Monument City Blog

[Source]

William Rusk, in his book “Art in Baltimore: Monuments and Memorials”, tells the following story about the raising of Italian sculptor Enrico Causici’s marble statue of Washington in 1829. “Tradition recalls a prodigy occurring when the statue was raised to the summit of the monument – a shooting star dashed across the sky and an eagle lit on the head of the settling general.”

Merriam-Webster defines, in this case, a prodigy as a “portentous event, an omen, something extraordinary or inexplicable.”