-weathered lines, like those produced by the modern bushhammer,
which has a head made of several thin steel plates bolted together,
each sharpened to a cutting edge. In England during the period, flat
iron bars with rough edges were in use to saw softer stone than
granite, and at Quincy, Willard experimented with dressing machines.
The conclusion may be drawn, however, that the stones which we now see
on the monument were undoubtedly shaped to their present dimensions by
hand.

Today, 110 years after its capstone was put in place, the Bunker Hill
Monument stands as an impressive testimonial to the conservative
judgment of its designer, Loammi Baldwin, and the painstaking fidelity
of the man who supervised its construction, Solomon Willard. An
engineer familiar with its maintenance states that there is no evidence
of settlement, and that a check by surveyor’s transit revealed no
signs of misalignment. Its joints occasionally need pointing, the
last pointing being performed about 20 years ago. Various iron or
steel members of the observation chamber have had to be replaced.
Its lightning rod has been in place for many years, but there is no
readily available record to check whether the monument has ever been
struck by lightning. With their empirical methods of design and their
crude, mostly hand-operated, construction apparatus, our forebears
built a sturdy structure, which, barring an earthquake, should last for
centuries.


_The Granite Railway_

On 7 October 1826, the first railroad in America started operation.
This was the horse-operated Granite Railway, built to transport the
stones for the Bunker Hill Monument from the quarry in Quincy down to
the Neponset River, a distance of nearly three miles. The track and
cars of the railroad had been designed and built by a young engineer of
28, Gridley Bryant, whose Granite Railway project started him on a long
career of achievement in the invention of equipment that played a major
part in the rapid and successful development of the American railroad
system.

Ample precedent for the Granite Railway existed in England, where,
since the reign of Charles II, wooden tracks, sometimes armored with
iron plates, had been used as runways for coal cars from the pits to
the nearest waterway. Within five years of the start of the Granite
Railway, similar systems are recorded in the states of Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, New York, and Maryland. At first, the motive power for
these lines was supplied by gravity, stationary engines, or horses, but
soon tiny steam locomotives were tried. Thus, in the year 1829, Peter
Cooper built the famous _Tom Thumb_, a successful locomotive which used
rifle barrels for flues. In the same year the _Stourbridge Lion_, “the
first locomotive that ever turned a driving wheel on a railroad on the
Western Continent,”[7] was brought by sailing vessel from England and
started operation in Pennsylvania. The American steam railroad system
was thus well under way by the time the lower courses of the monument
were being raised.

      [7] _Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution_, 1889.

Bryant later described his railroad as having stone sleepers laid
across the track, 8 feet apart. Upon these, were placed wooden rails, 6
inches thick and 12 inches high (replaced by stone within a few years).
Spiked on top of these were iron plates, 3 inches wide by ¼ inch
thick. However, at road crossings, stone rails were used, with 4-inch
by ½-inch iron plates bolted on top. This “permanent” construction
was also used on the double-track, inclined plane at the quarry.
(Well-preserved vestiges of this “permanent” construction are visible
today at the rise to the Bunker Hill Quarry.) Here, an endless chain
allowed the loaded, descending cars to pull up the empty ascending ones.

The standard gauge of American railroads is now 4 feet, 8½ inches,
measured between railheads, a standard adopted after many years of
confusion before the present gauge dimension was adopted. Although
Bryant described his track gauge as 5 feet, this dimension was
measured between the “bearing points” of the wheels on the tracks.
If the bearing points are assumed to be the center of the treads of
the wheels, his gauge is found to match closely the present standard
gauge. This track gauge agrees with that adopted by the famous English
railroad engineer, George Stephenson, at about the same time, after he
had measured scores of carts used by his farmer neighbors. Possibly,
both Stephenson and Bryant knew that their selected gauge had a very
early beginning; for some historians suggest that the English carts
were originally made to fit the ruts cut in the roads of Britain by the
Roman chariots, many centuries earlier, during the Roman occupation of
Britain.

On the day when the railroad started operation, 16 tons of granite
from the Bunker Hill Quarry, and loaded on three “wagons,” were easily
pulled by one horse, once started. Bryant’s first car had flanged
wheels, 6½ feet in diameter, from the axles of which a platform was
hung to carry the granite. This platform was lowered to receive the
load and then raised by an ingenious gearing device.

