Putting George on a Pedestal

36,000-Pound Statue Offered Delicate and Dangerous Task
to Engineer With Crude Equipment of 77 Years Ago;
Raising One of Thrills Capitol Square Has Witnessed

By Charles Dimmock

February 22, 1935, was the 203rd birthday of George Washington, the man who will ever rank as the greatest character of his time and the first in the hearts of his countrymen. So much has been written about him that it would be almost impossible to write of his personality or life without repeating what has been recorded. But anything connected with his life, or associated with his name, is always interesting, especially on the anniversary of his birth.

The following story, that takes us back 116 years, when the State of Virginia planned a monument to his memory, which, even today, ranks as one of the handsomest memorials ever erected, is both interesting and new.

In the month of February, 1816, the Legislature of Virginia, applied to Bushrod Washington, a nephew of George Washington, and at that time a justice of the Supreme Court, for permission to remove the remains of his uncle to Richmond, promising to erect a suitable monument to his memory. The judge declined, on the grounds that it would be contrary to the provisions of his will. On the 22nd of February, 1817, the Virginia Legislature authorized the opening of subscriptions throughout the State to raise funds for the erection of a monument to Washington, limiting the individual subscription to $20. Many evaded the limitation by using the names of their wives and children.

The money collected was placed in the State Treasury and there it remained until 1848. On February 22, 1849 the Legislature passed a resolution that the monument should be erected in the Capitol Square in Richmond, appropriating as much as should be necessary to increase the sum of the amount subscribed to $100,000.

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On February 22, 1850 the cornerstone was laid by General Zachery Taylor, President of the United States, in the presence of civil and military associations, officials of the State, citizens and some of the foremost surviving soldiers of the Revolution. The greatest gathering that had ever assembled in Virginia up to that time. The State then invited sculptors to submit designs.

Just at that time an American sculptor, Thomas Crawford, who had been studying abroad, from the time he was a youth of 22, came back to this country to visit his home and friends. His talent had made him famous in Europe and he was recognized as destined to become one of the greatest sculptors of any age.

During his stay in this country, he read in the newspapers that Virginia had appropriated a sum of money to erect a monument to Washington in Richmond and had invited designs. He went to Boston and at once set to work and in a very short time submitted his model, which was accepted and he was commissioned to execute the work.

How long he worked on the statue is not recorded, but it was not finished until about seven years later. It was cast in Munich and when it was finished and set up, it was viewed by crowned heads and lovers of art, from all parts of Europe, and pronounced one of the greatest statues ever produced.

In 1857 the statue was boxed and ready for shipment to this country. Thomas Hicks, N. A., in his eulogy of Crawford, read before the Century Club in New York City, on January 26, 1858, said, "in such esteem was Washington" held by the workmen of the foundry and so entirely had the artist won their regard, that when it left Munich they would not allow the ordinary laborers to touch the cases in which it was packed or put it upon the conveyance, but did it all themselves, while the roads and bridges, by order of the king, were free for it to pass over. The same good fortune attended it on this side of the Atlantic, for when it reached Richmond the enthusiastic citizens drew it to its destined place in Capitol Square."

It then devolved upon the Governor to select some one who could be trusted to raise and place the huge and heavy statue upon the lofty pedestal upon which it now rests.

No one was anxious for the job, which carried with it so much responsibility, for in those days mechanical devices were very crude, and engineers had to go into the woods and select trees and construct derricks for such work and they had to calculate to a nicety the strain that they would stand--a miscalculation would result in the wreck of this superb work of art.

Captain Charles Dimmock, an honor graduate of West Point, who had been commissioned by the United States Government to go abroad to study ordnance, had served in the Army for 20 years and an intimate friend of General Robert E. Lee, was selected to do the work. He did not relish the assignment but his desire to oblige the Governor and his pride in the State induced him to undertake it, rather than have it said that no one in Virginia was competent to do the work. How he did it was told in two letters written to his son.

The first letter was written after the first day's work was done, the second after the successful completion of the work, and by a strange coincidence, on the same date that Mr. Hicks delivered his eulogy, Captain Dimmock wrote: "The work is the most magnificent in the world and Crawford is immortalized, poor fellow." He expressed briefly and feelingly his great admiration for the artist and regret that he was dead. Thomas Crawford had died in London on October 16, 1857, at the age of 54.

Following are the letters:

            Richmond, Va., January 16, 1858.

My Dear Charles:

I have gotten through my main trouble by having raised the enormous shears, a job which required the purchase of 55 tons upon the two sets of blocks and falls. The spars are 82 feet long, 24 inches across the large ends and 20 inches across the small, weighing 15 tons, being green and just taken from the water. You will understand the mechanical difficulty I had to contend with, by the rough diagram here inclosed. I have the largest derrick I could find in Richmond, 35 feet high, to help, but when I had reached its height the angle of purchase was so small that it required a strain of 55 tons to take it from the point, and just at the crisis six cogs in the main hoisting machine broke out and all hung in awful and dangerous suspense.

Judge my feeling when I tell you that I had 12 men at the machine with the spars 40 feet exactly over them. I commanded them not to leave their hold, or I would shoot them. I managed in 15 minutes to start again, when the two posts, to which the guys were fastened and upon which all depended, yielded, which we braced just in time to prevent a downfall. All this time I was surrounded by at least 2,000 people.

Then the heel ropes stretched so much that the heels overshot the holes in the shoe and had to be set back by jack screws. Finally after seven hours, from the time we commenced, the shears stood erect and then it was dark. Now, I have to raise the statue, weighing 18 tons, (21 feet high, 20 feet long and eight feet wide) but that will be easy to what I have done. I am waiting for some iron work, to brace the pedestal, when I shall, God willing, complete the operation.

This is a rough letter.

                                       Yours,

                                       C. DIMMOCK.

The second letter was as follows:

               Richmond, Va., January 26, 1858.

Dear Charles:

I have been completely successful in elevating the 18-ton statue, and now it stands firm, and for centuries, on its pedestal.

This I did surrounded by 2,000 or 3,000 witnesses, including the Governor, and, I believe all the Legislature. It was the heaviest and most delicate mechanical operation I have ever done, without the breaking of a rope yarn, or the shedding of a drop of blood.

The work is the most magnificent in the world, and Crawford is immortalized, poor fellow.

                                  Yours,               C. DIMMOCK

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Minute instruction as to how it was to be handled came with the statue and attention was called to two ring bolts, one in the front of the saddle and one in the rear. The instructions specified that the lifting gear was to be hooked in them and on no other part of the statue. Captain Dimmock examined the ring bolts and doubted their ability to stand the strain of 18 tons, so he placed an old mattress under and around the belly of the horse and over it a cinch of ropes, a safety first precaution, which he used to help to carry the load. Nothing was thought of it at the time, but about 50 years later workmen were sent up to remove the accumulation of birds' nests and clean the statue. When they came down they reported that the ring bolt in the rear of the saddle had a crack around it. An engineer went up to examine it and found that the ring bolt had started when the statue was lifted in place.

Had Captain Dimmock not used his own judgment and taken the precaution the magnificent work of art would have been wrecked and lost to posterity.