The fourth of July, our annual anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has always a day of commemoration. Throughout his life, Abraham Lincoln attended many of these celebrations. But July 4, 1848, was even more special than usual. On that date, Lincoln watched the cornerstone of the new Washington Monument being laid.
Lincoln was serving his single term as a U.S. congressman at that time. It would be a busy 1848 year for him. He had given his “spot resolution” speech on the floor of the House of Representatives a few months earlier and would give another speech on internal improvements in another month or so. By September, he would be stumping across Massachusetts in support of Zachary Taylor’s Whig candidacy for president. But Lincoln was not about miss the groundbreaking for a monument for the father of our country.
That monument was a long time coming. George Washington had completed his second term as president in 1897, after which he moved back to Virginia to live out life on his Mount Vernon estate. He died in December 1899. While plans to erect some sort of monument had started even before his death, but disagreement about its form and cost kept the idea in stasis until it began again in earnest in the 1830s. Funding and design disagreements continued until the idea of a simple, but giant, obelisk began construction in 1848.
As might be expected, a large ceremony accompanied the symbolic laying of the cornerstone. Executive officials, congressmen (including Lincoln), various fire companies, school children, and fraternal organizations. This latter group included the Freemasons, the “secret” society of which Washington had been a member. Originally seen as part of Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s grand design for the city, the Monument again ran into funding problems. The core of the monument is made of bluestone gneiss for the foundation and granite for the construction. But that’s just the inside. The outer facing consists of three different kinds of white marble.
Why three kinds of marble? That’s because the lack of funding stopped building progress for many years. The bottom third of the Monument has marble from Baltimore County, constructed from 1848 to 1854. The Monument stump then sat unfinished at a height of 152 feet. And that is what Abraham Lincoln could see every day from the White House as he fought to save the nation during the Civil War. Following the war, Congress eventually appropriated more money, but by this time people were second-guessing the simple design and more embellished plans were submitted. By the time this played out (with the original simple design intact, albeit with some modifications to the foundation to withstand the weight of the additional height) it was 1879. Construction then ran from 1879 to its final completion date in 1888. Initially, marble from Sheffield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts was used, but only for a narrow zone just above the original base. The rest of the obelisk was finished using Cockeysville marble coming from the same quarry town as the original.
Lincoln never got to see the Washington Monument completed, but he not only saw the building of the Smithsonian castle, he also spent a lot of time there during the Civil War. The design of the Castle, the first and only building at the time of what is now a vast Smithsonian Institution complex, had been completed prior to Lincoln’s arrival for his single term in Congress. Construction began just as he arrived and was ongoing throughout his term. The East Wing of the Castle was completed about the time Lincoln left Congress, and Joseph Henry, the first Secretary of the Smithsonian, moved in with his family while construction continued. The West Wing was completed later that year (1849). The exterior took a few more years, finally being completed in 1852 while Lincoln toiled away at his legal practice back in Illinois.
Then came the Civil War and Lincoln came back to Washington as the nation’s president. Joseph Henry became an informal science adviser to Lincoln and several events and signal light tests were done in the Castle. Then tragedy struck just as the four years of horrible war came to a close – the Castle was on fire (read my account of the fire here). One tower was destroyed, along with some of Joseph Henry’s belongings and virtually all of James Smithson’s papers, instruments, and mineral collection.
On the Fourth of July a few years ago, I sat on the hillock at the foot of the Washington Monument. I had spent the day at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival and was now watching the annual fireworks display bursting across the sky between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Both structures had taken some time to complete, but now, with “bombs bursting in air” above them, it was impossible not to be inspired.
Happy 4th of July!
[Photo of Washington Monument taken by David J. Kent]
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.
His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity andEdison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
