Monument City Blog

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“Others who signed on to the memorial as “supporters” admitted later that they had little knowledge of any darker side to aesthetic realism and its founder.

“I have to confess I don’t really know much about him or his work,” said Steven R. David, associate dean of academic affairs for Johns Hopkins University, who also agreed to be listed as a supporter of the memorial after checking out the foundation’s Web site.

“I probably should have looked into it further. There is a kind of bandwagon effect — you see the governor and the mayor signing on to something and you say, ‘Sure, I’ll sign on, too.’”

Saint Paul Street & E Monument Street (Street View)

GPS: 39° 17′ 51.29″ N 76° 36′ 50.95″ W

History

The Severn Teackle Wallis monument at Mount Vernon Place stands dignified as it looks east down Monument Street. Directly west is George Peabody with Washington and the rest of his monumental friends looming behind the two. Wallis (1816-1894) stands with his right hand on a pedestal covered with some of his papers, and is depicted with his trademark mustache and long sideburns.

One of the premiere lawyers of his generation, Severn Teackle was elected to the Maryland Legislature in 1861, where he proceeded to lead a faction of politicians opposed to the Civil War. The Federal Government, under the direction of Lincoln, swooped in on a September evening that year and imprisoned Mr. Wallis for his apparent transgressions. He was thrown in jail for fourteen months at various Union fortresses, yet he was never informed of the crime he committed. Upon his release he wrote a lengthy correspondence to Senator John Sherman explaining his displeasure with the situation, continuing his crusade for civil liberties.

Wallis was also a writer, penning literature throughout his long and storied life. His Glimpses of Spain and Discourse on the Life and Character of George Peabody are his most famous works and are still in print today. He wrote poetry as well and is highly regarded for his careful use of language and positive sentiment. Two of his most well-known poems are The Last of Hours and The Blessed Hand. Wallis was also an avid collector of literature and owned one of the first editions of Don Quixote in the United States. In 1877, he donated the volume to the Peabody Library. Severn Teackle Wallis is buried in Green Mount Cemetery.

Notes

On the fourth floor of the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse is another memorial to Mr. Wallis. The memorial consists of a bronze bust, a copy of William Rinehart’s work, atop a marble structure with a young woman reaching upwards with a laurel branch. The pair of Wallis monuments, along with various streets and locations bearing his name, create an important historical reference to one of Maryland’s great men. The Mount Vernon Place monument, dedicated in 1906, is by artist Laurent Honore Marqueste.

Nearby

• George Peabody Statue
• Washington Monument
• Roger B. Taney Monument
• John Eager Howard
• Marquis de Lafayette
• Sea Urchin in Mount Vernon
• Military Courage Statue

Links

• On Panoramio [2] [3] & Flickr [2]
• Writings of Severn Teackle Wallis

N Charles Street & University Parkway (Street View)

GPS: 39° 19′ 59.71″ N 76° 37′ 6.07″ W

History

Donated by the State of Maryland, this monument is by J. Maxwell Miller, the artist behind the Star-Spangled Banner Centennial Monument. The memorial depicts two stoic women, one of whom is standing looking off into the distance, while the other kneels down clutching the body of a fallen soldier who has dropped his flag. The inscription reads, “In difficulty and danger, regardless of self, they fed the hungry, clothed the needy, nursed the wounded and comforted the dying.”

Notes

The Confederate Women monument is one of several in the city of Baltimore dedicated to the Civil War, including: Union Soldiers & Sailors, Spirit of the Confederacy, and Lee & Jackson.

Nearby

• Peace Cross
• Sidney Lanier Monument
• Creator’s Game Lacrosse Monument

Links

• On Panoramio [2] [3] & Flickr
• Smithsonian entry

N Charles Street & University Parkway (Street View)

GPS: 39° 19′ 59.89″ N 76° 37′ 2.64″ W

History

Dedicated on May 18, 1920, this large Celtic-style cross stands on the grounds of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, just north of Hopkins Homewood Campus. The monument, also known as Victory Cross, is dedicated to the memory of lives lost in WWI. Across the street is the Confederate Women of MD Monument.

