Three Statues of Dr. Joseph Warren
Are you familiar with a statue anywhere in Boston (or anywhere for that matter) of Dr. Warren? HE is the one who should have multiple statues!Wikipedia counts three public statues of Dr. Joseph Warren. The oldest is a marble carving inside the lodge beside the Bunker Hill Monument. The sculptor was Cambridge artist Henry Dexter (1806-1876), and his work was dedicated in 1857. (Dexter licensed a Charlestown man to sell busts based on this sculpture, so there might be more of those all over.) The photo at right comes from Warren Cabinets, and an older image is in the Boston Public Library’s Flickr collection.
Another full-length statue is in Warren, Pennsylvania, named after the doctor in 1795. This bronze statue went up in 1910, and I can’t find a name for the artist. The local D.A.R. refurbished the statue recently. The third Warren statue is now standing on the grounds of the Roxbury Latin School, a fact which has produced a tiny controversy. Warren grew up in Roxbury, went to the town school, and taught there for a brief time after college. The present-day academy traces its roots from that town school.
Roxbury became part of Boston in 1868, and in 1904 the city installed this bronze statue of Dr. Warren in Warren Square, along Warren Street, in front of the Warren Hotel. (You sense a theme, no?) The sculptor was Paul Wayland Bartlett (1865-1925). As historic images at Black Connections show, it stood on a tall platform in the middle of a traffic island.
As with so many questions in Boston, this also involves neighborhoods. Roxbury Latin School is located in West Roxbury. Back in Warren’s day, that was part of the town of Roxbury, though not the part he lived in. West Roxbury split from Roxbury in 1851, then joined with Boston in 1874. So the statue remains within the bounds of the city, and even within the bounds of what used to be Roxbury, but not in what we now call Roxbury.
Boston’s statue of Dr. Warren is apparently well cared for, but it’s not easy for the public to see it, much less stumble across it and learn about him. In 2011, the Boston Globe editorialized about the need to find a proper public place for Warren’s statue.
TOMORROW: But where would it go?
9 comments:
I agree. There should be a statue in downtown Boston for Warren. He doesn't get as much credit as he should, probably because he died so young. He did far more than others did who names are more well known, like John Hancock.
Thank you for sharing. As one of my favorite historical figures, I definitely sought out the Warren statue in the Bunker Hill memorial last year when I was able to make my first trip to Boston. Next time I go I'll have to find a way out to Roxbury.
E. J. Witek of the Dr. Benjamin Church blog alerted me to the (historically inaccurate) relief of Warren and Col. William Prescott on the doors of the U.S. Senate chamber.
....there's a Dr. Benjamin Church blog? Is it sponsored by the Spy Museum?
Check it out. Lots of original research.
Surprising that neither Warren MA nor Warren ME has a statue of their namesake.
I just subscribed to the Dr. Church feed blog. Thanks for the recommendation, JL!
...as for Warren, MA not having a statute, Warren was originally called "Western" and changed the name in the 1830's to help avoid confusion with "Weston" Mass. The town did take Dr. Warren's name as an honor to him.
All the Warren statues (and there’s another one now, at his gravesite) were made after the 1830s, so there’s still time for Warren, Massachusetts and Maine, to commission one.
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