Read Ebook: Of Yankee granite by Cameron Edward Herbert Lawrence John Silsbee Author Of Introduction Etc

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On Saturday, 17 June 1775, on a fortified hilltop farm near Bunker's Hill, Charlestown, Mass., a volunteer force of American citizens faced the professional soldiery of the world's strongest nation. When their scant supply of ammunition gave out, the survivors retired in good order, to learn later that 140 of their neighbors and other companions had been killed in the fight. Their battle is therefore registered as an American defeat. It proved to be a striking victory, however, for historians agree that the Battle of Bunker Hill set the pace that led to ultimate victory in the American War of Independence. This little force of farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, and professional men had demonstrated how Americans should fight, when their independence is threatened.

On the field where the battle was fought, the Bunker Hill Monument has now stood for over a century, the rugged lines of its granite masonry symbolizing the enduring strength of the stern spirit of American independence that it commemorates.

About 40 years after the Battle of Bunker Hill, all New England was deeply stirred by a pamphlet published by Major General Henry Dearborn who had taken part in the engagement. The pamphlet accused General Israel Putnam, one of the most revered of the Revolutionary heroes, of incapacity and cowardice in the battle. Thereupon, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought over and over again, at the wharves, sail lofts and ropewalks of Boston, and in all places where men gathered to work and to talk about the events of the day. Crowded nine inside and five on top of the jolting four-in-hand stagecoaches from Boston, friends and foes of the popular Revolutionary hero would wrangle over his conduct at the battle. It would be a long argument, at five miles per hour, with little room for gestures. With tankards in hand, by the warm fireplace in the low-ceilinged tavern of the village where the coach would stop for the night, the passengers could express their convictions more forcefully, and the Battle of Bunker Hill would become a very live topic indeed. The furor over the Putnam-Dearborn controversy became secondary, however, as the bald fact was realized that, aside from a small wooden column, no memorial existed on the site of one of the most famous military engagements of American history.

In the good Yankee fashion a group of prominent citizens conferred over their Madeira wine and coffee on ways to correct this humiliating situation, and in the year 1823, these men formed the Bunker Hill Monument Association, to solicit private contributions sufficient to build a monument on Breed's Hill, where the battle had been fought, in the town of Charlestown, now a part of the city of Boston, Mass.

From the start, the site of the battle seems to have been called Bunker Hill, although it was actually fought on Breed's Hill. The probable reason for this inaccuracy is that Bunker's Hill was then 110 feet high, and the adjacent 62-foot-high Breed's Hill was considered only a spur of the higher summit. Certainly, a contemporary British military map is entitled, "A Plan of the Action at Bunker's Hill."

Unlike the Washington Monument, which had to be completed by government funds, the Bunker Hill Monument was financed practically wholly by private means. Our independent ancestors did not count much on government aid in the building of a memorial to relatives or neighbors who had died in the battle; such monuments were personal matters. Of the total collected amount of about 4,000, only ,000--a grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--came from other than private contributions. Aside from two donations of ,000 each, the individual gifts ranged from a few at ,000 to many at [CO].25 each. Naturally, such a scheme of financing took a long time, and 18 years elapsed before the monument was dedicated. At a critical period, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association, started by Paul Revere and others, years earlier, joined with the Bunker Hill Monument Association to raise funds and help direct operations. At a still more critical period, the women of New England held a fair which brought in over ,000, and the completion of the monument was assured.

Surely, the record of no other national memorial provides such a true cross section of American democracy as exhibited in the roster of the rich, those of moderate means, and the poor but independent citizens whose contributions made possible construction of the monument.

The magnitude of American structures of the year 1825, when the cornerstone of the monument was laid, was largely limited by the physical strength of those who had to build them--men, horses, and oxen. To raise the huge stones of the monument to such dizzy heights was a tremendous undertaking with the crude construction methods of the day. The builders of the monument had much to inspire them to devise better methods, however, in the examples of other enterprises in this virile period of American development. Steam navigation had already made notable progress in America, and while the lower courses of the monument were being laid, the first steam locomotives began to appear on the young American railroads. Canals, waterpower developments, and many new industries were being started in the young democracy.

A great contribution of the builders of the monument to the record of achievements of this period was their demand for granite in huge quantities to build it. This demand inspired the construction of the Granite Railway at Quincy, Mass.--America's first railroad.

The story of the promotion, design, and construction of the monument is therefore doubly intriguing. It gives a vivid picture of the status of construction methods of the period, when America stood on the threshold of the age of machinery. It also reveals the spirit of audacious determination of our construction forebears as they developed their unprecedented processes from which our present marvelously efficient methods of construction have sprung. The spirit of the builders of the monument is worthy of that of the heroes of the battle, which their masterpiece has now commemorated for over a century.

