| Washington Monument (East View) |
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In 1809, ten years after George Washington's death, a group of prominent Baltimore citizens petitioned the General Assembly of Maryland for permission to hold a lottery for the purpose of raising funds to erect a monument honoring the nation's first president. The legislature responded promptly, passing a law in early 1810 authorizing the raising of $100,000 by lottery to build a Washington Monument, and selecting as the proposed site the location of Baltimore's old Court House (then being razed) on Calvert Street between Fayette and Lexington streets. The Managers of the lottery--leading Maryland citizens hand-picked by the legislature--announced a design competition in March of 1813, offering $500 for the best design of a monument commemorating Washington. Of the entries received, the Managers chose that of Robert Mills, the most grand (and expensive) design submitted: a massive column resting on a base with balconies at several levels, inscriptions, and a crowning statue representing Washington, dressed as a Roman warrior, riding in a horse-drawn chariot. Mills, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, who prided himself on being the first entirely American-trained architect, was awarded the commission for the Monument in 1815.
When the winning design was announced, the owners of the houses surrounding the proposed site rose in opposition, fearing that such a tall column would surely fall over on them, and even if it remained standing, would probably attract lightning. Colonel John Eager Howard, Baltimore's own Revolutionary hero, came to the rescue, donating land from his immense estate, Belvidere, for the placement of the monument honoring his former Commander-in-Chief. The donated site, then called Howard's Woods, was a hill well north of the Baltimore town of 1815, where a falling statue would be unlikely to harm anyone. Thus it was that on July 4, 1815, a crowd estimated at between 25,000 and 30,000 townspeople and assorted dignitaries assembled at the site of the proposed monument for the laying of the cornerstone.
Construction of the Monument began in 1815 and continued for nearly 15 years. Both the marble for the column and the fine white marble for the statue of Washington atop the column came from Baltimore County quaries. By 1824, the column and the capital to hold the crowning statue had been completed, but soaring costs--nearly twice the $100,000 authorized by the legislature--had forced Mills to simplify the design significantly, resulting in the unadorned shaft we see today.
In 1826, the project Managers held another competition calling for designs from sculptors for the statue of George Washington to be placed on top of the column. After reviewing the few submissions, the Managers awarded the statue commission to Enrico Causici of Verona, Italy, who had sculpted several panels of the Rotunda of the United States Capitol. Causici created the statue of Washington out of three blocks of marble weighing about seven tons each. Financial considerations having eliminated the Roman chariot statue design, the sculptor instead depicted Washington resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental armies, a most appropriate subject as the incident took place in the senate chamber of the State House in Annapolis, Maryland, where the United States Congress sat for a brief time in late 1783.
To execute the daunting task of raising the statue (approximately 16 feet high) to the top of a 160 foot high column, Causici and Mills called upon Captain James D. Woodside of the Washington Navy Yard, a rigging specialist. Captain Woodside devised an ingenious system of pulleys, levers and braces, and successfully hoisted the lower two portions of the statue into place. Finally, on November 25, 1829, the populace once again assembled in Howard's Woods as the final section of the statue was raised to the top of the column during the Monument's dedication ceremony.
Top of Page| Statue of John Eager Howard |
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Colonel Howard died in 1827, and his heirs are credited with laying out the four park squares surrounding the Monument in the form of a Greek Cross. The squares running north and south from the Monument are named Washington Place, and those laid out to the east and west are named Mount Vernon Place. Over the years, "Mount Vernon Place" has come to refer to not only the entire square, but also the surrounding neighborhood.
During the 1830s and 1840s, the town of Baltimore steadily grew out to the Monument. Colonel Howard's heirs sold lots bordering the parks, and by the 1850s the area began to boast the most elegant townhouses in the city. With the development of the surrounding area, the parks were relandscaped periodically in keeping with the prevailing fashion of the day. At one time, trees were allowed to grow to considerable heights and then cut down because they marred the vistas; the grass plots were once enclosed within fences, which were removed in the 1890s. By that time, the squares were becoming an outdoor sculpture garden, which they remain today.
In the east and north squares, the City placed statues of Baltimore and Maryland luminaries. George Peabody, the merchant and financier who endowed the institute that bears his name, and Severn Teackle Wallis, a prominent Baltimore attorney and political reformer of the late 19th century, were honored in East Mount Vernon Place, and Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1835 to 1864, and John Eager Howard, the Revolutionary War hero of the Battle of Cowpens, found homes in North Washington Place.
West Mount Vernon Place became the repository for several bronze sculptures of Antoine-Louis Barye, a French animalist sculptor and a favorite of collector William Walters. In addition to the Barye lion and four depictions of War, Peace, Order and Force on the square given to the City by Walters in the 1880s, the Walters Art Gallery owns more than 150 other Barye bronzes as well as pieces of his work in other media. Walters also gave the city the statue of Miliary Courage by Paul Dubois in the west square. South Washington Place was the recipient of the last major piece of sculpture added to the parks: the equestrian statue of Lafayette dedicated in 1924 to the memory of the fallen American and French comrades of World War I. Recently, the City of Baltimore has restored the fountains that grace the east, west and south squares.
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