Naturally, Bryant based the design of his early railroad cars upon
the construction of the horse-drawn wagons of his day. Like the
wagons, his cars had to be flexible if they were to keep on the track
when passing over the two curves of the otherwise straight Granite
Railway. In his description of another of his cars appear the road
wagon terms--bolsters, truck, and center kingpin, to allow a swiveling
motion. Rigidly bolted to cross timbers beneath the truck were two iron
axletrees, on which revolved cast-iron wheels. (Some time would elapse
in railroad progress before the wheels would be fixed to, and revolve
with, the axles in journals.)

In early American railroad development Bryant is credited with the
invention of the eight-wheel car, the turntable, switch, turnout, and
many other improvements. In 1832, he had invented and used in the
building of the United States Bank at Boston, his portable derrick,
“used in every city and village in the country wherever there was
a stone building to erect.” Others profited from Bryant’s amazing
ingenuity. Although the Supreme Court of the United States decided in
his favor in his most important invention, the eight-wheeled car, he
did not collect, and he died poor.[8]

      [8] For more data on the Granite Railway and Gridley Bryant,
          _see_: Charles B. Stuart, _Civil and Military Engineers
          of America_ (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.,
          1871); and _The First Railroad in America_ (Boston:
          Privately printed for Granite Railway Company, 1926).

In the fine saga of the Bunker Hill Monument, the Granite Railway plays
a prominent part. The demand of the monument for granite definitely
inspired Bryant to conceive the idea of America’s first railroad, and
to design pioneer equipment that contributed hugely to the subsequent
progress of America’s great railroad system. The accurate account of
the building of the monument, however, has to record the fact that
the railroad was not so great a benefit as anticipated. In the short
distance of 12 miles there was too much loading and unloading. Willard
freely expressed his annoyance at these hindrances. That he took action
is indicated in the following quotation from an apparently authentic
source: “The stone used for the foundation and for the first forty feet
of the structure (the monument) was transported from the quarry on a
railroad to the wharf in Quincy (actually located in Milton) where it
was put into flat-bottomed boats, towed by steam-power to the wharf
in Charlestown, and then raised to the Hill by teams moving upon an
inclined plane. The repeated transfer of the stones, necessary in this
mode of conveyance, being attended with delay, liability to accident,
and a defacing of the blocks, was abandoned after the fortieth foot was
laid, and the materials were transported by teams directly from the
quarry to the hill.”[9] This account fails to tell how the teams got up
and down the steep hill at the quarry: the 84-foot rise at an angle of
15 degrees. Clever Bryant must have used his endless chain to drag the
empty teams up, and to brake the loaded ones down.

      [9] George E. Ellis, _History of the Battle of Bunker’s
          (Breed’s) Hill_ (Boston: Lockwood, Brooks and Company,
          1875).

[Illustration: HOC NOMEN est in æternum, et hoc memoriale in
generationem et generationem.

    © R. RUZICKA 1915

Bunker Hill Monument in 1915

Reproduced from a wood engraving by Rudolph Ruzicka in the Boston
Athenæum]

[Illustration: Judah Touro

Reproduced from a portrait in the Redwood Library, Newport, R. I.]

[Illustration: Amos Lawrence

Reproduced from a portrait by Chester Harding owned by the
Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company]

[Illustration: Foundation of Bunker Hill Monument

Reproduced from Willard, _Plans and Sections_, Plate II]

[Illustration: Construction of Bunker Hill Monument

Reproduced from Willard, _Plans and Sections_, Plate IV]

[Illustration: Construction of Bunker Hill Monument

Reproduced from Willard, _Plans and Sections_, Plate X]

[Illustration: Bunker Hill Monument in 1830

Reproduced from C. H. Snow, _A Geography of Boston_ (Boston, 1830)]