Notes

The monument is hidden from immediate view by some trees and resides in an area named Clover Hill, according to a Maryland Historical Society plaque found nearby. Around 1714, this region was part of a 210-acre grant by Lord Baltimore to Charles Merryman, whose descendents lived and farmed here until 1869. In 1909, the site was purchased by the Episcopal Church.

Nearby

• Confederate Women of MD Monument
• Sidney Lanier Monument
• Creator’s Game Lacrosse Monument

Links

• On Panoramio [2] & Flickr

The 150 year anniversary of Charm City was held in 1880. Not to be confused with the city’s incorporation, which took place in 1797, the celebration marked the 1730 founding of Baltimore Town. The Sesquicentennial featured an obelisk at the corner of Howard, Lombard and Liberty Streets. The temporary monument was constructed out of wood and covered with plaster adorned with Egyptian hieroglyphics, according to the Tormey family website.

On The Trail Statue	Col. Watson Monument	Chapin Harris Bust	Sea Urchin – JHU
Ferdinand Latrobe	Armistead – Fort McHenry	Belair WWI Memorial	Wildflower

Edward Henry Berge was born in Baltimore in 1876. The son of 1st generation German immigrants, Edward’s father Henry was a trained stonecutter and an architect. Old Town’s B’nai Israel Synagogue is a lasting example of the senior Berge’s work. Raised in a modest house (also built by his father) near the Baltimore Cemetery gatehouse, Edward grew up in a rural environment driving horses and carving stones. In 1899 he enrolled as one of seven initial students at the Rinehart School of Sculpture. His colleagues J. Maxwell Miller and Hans Schuler attended the Baltimore institution along with him. Following graduation Edward traveled to France where he studied under Auguste Rodin. He sculpted his On The Trail statue during this time period. The fine example of early 20th Century realist sculpture stands in Clifton Park. Upon completing his apprenticeship Edward Berge moved back to Baltimore and began sculpting professionally.

The artist received a healthy amount of commissions during his career, always providing a decent living for his family. Known for his studies of children, Edward’s work can be found in gardens across the globe. Wildflower represents his preeminent work. Created in 1909, in 1916 it was chosen most loved piece at San Francisco’s Panama Pacific exhibition. One of three originals stands just off Springlake Way in the north Baltimore community of Homeland.

The photographs above represent a large portion of Edward Berge’s existing work in Charm City. He died of a heart attack in 1924 and is buried in Lorraine Park Cemetery. His sons Henry and Stephens were also professional artists.

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The Taney Arrest Warrant is a recent conjectural controversy in Abraham Lincoln scholarship. The standard version of the story avers that in late May or early June 1861 President Lincoln secretly ordered an arrest warrant for Roger B. Taney, the circuit-riding Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but abandoned the proposal. The arrest order is said to have been in response to Taney’s Circuit Judge ruling in Ex parte Merryman, which found Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to be unconstitutional.

The main details of the story come from a single document written in the 1880s.

N Charles Street & E Centre Street (Street View)

GPS: 39° 17′ 48.41″ N 76° 36′ 56.33″ W

History

Edward Berge was one of Baltimore’s prominent sculptors. An attendee of the William Rinehart School of Sculpture, Berge continued his education in Paris under Auguste Rodin. He created numerous monuments throughout the city and generally works in a realist style. He is, however, most well known for his carefree and playful garden figures. The original Sea Urchin, now located at Johns Hopkins University, was created by Berge in 1924, and installed at Mount Vernon Place in a fountain in front of the Washington Monument.

For over thirty years it stood in the south park, until 1961, when is was moved to Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus and replaced with an enlarged version. Frederick Huber wished to memorialize the local sculptor by having a larger more monumental Sea Urchin cast, one that would fit in better with its grand surroundings. Chosen to execute the reproduction was Edward’s son, Henry Berge.

Notes

The enlarged Sea Urchin was the subject of consistent vandalism for years after its installation. On various occasions the statue was moved during the night, only to be found in some strange area of the city the following day. Sometimes the memorial would be dressed in people’s clothing, confronting residents and tourists with a ghostly air. Eventually the pranks ended and the Urchin was granted the peace it deserved. The sculpture resides in Charm City’s oldest wishing well, standing guard over the town’s hopes and dreams.

