Show an 11 C U ors A Z ag 3 I 1 all C A of gen clark mills d w i az 1 he roki na horse statue of jackson clark 4 ma P pa 42 status statue of freedom Freedo M modeled crawford craw ford cast coq mi by ELMO SCOTT WATSON ON lwe IKY call her the first lady lad y of washington and they dont wean mean the wife of the president of the united states they say she Is best known girl I 1 and they dont mean some reigning belle in capital society they speak of her ad aa uncle sams wife but that possible T i M because uncle sam Is only 1 it personification a fiction created hy by the imagination while she Is a tangible visible figure egure site she Is variously and erroneously known HS as the goddess of freedom the goddess of liberty and the indian goddess but her real name Is the statue of freedom and for 70 years she has stood atop the dome of the capitol in Wash washington lugton the statue of freedom Is the product of the efforts of two sculptors famous in their day but now almost forgotten by a generation of americans who know the names of lorado taft gutzon borglum and jo davidson better than they do those of dark clark mills and thomas crawford insofar as this article hits has most to do with mills and crawford let its consider their careers and their claims to distinction before expanding the theme of the statue of freedom mills fame rests chiefly upon his iila being the sculptor of tin first equestrian statue erected in this country the famous rocking horse statue of andrew jackson in lafeyette park near the white house in washington his having also e executed the statue of washington d depicting him at the battle of princeton which stands at twenty third street and pennsylvania avenue ills his part in giving diving to the nation the statue of freedom on top of the capitol and the fact that he was a sculptor whose only lessons were those he gave himself mills wits born in onondaga fononda a county new york december 1 1815 ills ilia parents lied died when he was live five years old and the youngster went to ills his uncles home to live non even as a cald ho he was restless and unhappy at thirteen he ran away doing odd jobs here and there as he traveled farther ond and farther from onondaga Onon dagn county lie ile worked on oil filkins he cut cedar posts in fit swamps he learned to mill lie he reached charleston S C after a great deal of traveling find and there he settled there too he learned it a new trade that appealed to film at the age of twenty he had find little schooling and less training in art and sculpturing ills education was the study of human buman nature that lie he had gathered luring during his travels and a keen interest in faces it was while working with stucco that he wondered why a cost cast could not ho made from living faced n this would assure realism and would he be inexpensive lie he on tits his friends and the ohp results were so good that lie he soon had a number of orders tills local success stirred young mills lie he must try to cut a bust in marble night after night he worked out ilia his new idea carving the features of john 0 1 I when he completed his work lie brought it to the city council and waltel laughing at himself for thinking that his untutored hands and mind would produce anything griat gri at in the council of charleston a gold medal to his bust of calhoun and appropriated money to purchase it with the money minny thus earned mills planned to go to europa Iu niia to study tits his art hut but a friend advised nil to go llast to washington and view the statuary in the capitol ilia his visit to washington became an important bent of ills hla life ile he was introduced to cavo cave johnson then postmaster general and president of the jackson monument committee who naked asked him bilm to submit a design for a bronze equestrian statue of general jackson and who assured him film that the committee would furnish the bronze which they later did in a curious historical way not having baying ever seen men general jackson or an equestrian statue of any kind mills hesitated in doubt of his own but hla his yankee enterprise came to his big rescue ile he produced a design which was acceptable to the committee and after nine months of disheartening labor lie he finally brought to the committee a miniature model of rattier rather startling originality the hind legs of the horse were brought exactly under the center of the body while his front legs pawed the air imparting both a sense of marvelous balance and motion two years were required to finish the plaster model and another year elapsed before the committee cane came forward with the bronze they got the stock by appropriating all the old cannon captured by general jackson at the battle of new orleans which were broken up and melted after many failures in balancing the horse in bronze the statue was finally finished on the thirty eighth anniversary odthe battle of new orleans in 1853 1 the statue was unveiled in the presence of a vast crowd and clark mills himself stephen A douglas master of ceremonies made oil an eloquent address and called on mills to speak but hills had never been an orator and hla his first public success awed and frightened him lie faced the audience and opened ilia mouth but words would not come 81 silently he pointed to the yelled celled statue and at his gesture instead of the awaited spoken word the veil i ell was withdrawn andrew jackson seated on his mount stood before his people there was silence then prolonged applause I 1 for mills that occasion meant nationwide fame lie he was asked to cast a statue of washington at the attic battle of princeton for the capital tte ile lid id using guns donated by congress congre vs mills spent the last years of his life making busts of prominent citizens ile he was not a publicity seeker during hla big life and after his death in IMI 1883 at the age of sixty eight his fame lessened today lie he Is virtually forgotten by that group notorious for short memory the public but if mills could not win enduring fame by his own efforts ns a sculptor he does have some reflected glory from another sculptor for his part in giving to th the nation the statue of freedom which looks