Milmore's Civil War Memorial, the Sphinx, Unveiled at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge in August 1872

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

In August 1872, one of America's most distinctive civil war monuments was being slowly and carefully put into place on a massive pedestal in front of the chapel at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA. 

The Sphinx Monument was created by Irish immigrant sculptors Martin Milmore and his brother Joseph, who arrived in Boston in 1851 with their widowed mother and three other brothers, Patrick, Charles and James. According to records, Martin did the artwork and modeling of the Sphinx and Joseph and James did the carving. 

Martin Milmore Bust of Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879), Courtesy of Harvard University Portrait Collection 

The monument was the brainchild of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, a physician at Mass General Hospital, who helped to create Mt. Auburn Cemetery in 1830, and later became the longtime president of the Mount Auburn Cemetery Association. He was also an enthusiastic Egyptologist. 

Newspaper reports vary on the size of the granite block used to carve the Sphinx, but everyone agreed it was massive.  

The Boston Globe, which called the monument a “fabulous feminine monster,” reported that “the block of granite from which the Sphinx at Mount Auburn was made, was taken from the Quarry at Hallowell (Maine) and weighed over 70 tons. It took 20 yoke of oxen to remove it to the yard near the depot. A new and special car was constructed to convey it to Boston, where it was sculptured. It's weight, when finished, it was said, would be 25 tons.”

Later, the Cambridge Chronicle reported, “The Bigelow Sphinx, designed and executed by Martin Milmore, is now being moved from McDonald’s shop to its place of destination in front of Mount Auburn Chapel. Its weight is not far from thirty tons. The pedestal to receive it has been constructed of Hallowell granite and is six feet in breadth, nearly fifteen in length, and six in height.” 

Boston Evening Transcript, August 16, 1872

 The Boston Evening Transcript referred to the stone as “the largest and most expensive piece of granite that ever left Maine." 

The Milmore brothers favored Hallowell granite and used it other projects including the Charlestown Civil War Statue and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common. 

When Bigelow first presented the project to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery trustees in February 1871, he promised that the Sphinx would stand “as a landmark of a state of things which the world has not seen before, a great, warlike and successful nation, in the plenitude and full consciousness of its power, suddenly reversing its energies and calling back its military veterans from bloodshed and victory to resume the still familiar arts of peace and goodwill to man. What symbol can better express the attributes of a just, calm and dignified self-reliance than one which combines power with attractiveness, the strength of the line with the beauty and benignity of women?” 

Photo courtesy of Boston Irish Tourism Association

The inscription on the monument, scripted in both English and Latin, read: 

 AMERICAN UNION PRESERVED 

AFRICAN SLAVERY DESTROYED 

BY THE RISING OF A GREAT PEOPLE 

BY THE BLOOD OF FALLEN HEROES        

The Sphinx quickly became a point of popular interest with the general public. The Vermont Christian Messenger wrote on Sept 26, 1872, “It is an exquisite work of art and is the admiration of all visitors groups of whom are constantly collecting round and never seem tired of gazing at its beautiful face and fine proportions. It has added greatly to the already large monumental wealth of Mount Auburn and also to the reputation of the brothers Milmore who designed and executed it…In short it is a soldier's monument of the Grecian pattern and while viewing its massive proportions, the classical scholar might easily imagine himself in ancient Thebes by the side of the savage monster described in mythology by the Poets of that city.”

Find more information on Mt. Auburn Cemetery and the Sphinx.

Read more about the Milmore brothers and their iconic Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Boston Common.

For additional information about the history of the Irish in Boston, Massachusetts and New England, visit Irishheritagetrail.org. 

Research + Text, Michael Quinlin