_Beacon for Mariners_

In the noisy grogshops on the streets leading to the Boston waterfront,
in the sail lofts on what is now Commercial Street, and at the tall
desks of the counting rooms of State Street, those who got their
living from the sea eagerly discussed the progress of the monument in
Charlestown. It was to be their beacon, and when the many frigates,
packets, sloops, and schooners had safely passed the danger spots of
the lower harbor, the monument would welcome them to the busy inner
port of Boston, then much livelier than it is today. But progress
proved to be slow. Naturally the stones broken from the Quincy ledges
and boulders were not always of the dimensions planned by Willard for
the lower courses; many were of sizes needed for the upper courses.
Economical Willard dressed the stones as they came out; setting aside
those which could not be erected for some time; and the piles of such
stones grew larger at Quincy and on the ground about the monument,
while the monument itself rose at a snail’s pace. A more spectacular
progress was needed for a project that was started on a shoestring,
and depended on more and still more public contributions. The building
fund dwindled to such a low sum that in February, 1829, work had
to be suspended for lack of funds to pay the wages of quarrymen,
stonecutters, derrickmen, blacksmiths, and teamsters, and the cost of
the good hay for the hard-working horses and oxen of the project. But
14 courses had been laid--to a height of 37 feet, 4 inches. The sailors
were disappointed, and a poetess said:

    But where’s the pile they said would rise,
    Throwing its shadows o’er the wave,--
    Lifting its forehead to the skies--
    A Beacon far o’er land and sea,
    Signal and Seal of Liberty.

A lottery to secure more building funds was next proposed. It was
not unusual to allow lotteries in this period--churches, turnpikes,
bridges, and even Harvard College--had received such grants. Public
sentiment in Massachusetts, however, was beginning to consider
lotteries a vicious practice and the director of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association voted against one.

At this time, Amos Lawrence was a member of the building committee--a
wealthy philanthropist of Boston, whose religion seemed to be fixed
on two ideals, one of which was his charities. Unlike that of a few
good ministers of the time, who had preached against giving funds for
the monument because they felt their various charities should come
first, Lawrence deemed the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument of
first importance. This project became his other obsession. He enlisted
the aid of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in the
campaign for funds. Started in 1795 by Paul Revere, and others, to
promote a better understanding between master mechanics and their
apprentices, this society had become influential; its membership
embraced mechanics, manufacturers, and such honorary members as
Ex-President Adams, Daniel Webster, and Edward Everett. Amos Lawrence
had picked upon a well-managed organization for assistance; its
executives were shrewd financiers and they knew how to get things done.
The president of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association
became in perpetuity the first vice-president of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association (today he is still so listed). Thereafter,
the Mechanics Association took an active part in the promotion and
construction of the monument. It made a careful estimate of the cost
to complete the monument and, much to Solomon Willard’s disgust,
raised his allowance for contingencies. Both associations decided to
be satisfied when the monument had reached the height of 159 feet, 6
inches--about two-thirds of the height previously determined upon.

Work was resumed on 17 June 1834, and continued until funds again gave
out, when the monument was 32 courses high, 85 feet; now imposing
enough for quite the good mariners of busy Boston harbor to take notice
of. It was the year 1835, and the country was headed for a severe
financial depression--a bad sign for those who sought contributions for
any but the most practical of objectives. In this emergency, the women
of New England again became active in the raising of funds.

In the summer of 1840, a common greeting of the women of Massachusetts
was: “What are you doing for the Fair?” Those who knit stockings,
crocheted in worsted of various colors, who were skilled in embroidered
work, or who were merely good at plain sewing strove industriously
to get ready for the Fair that was to earn money for the Bunker Hill
Monument. Ten years earlier, the women of New England had made a noble
effort to secure funds for the monument, but as the contributions from
females and children had been limited to a maximum of $1.00 each, the
total was small. Now, although the maximum sum ever raised at a Boston
fair was $3,000, they felt that a sizable sum could be realized in a
fair in Quincy Hall, near Faneuil Hall. Despite the criticism that
“women were stepping out of their sphere,” Sarah J. Hale, the leading
spirit in this remarkable effort, persisted.[10] Quincy Hall was 382
feet long by 47 feet wide, and it was crowded with the 43 tables of
things to sell, when the seven-day fair started in September, 1840. A
Whig Convention, in this year of a presidential election, undoubtedly
helped to increase the attendance at this very successful fair. The
price of admission on the first day was double that of the remaining
days, which was $0.25.