Nearby

• Marquis de Lafayette
• Washington Monument
• George Peabody
• Severn Teackle Wallis
• Roger Taney
• John Eager Howard
• Military Courage Statue

Links

• On Panoramio [2] & Flickr
• Maryland: A New Guide to the Old Line State

Washington Place & Mt Vernon Place (Street View)

GPS: 39° 17′ 49.86″ N 76° 36′ 56.48″ W

History

Marquis de Lafayette was a wildly-popular French military hero of the American Revolution. Lafayette served in the Continental Army under General George Washington, hence the proximity of his monument (just south) to Washington’s memorial in the heart of Mount Vernon. Lafayette’s involvement in the American Revolution, though it went against the orders of the King of France, was instrumental in solidifying bonds of friendship and military alliance between the fledgling United States and France, along with such diplomatic contemporaries as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

After rising through the ranks of both the American and French armies, Lafayette ultimately returned to France as a special adviser to the king in 1788, and presented in council session a draft of a document fundamental to the French Revolution, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. But as the French Revolution mounted in intensity, Lafayette as commander of the French National Guard worked to maintain order, for which he was persecuted and eventually imprisoned by the more radical elements of the Revolution.

In 1824-25, President James Monroe invited Lafayette to tour the United States. Lafayette was given a hero’s welcome wherever he went. He visited all twenty-four states and traveled some 6,000 miles. Huge crowds gathered to salute the man, towns were named after him, memorials were erected in his honor and he was even granted honorary United States citizenship by a direct act of Congress – one of only six individuals to have been given this civic honor. One hundred years later on September 6, 1924, Baltimore dedicated its own monument to this great general, with sculpture by Andrew O’Connor and landscape architecture by Thomas Hastings. Lafayette was buried in France under American soil from Bunker Hill.

Notes

Baltimore’s Washington Monument looms atop a spire directly north of Lafayette, who sits upon his horse facing south down the hill towards the Inner Harbor. Washington’s huge arm is outstretched, so that it seems almost like he’s commanding Lafayette to ride off into the distance. Apparently the Oneida tribe, whom Lafayette recruited to the American cause, referred to him as Kayewla (“fearsome horseman”). Lafayette’s monument sits directly between the Peabody Conservatory, part of Johns Hopkins University, and the Walters Art Gallery, which houses a fabulous collection of cultural and artistic treasures from around the world and is open to the public for free.

Nearby

• Washington Monument
• George Peabody
• Severn Teackle Wallis
• John Eager Howard
• Roger Taney
• Sea Urchin in Mount Vernon
• Military Courage Statue

Links

• Notable Biographies entry
• On Flickr [2] [3] & Panoramio
• Smithsonian entry

East Mount Vernon Place (Street View)

GPS: 39° 17′ 51.18″ N 76° 36′ 54.33″ W

History

Born in 1795 in the town of South Danvers, Massachusetts, George Peabody was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who moved to Baltimore in 1816, where he lived for twenty years overseeing the dry-goods mercantile business he co-founded, Peabody, Riggs, and Company. In the 1850′s, while in London, Peabody became involved in banking, forming a prominent partnership with Junius Spencer Morgan, father of financier JP Morgan. A number of large financial institutions, including Morgan Grenfell, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, can trace their roots directly back to Peabody’s handiwork. For this reason, a statue of Peabody quite similar to Baltimore’s was unveiled before his death beside the Royal Exchange in London. Peabody is also considered to be father of modern philanthropy. In 1857, Peabody founded the first music conservatory in the United States in Baltimore, the Peabody Institute (now a part of Johns Hopkins University). In 1862, he set up the Peabody Trust in London to provide housing for the city’s deserving poor. After the American Civil War, he established the Peabody Education Fund to educate children from the Southern States, and is known to have donated some $8 million dollars to charitable trusts and organizations during his lifetime. His philanthropic acts served as a model for others, including Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates.

Notes

Peabody’s Baltimore Monument rests in the park just east of the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon. Immediately to his south is the historic Peabody Institute building, with the Mount Vernon Place Methodist Church to the north.

Nearby

• Washington Monument
• Severn Teackle Wallis
• Marquis de Lafayette
• Military Courage Statue
• John Eager Howard
• Roger B. Taney Monument
• Sea Urchin in Mount Vernon

Links

• On Flickr [2] & Panoramio [2]
• Smithsonian entry