Few modern architects, engineers, or contractors are privileged to work in such distinguished company as did architect Solomon Willard, engineers Loammi Baldwin and Gridley Bryant, and contractor James Sullivan Savage, who designed and built the obelisk which is called the Bunker Hill Monument. They were associated with Daniel Webster and young Edward Everett, both of whom later became Secretary of State; with Thomas Handasyd Perkins , merchant prince of Boston, with the famous artists, Washington Allston and Gilbert Stuart; and their monument followed the classic lines of the model submitted by Horatio Greenough, a Harvard student, who later became a noted American sculptor.

To the amazingly talented architects and engineers of Egypt, 50 centuries ago, the Bunker Hill Monument would have been a simple structure to design and construct. To these ancient builders, it would have appeared to be merely a somewhat stubby shaft, devoid of the beautiful, deeply carved hieroglyphic record which ornamented their own obelisks from base to pyramidion , and it would be a simple thing to erect. In fact, some would say that the monument is really not an obelisk, for it is built of many stones of a few tons weight each, whereas a single stone composed a typical Egyptian obelisk. Such stones sometimes weighed as much as 500 tons. They were transported hundreds of miles and by some now unknown method were erected to the vertical position by manual labor.

Like the Egyptians, the modern engineer would also call the monument easy to design and build. Today's light, thin-walled chimneys of comparable height, pose much harder problems of stability against wind, and their designers feel fortunate when a chimney can rest on as firm a foundation as the glacial drumlin soil of Breed's Hill. Why, then, was the erection of the monument considered such an unusual feat at the time?

The answer is obvious: the monument was built in the days of hand labor supplemented by animal power, and hand labor to the independent Boston mechanic of over a century ago did not mean hundreds of slaves tugging in unison to the drumbeat of an Egyptian timer, while an overseer cracked his whip. And the builders had determined to construct their monument of one of the hardest of building stones--New England granite--in the use of which there was then little precedent.

When the Bunker Hill Monument Association offered a prize of 0 for the best design of a monument, many plans, mostly of columns, were submitted. The Board of Artists of the Association , who had to pass upon the submitted designs, favored the Greenough model based on an Egyptian obelisk of ancient Thebes. Although the directors had strongly favored a column, they yielded to the judgment of the Board of Artists and adopted the obelisk design instead.

Upon the adoption of the successful design, a committee, of which Loammi Baldwin was chairman, was appointed to "report a design of an obelisk." Baldwin was a Harvard graduate, who had studied abroad under the patronage of Count Rumford. He had become one of America's most prominent engineers. Baldwin was responsible for the construction of the dry docks at the Charlestown and Norfolk Navy Yards; planned a canal tunnel through the Hoosac Mountain; and was active in surveys for an adequate water supply for Boston, in the day when Boston people got their water from wells. Baldwin and his associates on the committee first went to the Boston and Roxbury Milldam , from which the monument would be prominently visible across the Charles River. Miniature models of different dimensions were mounted on the Milldam fence and were viewed from a definite distance to the rear. In this highly practical manner, the size of the most striking monument on distant Bunker Hill was determined.

The famous scientist, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn, Mass., who later became an English citizen, and who established the fact that heat is a form of motion.

The Baldwin Report on the design of the Bunker Hill Monument, described as neatly handwritten, was one of the valuable documents in the literature of early American engineering history. It ranks with the "Private Canal Journal" of DeWitt Clinton, who promoted the Erie Canal; the report on American railroad standards of 100 years ago by Captain George B. McClellan of Civil War fame; Roebling's report on the proposed Brooklyn Bridge; and similar historical documents that describe the methods from which the present processes of promotion and construction have sprung.

As shown in the table of dimensions which follows, the monument, almost exactly, is built to the dimensions of the Baldwin Report, which was influenced by the Greenough model.

Height, above ground 220 ft. Sides of monument, at ground level 30 ft. Sides of monument, at base of apex 15 ft. Height of apex 12 ft. Minimum wall thickness, at base 6 ft. Diameter of circular interior, at base 18 ft. Height of masonry elements: 78 main courses, each with height of 2 ft., 8 in. 5 courses in apex, each with height of 1 ft., 8 in. Height of capstone 3 ft., 6 in.

Data from old records do not always check modern measurements. For example, a modern reference gives the height of the monument as 221 feet.