     [10] She was editor of _Godey’s Lady’s Book_ for 30 years, and
          is credited with promoting the establishment of the last
          Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

The success of the Quincy Fair was phenomenal. The net sum of
$30,035.53 was realized and turned over to the directors of the Bunker
Hill Monument Association toward the completion of the Bunker Hill
Monument. This amount was nearly one quarter its total cost. The
Yankee ladies did not know that two contributions of $10,000 each,
with several smaller donations, were available by now. The gift of
$10,000 by Judah Touro was peculiarly heartening, as an example of the
expression of the gratitude of the son of an immigrant to the country
of his adoption. The father of Touro had been rabbi of a synagogue in
Holland. The younger Touro was born in Newport, R. I., in 1776; he had
sailed to New Orleans with an assortment of New England commodities and
had made money in their sale. A soldier in the Battle of New Orleans,
in the War of 1812, he had been given up for dead in the battle. He had
become a millionaire and, learning of the proposed gift of $10,000 by
Amos Lawrence, toward the completion of the monument, Touro had matched
it. Thus, in the year 1840, the success of the Bunker Hill Monument was
assured. It could now be built to the full height planned by Baldwin
and Willard--about 220 feet.


_The Riggers_

Contractor James Sullivan Savage would have no trouble finding good men
for the ticklish job of raising and setting the heavy stones of the
higher courses of the monument; able sailors, who would take a shore
job for a change. Maritime Boston was full of these good riggers, who
were used to dizzy heights, and to whom the half hitches, square knots,
guys, slings, and tag lines would be easy. Up to this time the monument
had been built by day labor, not by contract. Now, Savage had taken a
contract to finish the monument for $43,800, from the elevation of 85
feet to the top. He was well trained in masonry, for he had worked on
the job since the start under Willard, whose rigid ideas would not let
him take a contract himself for profit on such a patriotic project, but
who agreed to superintend the work of Savage to the finish. Savage had
the traits of a good contractor--energy, resourcefulness, honesty--and
the sense that knew how each detail must be executed toward the end of
producing a job to be proud of.

Savage replaced the one-horse capstan of the hoist by a six-horsepower
steam engine, an innovation that speeded up progress. The steam
engine as a prime mover in land and water transportation had become
well established, and its use to drive textile machinery had proved
successful. Steam power in the construction industry, however, was a
novelty. Shouts and wigwag signals from the setting gang at the top
to the engineer on the ground were replaced by a bell-wire signaling
system. This must have been a pull bell, for many years would pass
before electric bells came into common use.[11]

     [11] Joseph Henry had developed the electromagnet at about the
          time of the laying of the lower courses of the monument,
          and, a few months after its dedication, Morse would
          operate the first telegraph line between Washington and
          Baltimore, but the transmission of electric currents by
          insulated wires even for a few score feet was still too
          new to receive serious attention on a construction job.

As its lighter stones would be easier to handle, the granite inner cone
(newel) around which the stairs wind was erected a few courses ahead of
the walls of the monument. It thus served as a support for the derrick
which raised the heavier wall stones. Through apertures in the hollow
walls of the newel, a heavy beam (wood?) was passed, upon which the
derrick was set.

It is interesting to compare our modern hoisting derrick with the
apparatus used to raise the stones for the monument. The derrick of
today consists of a guyed, vertical mast, an adjustable boom hinged to
the base of the mast, with boom falls, and hoist falls, each with their
cables and pulleys, or blocks. At the base of the mast, a bull ring
serves to turn the mast by power. The whole combination is called the
derrick. When we get accustomed to the old English or American custom
of calling the mast the post or derrick, and the boom either the gaff
or derrick, a little study enables us to comprehend how the monument
was built.

The lower courses were raised by the “Holmes Hoisting Apparatus,”
designed by a practical seaman of Boston. This device could command a
circle 100 feet in diameter. Except that it had no bull ring to turn
the mast, it appears much like the derrick of today. With steam power
available for the upper courses, Savage seems to have modified the boom
of Holmes to serve as a nearly horizontal “lever,” on which a “wheel
carriage” drew the stone inward, to its desired position for placement.
In other words, apparently, the boom became today’s monorail. A
somewhat obscure, English description of the means used to hoist
masonry 100 years ago, tells of two devices. One was a “movable derrick
crane,” with a vertical post, supported by two timber backstays,
and a movable hinged “jib or derrick,” which could be today’s boom.
This assembly, of course, corresponded to today’s stiff-leg derrick,
in which the back guys are replaced by timber members. The other
English device for raising stones was practically exactly like today’s
traveling crane, and that was the name it went by in England, 100 years
ago.

