Article

Bunker Hill: Construction of the Monument

photo of granite blocks. Some of the blocks are overlayed with a historic image of a partly constructed obelisk and soldiers marching at its base.

This article is part of the online feature "Bunker Hill Memory."


On June 17, 1825— the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill— the Marquis de Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. Over the next eighteen years, the building of the Monument progressed slowly. In 1843, construction finally finished, and Senator Daniel Webster dedicated the Monument.

The members of the Bunker Hill Monument Association (BHMA), who championed the Monument’s construction, had their own ideas about what it represented. They wanted a symbol that would "proclaim the magnitude and importance of [the Battle of Bunker Hill] to every class and every age."1 This interpretation of the Monument's meaning has remained prominent today.

Even at the time of construction, not everyone agreed on this one meaning. Some veterans, whom the Monument supposedly honored, rejected it. They felt the energy and money spent on its construction would be better used to support veterans. Other activists cited unfulfilled promises of the Revolution in their critiques.

These differences signaled the beginning of tensions surrounding the Battle’s commemoration. Even today, the Monument continues to have different meanings for everyone who interacts with it.

Explore the perspectives and voices of community members reacting to the construction of the Monument. What assumptions do you bring when visiting or thinking about the Bunker Hill Monument?


Major Caleb Stark

A statue of a young person in colonial attire carrying a musket and in mid-stride.

Bunker Hill Monument Association

1820s Membership Certificate for the Bunker Hill Monument Association.

Seth Luther

Title page of Seth Luther's "An Adress to the Working Men of New England"

Fanny Appleton

drawing of Freeman's Quickstep Bunker Hill

Footnotes

Daniel Webster, “Webster’s First Oration on the Bunker Hill Monument,” June 17, 1825, in Webster’s First Bunker Hill Oration June 17, 1825 with Introduction, List of Masterpieces and Notes, edited by Alexander S. Twombly (New York, Boston, & Chicago: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1897), https://archive.org/details/danielwebstersfi01webs/mode/2up, 35.


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Last updated: May 21, 2024