As described in the Baldwin Report, the circular winding staircase is composed of granite steps, starting with a width of about four feet and narrowing as the ascent is made. Baldwin called for "places of repose" at intervals. Modern architects call the part around which a circular staircase winds, the "newel." Baldwin's newel is a hallow wall, 10 feet in diameter at the base, about two feet thick.

Thus, the monument was designed by an engineer, not an architect. Baldwin violated a common rule for the proportions of ancient Egyptian obelisks, that the pyramidion should be as high as the base is wide, which is one reason why the Washington Monument is so beautiful. One regrets that architect Willard, who picked up where Baldwin left off, did not see fit to modify the Baldwin lines. There seems never to have been any question as to the monument's material: granite, the native New England stone. Although we admire the Bunker Hill Monument for its somber strength, it cannot be called a structure of beauty, as is the lighter-tinted and finer-textured marble Washington Monument, with its sharper apex.

We can also speculate on why Baldwin made the monument wholly of granite. At today's prices, the circular inner surface of the shaft and the circular chimney, or newel, around which the stone staircase winds, would be of tremendous cost. The dressing of the stone for a square inner area would be much cheaper.

Before criticizing Baldwin on his ponderous stair design, which could be replaced by a light, modern fire escape, we should look at the status of the tiny American iron industry of his day. The ironmasters were recovering from the decline of activity in the War of 1812, during which they had lost their British market. Baldwin would know that certain early railroad promoters estimated that granite tracks mounted with iron plates would be less expensive than the English-rolled rails, which the Americans could not produce. With masons in Massachusetts receiving about [CO].18 an hour, granite was considered cheaper than iron. Baldwin therefore designed his stairway of granite, with a massive granite chimney "newel" to support the inner ends of the treads. Long before the monument was completed, however, a square staircase of either cast iron or wrought iron could have been produced, economically, by American ironmasters. It was then too late to make the change, however.

At about the time of the completion of the monument the first mechanical elevator was exhibited, but there was no room for an elevator at Bunker Hill--the newel was in the way. To climb a few score steps would be an easy task to our sturdy forebears, and to say that one has "climbed the Bunker Hill Monument" is a boast that hundreds of thousands of tourists to Boston have been proud to make for over 100 years. Baldwin may have been right again, as he usually was.

Baldwin specified that the monument should be square with the compass, a common Egyptian practice. As built, however, it is oriented to fit the redoubt of the battle fortification. Structurally, Baldwin designed a sound foundation, 12 feet deep, built of six courses of stone with no small rubble that might deteriorate through the years. He specified that the starting level of the base of the monument should be established at the best elevation to avoid an uneconomical distribution of the excavated earth; today we would say that he balanced cut and fill.

The modern building contractor finds the estimate that went with the report both practical and quaint. He will find that the digging of the pit for the foundation of the monument was figured in "squares," at .00 each; and since a square meant eight cubic yards, hand excavation was therefore priced at [CO].25 per cubic yard. This price must have included the expense of shoring; also the pumping that such a deep pit would require. Baldwin proposed to dig a deep well on the site , which would not only indicate the adequacy of the soil, but would also furnish water for construction purposes. Much water would be needed to mix the lime and sand mortar for the monument as well as for the Roman cement, for which the estimated 100 casks were figured at .00 each.

Masonry was then estimated in "perches," and by a little arithmetic, the modern contractor will learn that a perch was then equal to 25 cubic feet, or nearly a cubic yard. The 784 perches of masonry for the foundation were priced at per perch, including "stones, hammering, mortar, laying, etc."

Such computation shows that the monument is so heavy that a hurricane wind has an almost imperceptible effect on its stability. When it is subjected to a 100-mile-per-hour wind, the resultant force is displaced only a fraction of a foot from the center of the 50-foot-wide foundation. The maximum load on the soil is about five tons per square foot--a safe bearing load on "the bed of clay and gravel which composes the soil of the Hill" as described in an old account. The same account speaks of "great pains having been used in loosening the earth, and in puddling and ramming the stones." Surely, our construction ancestors would not have purposely disturbed the underlying soil, in an attempt to improve upon the natural bearing strength of one of the firmest of foundations: glacial hardpan. Like any good builder, they were undoubtedly merely puddling with water the earth backfill around the completed foundation.

Baldwin knew that granite would not deteriorate when exposed to the alternately hot and cold temperatures of Boston. Half a century later, the engineers who transported an Egyptian obelisk to Central Park, New York, learned that the lovely textured syenitic granite of the Nile Valley was markedly inferior to New England granite in weather resistance, although it had kept its surface intact for centuries in the mild climate of Egypt. To protect Cleopatra's Needle in New York, a paraffin coating was found necessary.

