Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/179

 OUR NATION'S VALHALLA.

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��oneach side, drapes nearly to the ankles.

INDEPENDENCE.

We have passed around the hall and come to the last by the entrance. Massachusetts' Samuel Adams, who has been called "The Father of the Revolution." Standing with folded arms, the right hand under the left elbow clinching a short roll so closely that the ends are tunnel shaped, in the act of protesting against the soldiery in Boston, March 6, 1770. "Night is approaching, an immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none," is inscribed on the east face of the base. Both figure and face are instinct with intense but repressed emotion and sublime resolution. The calm eyes are caverned under the upright high dome of forehead; theprotuber- ent nose ; the lower lip thrown out. How grandly a woman — for the artist is Anne Whitney — has caught and fix- ed the spirit of the hour ! The hair a little thrown up on top is parted each side, covers the ears, rolls under and ties behind with a very nice bow. The costume, that of the times, a wide collar turns over the cravat tied in a bow-knot ; long close-buttoned vest with wide covers to the pockets, and cut off corners, the left wrist shows the full undersleeve gathered into a ruffled band ; the long strait coat with wide — three inch — button holes on each side ; breeches with five buttons ; square buckle on the garter, and high instep- ped, low-heeled buckled shoes. In relief on the left the claw foot of a low stand is seen, over which falls the mantle. The face of the base bears the name, the west side, "Presented by Massa- chusetts, 1S76," and on the back the artist's name. Samuel Adams, a cousin of the second president of the Repub- lic, was born in Boston September 22, 1722 ; died October 2, 1803.

New Hampshire is the only New England state without representation in the National Hall of Statuary, and as yet she has taken no action tend- ing toward such honor. She has

��enough sons worthy of the tribute, and the difficulty of selection may be the reason of the neglect ; but so many of them found recognition elsewhere, that their names are inseparably entwin- ed with the fame of their adopted states. Wm. Pitt Fessenden, Henry Wilson, Horace Greeley, Lewis Cass, Salmon P. Chase, James Grimes, Zach. Chandler, and John A. Dix ; who thinks of either as a New Hampshire man. They were upbuilders of states other than that of their birth : yet giving all these away she has sons of fame. Who shall she select ? In asking the question of some scores of people — natives of our state, — scarce- ly one has failed to offer the name of Daniel Webster — for the other no two agree — the range extending from Martin Pring, the discoverer in 1603, and Capt. John Smith, 16 14, to Dudley Leavitt, almanac maker, John P. Hale and Nathaniel White. It may be said Massachusetts could claim Webster, but his service to the nation as the great expounder of the Constitution far outweighs any such claim, and he retained his ancestral patrimony and yearly visited his native hills. Frank- lin Pierce filled the highest office in the nation ; but there is no need to select him, as probably ere long the new White House of the future, or some better place, will gather the statues of all the presidents in one group. Who? a son of the soil we say, though neither Winthrop, Roger Williams, Roger Sherman, or Ethan Allen, were born in the states that honor them.

We have Meshech Weare, first presi- dent of the state under the constitu- tion of 1 7S4 ; Josiah Bartlett, first governor under that of 1792 ; Matthew Thornton, president of the convention formed on the withdrawal of the royal governor Wentworth, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, whose life's history is given in his epitaph "the honest man"; or farther back, Cutt.the first provincial governor, 1680. Were it a picture, it might be the re- moval of the powder from Fort Inde-

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