down upon the country which she Is sui pulsed nosed to symbolize symbol he from tier her lofty pedestal in the capitol capital of that country that other sculptor wits ivas thomas crawford niso also a native of new york where lie was born march 22 29 2 1814 after studying in new york ile he went to italy li in n 1834 for further study and he remained in europe for cor 15 years sears upturning returning to this country in 1810 he was commissioned by the state of virginia to execute an equestrian statue of washington for the city of richmond at about tills time plans were going forward for the completion of the capitol building and president eleree placed it in charge of jefferson davis on vis who was nas secretary of war in his cabinet davis supervised the extensions and commissioned crawford then residing in itsey to execute the colossal statue which was to surmount the doine in march IS hl crawford forwarded to secretary davis photographs of the model of the statue as originally designed by him the figure of liberty in the photographs represented a fe anale crowned with a laurel wreath bearing in tier her hand n 1 hise ge olive branch the war secretary to ahe wreath and the sculptor suggested that a liberty flip cap be substituted to this davis even strenuously objected alb cadee it was the historical emblem of a freed ireca slave and ought not to be there the slavery question being then at its most moat crucial stage As finally approved by davis the model of 0 the statue bore bora a coronal of nine stars the statue originally had represented armed liberty but after the tha minor changes cli anges it was decided to call it the statue of freedom on april 1 1857 1837 crawford wrote to davis asking ashing permission to have the statue cast in bronze under his personal supervision at the royal noyal bavarian foundry in munich then the most famous foundry in the world but crawford was destined never to see his work completed for he died five months later in london on september 10 1857 1837 the price for the model had been set at and after crawfords Craw fords death his wife to complete his contracts on april 19 1858 the plaster model of the statue of freedom was loaded on the bark emily at leghorn italy and started its voyage to the united states three days from port the vessel sprung a leak at bermuda the vessel teasel was condemned and the precious statuary for the united states capitol was stored on the island tor for several months the sections of the model were shipped to america piecemeal on various boats and the last of the statuary finally arrived in washington about a year after it had started across the stormy atlantic from italy almost six years now elapsed since the commission for the statue had been given four years had bad passed since the design had been executed and many more years were fated to pass before the figure was finally cast into bronze and placed into position by this time the rumblings gs of the approaching civil war were growing louder and work on the capitol was waa suspended upon the delivery of the different sections ot of the plaster model of the statue in washington an adroit italian who worked about the capitol assembled them so skillfully that no crevices were perceptible at the joints the bolts were all firmly riveted inside and ther their location deftly concealed by the plaster covering then the model was put on a wooden pedestal and set up for exhibition purposes in the old chamber of the house of representatives the present statuary hall after remaining there for two years the model was removed remote d to the crypt the room under the rotunda of the capitol which was originally designed for thi the e tomb of george washington many years later the model was moved to the smith conlan institution and there it may be seen today in esgo the plans for casting the statue in bronze got under way and it was at this point that clark mills came into the picture ile he owned a foundry on the bladensburg road three miles from washington and he was given the contract for casting the statue but now another obstacle arose the italian workman who had assembled the sections c the model was wa directed to tako take it apart tor for the molds this he flatly refused to do unless he received a large bonus and a longtime long time contract of employment stating that he alone knew the key of its construction st tion and to attempt to separate the sections without this knowledge would mean tho the destruction of the model the situation seemed desperate but mills recalled that he owned a highly intelligent mulatto slave named philip reed who had long been employed about the foundry BS as an expert and was a extremely skillful workman reed made it critical examination of the figure and at length announced that he could solve the mystery and dismember the plaster model without damaging it 11 lie ile first inserted a pulley into an iron eye affixed to tho the head of the model then gently strained the rope until joint after joint became visible the inside bolts were then discovered scraped of plaster and carefully removed the model was again reduced to sections and sent to the mills foundry for casting soon after the casting began the civil war opened and all such work was ordered suspended but deaf to the thunder of af the guns of war mills persisted in ills his work until he had produced a perfect bronze cast of the statue this was some time in 1801 1861 or 1802 the statue was taken to the southeast corner of the capitol grounds when it remained for many months mont lis precisely at 12 11 noon on december 2 1803 the colossal figure was hoisted by the steam apparatus that had been employed in n the construction st of the dome and in 20 tal minutes it had reached its lofty pedestal in safety As soon as it was properly adjusted the american flag was unfurled over its head the statue la Is the most striking symbol in the whole country of the principle upon which tills this nation was founded it Is also an endi irIng memorial to two sculptors whose names are all but forgotten hut but should bo be remembered by their fellow americans dark clark mill 3 and thomas thomaa craword crawford 0 by newspaper voldo |