Baldwin soon resigned from the building committee, partly because of the press of other work, but largely in protest against a clause which made its members, all of whom freely donated their services, financially responsible for the estimate. Promptly after accepting his resignation, the directors revised this clause. In reviewing the quaint old methods, the question arises: Would modern estimates be more accurate if the consulting architects and engineers had to pay for overruns?

On 17 June 1825, the cornerstone of the monument was laid with impressive ceremonies. As the colorful procession marched up Bunker Hill to the stirring rendition of "Yankee Doodle" by the drummer of Colonel William Prescott's regiment, who, 50 years before, had been in the battle, the rear of the procession was just starting from distant Boston Common. The little Boston of over a century ago was crowded with visitors who had come from places as remote as South Carolina by stagecoach, sailing vessel, or on foot, to hear the great speech of Daniel Webster, President of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and America's first orator of the day. Years earlier, Chaplain Joseph Thaxter had paid the last offices to dying soldiers in the battle; now, he invoked God's blessing on the young American republic, as 40 veterans of the battle sat in a place of honor.

The most important visitor, of course, was General Lafayette, who, as a good Mason, spread the mortar on the stone when it was laid by Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, John Abbot. As the battle's only monument up to this date had been erected by the Masons, it was considered appropriate that the permanent monument should have its cornerstone laid with the Masonic ceremony. A little later, this procedure was sharply criticized during the Antimasonic period, which occurred before the monument was finished.

Joseph Warren, the outstanding hero of the battle, was Grand Master of Freemasons for North America.

Many of the spectators knew that the cornerstone records would later have to be moved, for the plans of the monument were hardly started. Now, the box with its old newspapers, Continental currency, and other data is within a stone at the monument's northeast corner, and the original cornerstone stands in the center of the foundation.

With his usual generosity, Daniel Webster presented the copyright of his famous speech to the Bunker Hill Monument Association. The copyright was sold for 0, which was the second largest single contribution up to that date.

Solomon Willard, architect and superintendent of the Bunker Hill Monument, developed the methods for the quarrying, dressing, transporting, and erecting the huge stones of the monument that started granite on its way to becoming a principal material for massive structures in America for half a century, until reinforced concrete took over.

It is impressive to note the universal respect for the integrity and ability of this early American architect which all the records of the monument stress. In the drama of the building of the Bunker Hill Monument, he played the leading part, and his character resembled the sturdy structure which he designed in detail and erected. During his 18 years of service in the construction of his masterpiece, the Bunker Hill Monument, he would accept no recompense except for his expenses, deeming it his duty to work without pay on such a patriotic venture. He was also a substantial contributor to the building fund.

A self-educated man, who had learned architecture with sufficient thoroughness to become a teacher in the subject, he had also become proficient in the various sciences. Starting as a carpenter, Willard had proved both his craftsmanship and artistry by becoming an adept carver of ships' figureheads and models, including a model of the Capitol at Washington.

At the time the monument was begun, Willard was one of the leading architects of Boston. Typical of an architect's versatility, he had played an important part in the change from the heating of buildings by wood-burning fireplaces and Franklin stoves, to hot-air furnaces, using either wood or coal. As an expert in furnace heat, he was called in for advice in the design of the heating system of America's most important building, when the President demanded that the national Capitol should have adequate heat.

Appointed in October, 1825, to the combined position of architect and superintendent, Willard spent the following winter on the plans, models, and computations required to develop the construction details, from the over-all dimensions of the Baldwin Report. During these preliminary steps, Willard experimented with a promising machine for dressing the stones. The selection of the Bunker Hill Quarry in Quincy, Mass., was made after Willard had made a careful search for suitable stone, in which he was said to have walked 300 miles. The right to quarry, at Quincy, sufficient granite for the monument was purchased for 5. Part of the amount to be provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was to have been supplied by the cost of the dressing of the stone by the convicts of nearby Charlestown State Prison. The convicts, however, were obviously not sufficiently independent to work on this shrine of independence, so this procedure was not adopted.

From various old American and English records of masonry construction, it is possible to construct an account of how the stones for the Bunker Hill Monument must have been quarried and dressed. The old names are used for the tools and methods, and the modern mason will find many of these old descriptions quite familiar.

