Similar to the story of Louis Mieusset, the “boy in the boat” at Forest Hills Cemetery, the memorial of Grace Sherwood Allen stands as a testament to parent’s ever-lasting love of their children. “Gracie” Allen (1876-1880) was born in Boston, the only daughter of William H. and Emily Jones Allen. She died several months prior to her fifth birthday from whooping cough and was later immortalized by sculptor Sydney H. Morse, who depicted the young girl in a buttoned dress, boots and bow-tied hair. In her hand are drooping flowers, the petals of which have begun to fall, showing her life fading. The life-size white marble sculpture is covered in a bronze and glass vitrine, to protect the fragile stone from acid rain, which would stain and weather the delicate monument.
Louis Ernest Mieusset (1881-1886), just shy of his fifth birthday, died of Scarlet Fever and nephritis. His mother, Madame Louise Mieusset, took every penny she had saved for her son’s education and put it towards a commission of a funerary sculpture, depicting her late son’s playful spirit. The memorial of four-year-old Louis Mieusset is marked by a brilliant white marble figure depicting the young boy in a boat with a tennis racket in one hand and a shell in another. Marble was popular during the mid-19th century but it was understood that marble was too soft to stand up well outdoors, so it was additionally enclosed in a bronze and glass vitrine to protect it from acid rain and staining. Carved into the base, it states, “MY ONLY AND DARLING CHILD…A MOTHER’S TRIBUTE OF AFFECTION”. Madame Mieusset worked as a hat-maker in Boston, and after the death of her son, she struggled financially to support herself between frequent visits to mourn her son, even decades after his death. Louise planned to be buried next to her son, but died penniless in 1936. As she did not leave funds for burial in Forest Hills Cemetery, her body was buried in a pauper’s lot, until (legend says) Boston Mayor James Curley paid her burial expenses, funding the relocation of her body, allowing for her eternal rest with her late son Louis.
A similar monument, known as the “Girl in the Glass” is also found at Forest Hills.
Rural cemeteries are known for their beautiful grounds and winding pathways lined by sculptural monuments to the dead, and Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston is one of the best examples to stroll around and see some of the finest memorials in the country. Titled “Grief”, the Randidge Monument is located on Fir Avenue in Forest Hills Cemetery is the memorial to George and Caroline Randidge of Boston. George Randidge (1820-1890) was a merchant and tailor who died in 1890 and his widow, Caroline, appears to have funded the design and fabrication of this iconic monument. Executed in 1891 by sculptor Adolph Robert Kraus, a bronze seated figure of Grief in classical robes leans in sorrow on an inverted torch, atop the enormous granite base designed by the architectural firm of Fehmer and Page. In 1895, less than four years after the loss of her husband, Caroline Randidge joined George here and her grief was no longer.
Chesterwood is the former summer home, studio and gardens of American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931), who is best known for creating two of our nation’s most powerful symbols: the Minute Man(1871–75) at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, John Harvard in Harvard Yard, and Abraham Lincoln (1911–22) for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Daniel Chester French was one of the most successful artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, producing more than 100 works of public sculpture. In the fall of 1895, he and his wife drove by horse and buggy and discovered the resort town of Stockbridge. They returned the next summer and purchased the Marshall Warner farm from the family who had purchased the land from Mohican Native Americans. The French family and two maids moved into the white clapboard farmhouse the next summer. To ensure that his summer would be productive as well as restful, he improvised a studio in the barn. He asked his friend and colleague, architect Henry Bacon, to design a studio for him (Bacon would later work with French on the Lincoln Memorial). Soon, in spite of renovation, the original farmhouse was deemed inadequate and French commissioned Bacon to design a residence, completed in 1901. The family owned the home for decades, even after Daniel Chester French’s death. Much of the credit for Chesterwood’s preservation and metamorphosis from summer retreat to public site belongs to Margaret French Cresson (1889–1973), the sculptor’s daughter. After her parents’ death, she maintained the property and began to use it year-round, assembled the work of her father, and established the estate as a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Distinguished for its classic beauty, this small marble courthouse expresses the best of Classical tradition, in its columned portico and fine sculptures adorning it. Located at the edge of Madison Square Park, the building was constructed between 1896 and 1899 to serve as a courthouse for the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court. The marble Classically inspired Beaux-Arts courthouse, was designed by James Brown Lord and is considered to be an excellent example of the City Beautiful movement, which sought to introduce monuments and beautification to American cities. Of the nearly $650,000 spent on the building, 25 percent was spent on sculpture, a huge sum at the time. Sixteen sculptors – sponsored by the National Sculpture Society and among of the most esteemed of the day – worked on the thirty 12-foot marble statues on the facade, the most ever to work on a single building in the United States. Sculptures by Daniel Chester French, Charles Henry Niehaus, Karl Bitter, and more adorn the balustrade and entrance steps. Additionally, four caryatids sculpted by Thomas Shields Clarke on the Madison Avenue front, showcase a rare feature not typically seen in American architecture, representing the four seasons.
In 1953 a $1.2 million restoration of the facade was undertaken by the Department of Public Works during which the huge marble statues were removed and cleaned. It was at this time that the general public first realized one of the lawgivers was Mohammed. Representatives from Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia petitioned the State Department to destroy the statue rather than restore it, citing Islamic canon that forbids the depiction of human beings in painting or sculpture.When the statues were replaced in 1955, each was moved over one spot to fill in the void where Mohammed had stood. Today one empty pedestal remains.
Buildings of New England 