Our construction forebears of over a century ago had to use ropes and
chains for all purposes; there were no wire ropes. About the time
Savage set his first stone, John A. Roebling was making the first
American wire rope cable, in a largely outdoor plant located on a level
meadow on his farm in Saxonburg, Pa. Wire rope had real advantages in
construction work, because of its superior strength and its much less
stretch under load. A crude sketch, dated 1837, shows that the derrick
for the monument was guyed by chains, which attached to the top of the
mast and passed over timber brackets at the staging level, and thence
vertically down to weights at the ground. In his long length, the
stretching and shrinking of a rope under rain, load, and temperature
changes would be difficult to control.

Every four courses of the wall stones (about 11 feet) the derrick was
raised, perhaps by unshipping the boom and using it as a lesser mast
to raise the mast proper. Square timber sticks were then beginning to
be used for staging, instead of the round trunks of small trees and
saplings previously used. A sketch of the monument shows a squared
timber stage for pointing the joints. Such a stage could be much more
easily erected, and was more reliable than the round sticks, tied at
the joints by cords.

On paper, Willard had performed the painstaking task of dimensioning
every stone, each with its top (the build) a little narrower than
its bottom (the bed), so that the true taper of the obelisk would be
maintained. To set the stone to line was the chore of the erecting
force. On the top of the stone already in place lime mortar was spread,
enriched with hydraulic cement, and with a sprinkling of iron filings.
(A popular, modern, commercial waterproofing compound utilizes the
fact that, upon oxidizing, iron particles mixed with the cement mortar
expand, thus reducing the voids and producing a denser mass when the
mortar sets.)

Temporary wooden wedges would be placed at the corners of the stone
already in place, to support the heavy new stone until the mortar had
hardened. When the ponderous stone had been speedily raised from the
ground to a level a few inches above the mortar, the engine would be
stopped; the derrick adjusted to right or left, and in or out, until
the stone was very closely in line. Next, riggers would push on the
bridle chain which attached to the two lewises in the stone’s top
surface, guiding it to its true position in its gentle descent as the
engine lowered it the few inches needed to bed it. A tiny fraction of
an inch “out-of-line” would be serious, for such errors if repeated, or
if not compensating, would visibly throw the monument out of line. On a
light stage high above the ground, bracing themselves against gusts of
wind, the riggers would be intent on the necessity for such accuracy,
but not forgetting their own safety, for no careless workman could work
for Savage. They would remember that, while laying the last stone of
the 12th course, at the southwest corner, one man had been pushed off
(the only death on the project).


_Profitable Project_

Happily, the good riggers raised their monument, course by course, to
the top. They were under a boss who knew his trade, and he was making
money--the sign of content on any construction project. (Savage made
some more money after the monument was finished, when he retained the
steam engine that had been used for hoisting stone, for the purpose
of raising a passenger car to the top. For the car ride he collected
$0.20, as against the $0.125 for visitors who climbed the stairs.)

The practical riggers would not be disturbed at the proposal, advanced
when the monument neared its top, that the apex be modified to
form a platform to accommodate visitors. Aesthetic Bostonians were
much disturbed at this proposal. Happily, the Bunker Hill Monument
Association voted down this architectural atrocity.


_High Capstone_

On Saturday, 23 July 1842, several hundred of our early rising
Bostonian ancestors rose earlier than usual to arrive at the monument
at 6:00 A.M. On the ground at the base, they studied the capstone; a
small stone pyramid, three feet, six inches high, stoutly lashed to the
derrick hook, and with an American flag at the top. Standing on the
capstone, firmly grasping the hoisting rope, Colonel Charles R. Carnes
waited for the signal to hoist. When the clock struck six, a signal gun
was fired, and the capstone, bearing the good colonel, started up. In
16 minutes it had reached the top; at 6:30 A.M. it had been bedded, and
a national salute announced to all Boston that the Bunker Hill Monument
was completed.

By railroad, great multitudes came to Boston for the dedication of the
Bunker Hill Monument, nearly a year later, on 17 June 1843. Unlike
the time of 18 years earlier, when the cornerstone had been laid,
stagecoaches were not the main conveyance for visitors to Boston.
Indeed they were decidedly on the way out, and would soon be but
symbols of an era of traveling discomfort, as the railroad completely
took over. President Tyler and his cabinet attended; Daniel Webster
matched with sonorous eloquence his famous speech at the laying of the
cornerstone, and there were still 13 very aged surviving veterans of
the battle able to attend.