The hornblende granite of the Quincy region was of very uniform texture and varies only in color, from gray to dark gray. In Quincy, Willard would find that both "sheet" and "boulder" quarry formations occurred: the joints in the ledge of the sheet areas making the granite appear as if stratified, and hence more easily removed; but the huge, rounded boulders in the other areas, measuring up to 40 feet across, had no joints. Rows of holes were drilled by hand and large blocks loosened from the ledge or boulder, probably by wedges, possibly by light blasts of gunpowder. At this stage the quarried block was called "quarry-pitched." Stone of the smaller size for the monument was split from these blocks along lines of holes in which wedges were driven. These were probably of the plug-and-feather type, in which an iron wedge with an acute angle is fitted between two semicircular iron feathers, which taper in the opposite direction to that of the wedge, and thus fit the hole drilled in the stone, nicely. Granite has no cleavage planes, like slate; but a routine of smart taps on the plugs, back and forth along the line, soon splits the stone along a fairly smooth face. Two lewises , attached at about the quarter points of the top of the stone, were used to lift it. Three members make the lewis: a flat center bar with an eye at the top, the center bar being flanked by two wedge-shaped side pieces which are thicker at the bottom of the hole, and these also have eyes at the top. The wedges are inserted first, then the center bar slipped between; thereafter any lifting pull on the three bars is bound to expand the lewis to fill the hole and lift the stone, for the hole is drilled wider at the bottom than at the top.

With Solomon Willard's well-rendered isometric drawing of each stone for a guide, the stonecutter dressed it, first selecting the best face for the "bed" and hammered it to a plane surface, determined by shallow channels cut diagonally across the stone.

From this surface, the stonecutter laid out the other faces, including the "build" , by his good mason's square or template. The texture of the visible face was "tooled," that is, the marks of the chisel remained visible. Quincy granite is a quality product, taking a high polish, but the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument desired no polish on their monument. Today, the surface of the monument shows faint, well-weathered lines, like those produced by the modern bushhammer, which has a head made of several thin steel plates bolted together, each sharpened to a cutting edge. In England during the period, flat iron bars with rough edges were in use to saw softer stone than granite, and at Quincy, Willard experimented with dressing machines. The conclusion may be drawn, however, that the stones which we now see on the monument were undoubtedly shaped to their present dimensions by hand.

Today, 110 years after its capstone was put in place, the Bunker Hill Monument stands as an impressive testimonial to the conservative judgment of its designer, Loammi Baldwin, and the painstaking fidelity of the man who supervised its construction, Solomon Willard. An engineer familiar with its maintenance states that there is no evidence of settlement, and that a check by surveyor's transit revealed no signs of misalignment. Its joints occasionally need pointing, the last pointing being performed about 20 years ago. Various iron or steel members of the observation chamber have had to be replaced. Its lightning rod has been in place for many years, but there is no readily available record to check whether the monument has ever been struck by lightning. With their empirical methods of design and their crude, mostly hand-operated, construction apparatus, our forebears built a sturdy structure, which, barring an earthquake, should last for centuries.

On 7 October 1826, the first railroad in America started operation. This was the horse-operated Granite Railway, built to transport the stones for the Bunker Hill Monument from the quarry in Quincy down to the Neponset River, a distance of nearly three miles. The track and cars of the railroad had been designed and built by a young engineer of 28, Gridley Bryant, whose Granite Railway project started him on a long career of achievement in the invention of equipment that played a major part in the rapid and successful development of the American railroad system.

Bryant later described his railroad as having stone sleepers laid across the track, 8 feet apart. Upon these, were placed wooden rails, 6 inches thick and 12 inches high . Spiked on top of these were iron plates, 3 inches wide by 1/4 inch thick. However, at road crossings, stone rails were used, with 4-inch by 1/2 -inch iron plates bolted on top. This "permanent" construction was also used on the double-track, inclined plane at the quarry. Here, an endless chain allowed the loaded, descending cars to pull up the empty ascending ones.

The standard gauge of American railroads is now 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches, measured between railheads, a standard adopted after many years of confusion before the present gauge dimension was adopted. Although Bryant described his track gauge as 5 feet, this dimension was measured between the "bearing points" of the wheels on the tracks. If the bearing points are assumed to be the center of the treads of the wheels, his gauge is found to match closely the present standard gauge. This track gauge agrees with that adopted by the famous English railroad engineer, George Stephenson, at about the same time, after he had measured scores of carts used by his farmer neighbors. Possibly, both Stephenson and Bryant knew that their selected gauge had a very early beginning; for some historians suggest that the English carts were originally made to fit the ruts cut in the roads of Britain by the Roman chariots, many centuries earlier, during the Roman occupation of Britain.

On the day when the railroad started operation, 16 tons of granite from the Bunker Hill Quarry, and loaded on three "wagons," were easily pulled by one horse, once started. Bryant's first car had flanged wheels, 6 1/2 feet in diameter, from the axles of which a platform was hung to carry the granite. This platform was lowered to receive the load and then raised by an ingenious gearing device.

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