A rare bronze casting of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s 1788 marble statue of George Washington looks out over Dickinson Street, one of just 26 spread around the world.Dave Canton
On the eve of his 293rd birthday, George Washington got his Springfield party Friday afternoon, as members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Mayor Domenic J. Sarno gathered at the foot of the great man to remember him and pay homage to what he wrought.
“Washington was one of our nation’s Founding Fathers and served as an officer in the Virginia Colony’s Regimental Continental Army, a delegate to the Continental Congress, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and the first President of the United States of America,” Sarno said in his proclamation naming Saturday as “George Washington Day” in Springfield. Feb. 22 is the official birthday of George Washington.
“The DAR is all about historic preservation and we have been recognizing George Washington on his birthday for the past ten years or so since we found out about his statue,” said Holly Stone Blair, a member of the Mercy Warren Chapter of the DAR, the current vice president general of the National DAR and a past Massachusetts regent.
She freely admits that up until maybe 10 years ago she had no idea that there was a statue of George Washington in Springfield, and not just any old statue but only one of 26 bronzes struck from the original marble carved by Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1788 from George Washington in life.
“There is kind of a game called, ‘Finding George,’ and one of my friends called me and said, ‘Did you know there are two Houdon bronzes of Washington in Massachusetts?,’ ” Blair said Friday afternoon. “I figured they would be in Boston, but my friend said, ‘No, one is in Lexington and the other in Springfield,’ I was dumbstruck,” she said.
Parenthetically, there is one in London, of all places, and in Lima, Peru as well. And, one in Springfield standing on Dickinson Street in front of the old Holy Name School, now an annex of Springfield High School. All six feet, two inches of the great man himself. Blair said no one knows exactly how it got here, except to say a priest, a Father McGovern, is said to have bought it and in 1932 installed it at the school. “That’s all we know,” Blair said.
In fact, Blair said friends of hers who attended Holy Name Church didn’t even realize it was Washington.
“They said they thought it was probably Jesus,” she laughed.
Houdon was perhaps the world’s most renowned sculptor in the late 18th century when Virginia wanted to commemorate Washington before he died. So, he was commissioned to make the marble statue that stands under the dome of the Virginia State House. Houdon packed up his tools and his assistants and traveled from Paris to Philadelphia to take the measure, literally, of George Washington.
Along with copious drawings and at least one clay bust, Houdon made a life-mask of Washington cast in plaster and took it back to Paris where he used it to carve the first statue from marble. It is the best representation of how the great man actually looked, according to his family.
Once installed in its Virginia home, state officials began to worry that if anything happened to that statue the world would never know the real Washington. So, in the 1850s they commissioned bronzes cast from the original marble and distributed them far and wide.
What is interesting about the statue is Washington appears in what was then contemporary clothing, his military uniform. Houdon was a renowned classical sculptor and would be expected to drape his subjects in togas and robes befitting classical Greece. Washington, it is said, told him ‘No.’ He wanted to appear as he was, a man of his time.
Under Washington’s left hand is a “fasces,” or a bundle of thirteen rods which represents the power of the ruler but also the strength found through unity. “E Pluribus Unum” — out of many, one —was the official motto of the United States until 1956.
As an 18th-century military man, George Washington would have felt undressed without his sword. It is there but not on his hip. It hangs from the outside of the fasces, just out of his reach.
As a true daughter of the Revolution, Blair said she is pleased to be able to revere the very man who won that war of independence.
“There is so much history to be enjoyed,” she said. “We will continue to recognize George Washington’s birthday here at his statue.”
Members of the Mercy Warren Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution gathered with Mayor Domenic Sarno to proclaim February 22 as George Washington Day in Springfield at the foot of his statue on Dickinson Street. (Photo courtesy Mayor Domenic Sarno)Courtesy Mayor Domenic Sarno