_Foucault’s Experiment_

Seven years later (1850), two Harvard professors checked with elaborate
apparatus, paid for by members of the Bunker Hill Monument Association
and the Massachusetts Charitable Association, the famous experiment of
Foucault which used a long pendulum to prove the daily rotation of the
earth. Suspended in the newel by an annealed wire, 210 feet long, the
oscillations of a pointer, attached to a 31-pound British cannon ball
relic of the battle, were observed; and its plane of swing was seen to
revolve during the day from right to left of the observer. A sudden
shower on a previously bright day complicated the experiment, until
Professor Eben N. Horsford discovered the reason. Cooled by the rain
the monument’s exposed face contracted; its apex moved correspondingly
and carried the point of suspension of the pendulum with it. As
observed years later on the Washington Monument, Horsford deduced that
the side of an obelisk, exposed to the hot sun, expanded, and that
its apex followed the sun in the sun’s travel from east to west. Such
motion is tiny, and the ingenuity of the apparatus to observe it was
notable. The path of the orbit of the bob, registering both the earth’s
rotation and the effect of varying heat on the monument’s sides, was
described as an irregular ellipse with major axis of one-half an inch.


_Today_

Two hundred thousand persons visit Bunker Hill every year. Of these
visitors 20,000 pay their $0.10, and presumably climb the 294 granite
steps to the top.[12] Very few Bostonians are among these visitors.[13]
They are of various types: honeymooners and casual tourists, whose list
of the sights to be seen in historic Boston includes the monument, and
historically minded youngsters, one of whom was recently caught in a
heated argument with his father as to where the order was to “wait ’til
you can see the whites of their eyes.” Surely, the stout young man
who recently lugged 25 pounds to the top--his young daughter--was not
typical.

     [12] Estimate of custodian from a review of his register, 1951.

     [13] “Those pangs of conscience he feels every June 17 are as
          close as the average Bostonian ever comes to climbing
          Bunker Hill Monument.”--_Boston Globe_, 18 June 1951.

The evidence that the monument is probably the most popular of the
historic shrines of old Boston would be as pleasing to the charter
members of the Bunker Hill Monument Association as to the present
members of this venerable society, which lists among present and
past members, 30 generals, 12 admirals, 12 Presidents of the United
States, a score of Massachusetts governors, 20 mayors of Boston, and 6
presidents of Harvard University. It is a healthful society to belong
to, the 1949 _Proceedings_ say, in the mention of 46 half-century
members of whom 16 were then living.

Many years ago, the Association voted to hold patriotic exercises
every year at the monument, and this resolution has been faithfully
fulfilled. The annual ceremonies today are very different from those
of the earlier years; they have followed the varying pattern in which
American citizens have celebrated their national anniversaries during
the more than a century since the monument was dedicated in 1843.
They were solemn occasions during the earlier years. In what better
spot could the Yankees of the trying days of the Civil War compare
their convictions with those who fought for similar principles than
at the monument, as they listened to the stirring eloquence of their
War Governor, John A. Andrew. In later years the holiday spirit took
over, with a fireman’s muster to please the older folk, while the
youngsters of Greater Boston made Bunker Hill Day on 17 June a parallel
in firecracker noise and casualties to fingers and eyesight, to the
Fourth of July, of which it was a preview. 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.) These children would rarely
answer to the old names: Prescott, Warren, Putnam, or similar Yankee
names. They are mostly of second or third generation European families:
proud Americans, fortunate to live near the site of one of America’s
most famous historical shrines. Their festival is a heartening occasion
to witness, for it is American democracy at its best.

Through it all the monument rises above its unadorned settings; except
that the crown of the hill has been removed, it could still be the
New England hilltop farm on which the battle was fought. The obelisk
rises in the simplicity of its straight lines and clean angles, with
no curves, and with the somber gray of its harsh-textured masonry
unrelieved by any greenery of foundation shrubbery. The rugged monument
is symbolic of the stern spirit of those who fought in the battle, and
of the determination of those who solved the problem of building this
massive memorial to them, in the pioneer days of American architecture
and engineering.



Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations.




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