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Showing posts from September, 2015

Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Boston Common, Cornerstone Placed on September 18th

The City of Boston laid the cornerstone for the   Civil War Sailors and Soldiers Monument   at Flagstaff Hill on Boston Common on Monday, September 18,1871. "The event was celebrated by an imposing public display.  Business was generally suspended, the streets were thronged with people drawn together from all parts of the State to honor the occasion." Among the attendees were Martin Milmore, the Irish-born sculptor who had won the commission to create the monument;  Patrick A. Collins , state senator from South Boston;  General P.R. Guiney  of the Massachusetts 9th Irish Regiment, and Gilmore's Band, led by  Patrick S. Gilmore . The following year Milmore went to Rome, Italy, where he spent the next five years working on the monument.  It was shipped back to Boston and officially unveiled on September 17, 1877. For more information, see  Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston's Colorful Irish Past .  For more on Boston's Irish history, visit   IrishHerit