In 1873 an unknown, 23-year-old college dropout got the commission to create a monument to the Minute Man who let go of his plow to fight at North Bridge in Concord, Mass., on April 19, 1775.
The Minute Man
The 100th anniversary of the shot heard ‘round the world was only two years away. The citizens of Concord wanted to honor the farmers and tradesmen who battled professional British soldiers.
So they decided to award the commission to Daniel Chester French, who had never executed a full-size statue. They had their reasons. His father was well-connected in town, and he had taken art lessons from Louisa May Alcott’s artistic little sister May. She vouched for his talent.
Connections
Daniel Chester French, 1902.
Daniel Chester French was born April 20, 1850 in Exeter, N.H., the scion of an old and well-to-do New England family. His father, Henry Flagg French was a lawyer, judge and, later, assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary. He was also an avid horticulturist who wrote a book about farm drainage and served as the first president of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusetts) at Amherst.
In 1867, Henry Flagg French moved his family to Concord, Mass., where he befriended two neighbors: philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and writer Louisa May Alcott. Young Daniel didn’t care for school. He preferred to explore the outdoors with his good friend William Brewster, later a famed ornithologist. He liked to make figures of animals from wood, gypsum and even turnips.
Another neighbor, May Alcott, Louisa’s sister, was an artist as well as the model for Amy in Little Women. Impressed by young Daniel Chester French’s work, she encouraged him to keep at it. She also gave him drawing lessons, modeling clay and sculptor’s tools.
The Minute Man
French dropped out of MIT after a year, having flunked algebra, chemistry and physics. He then moved to New York to study with two famous artists, John Quincy Adams Ward and William Rimmer. He didn’t like city life, though, and returned home to Concord.
At 20, he arrived just in time. He was asked to submit a model for a statue of a Minute Man to commemorate the centennial of the Battles of Concord and Lexington. He got the commission in 1873, but it was an unusual one. Instead of receiving a fee, he would be reimbursed for his studio, tools and materials.
The Boston Athenaeum and the neighbors supplied models. French studied a plaster cast of the classic Roman statue Apollo Belvedere at the Athenaeum for his composition. He studied his neighbors for facial expression and realistic detail. The neighbors also supplied him with antique Minute Man clothing and a Colonial musket, powder horn and plow.
The Ames Foundry in Chicopee, Mass., cast the sculpture in bronze from confiscated Civil War cannons. They pronounced it the best casting they’d ever done. It was called ‘one of the strongest, most spirited pieces of work ever made by so young an artist.’
The statue was an instant hit. It still stands today by the Old North Bridge where 500 militiamen defeated three companies of British troops.
More Commissions
Helped by his father’s position at the Treasury, French received commissions for works on government buildings over the next 14 years. His career got a jumpstart in 1893 when he sculpted the giant Statue of the Republic for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He topped off his career with his masterpiece, the Lincoln Memorial.
Some of French’s works around New England include:
Equestrian statue of Joseph Hooker
- The statue of General Joseph Hooker in front of the Massachusetts Statehouse.
- The St. Paul’s School War Memorial, St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H.
Perkins Memorial
- Commodore George H. Perkins monument at the New Hampshire State House.
- The Melvin Memorial, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Mass.
- The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Memorial, Cambridge, Mass.
- Wendell Phillips in the Boston Public Garden.
- Head of Victory, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Mass.
George Robert White Memorial
- The George Robert White Memorial, Boston, Mass.
- The John Harvard Monument, Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Mass.
- The Spirit of Life, Paul’s Episcopal Church, Stockbridge, Mass.
- “Public Drinking Fountain” (“Chief Konkapot”), the Town Park Village Green in Lee, Mass.
Featured image: Minute_Man_Statue_Lexington_Massachusetts.jpg: w:User:Daderotderivative work: Hohum (talk) – Minute_Man_Statue_Lexington_Massachusetts.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9425447. Perkins Memorial By Marc29th (talk); cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) – I (Marc29th (talk)) created this work entirely by myself., GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16474836. This story was updated in 2022.
