Boston Sculptor Martin Milmore, Born September 14, 1844 in County Sligo, Ireland

 

Martin Milmore

Sculptor Martin Milmore of Boston (1844-1883), admired for his Civil War sculptures and for his classical statuary and busts of famous men throughout New England, was born in Kilmorgan, County Sligo on September 14, 1844, the youngest of five sons of parents Martin and Sarah Milmoe (nee Hart). 

When the father died in 1851, Sarah emigrated with her five sons to Boston, where they settled in Warren Street, right off of Tremont Street near Boston Common. During this time, Irish refugees had poured into Boston, stimulating the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiments of Bostonians that stretched back to the days of the 17th century Puritans. In Boston the family changed the spelling of its name from Milmoe to Milmore, possibly to align with a popular Irishman at the time, Patrick S. Gilmore, a talented cornet player and band leader. 

The older boys became apprentices in carpentry and stonecutting, while Martin attended the nearby Martin Brimmer Grammar School on Common Street, where he was quickly recognized for his artistic talents by Headmaster Joshua Bates. He drew a crayon landscape of mountains on the blackboard that so impressed school officials that they preserved it for more than four decades. Martin then attended the Boston Latin School, graduating in 1860, and apprenticed himself to accomplished sculptor Thomas Ball, soon earning the nickname Boy Sculptor. As a teenager, Martin created several impressive busts of headmaster Bates, poet Henry W. Longfellow, Senator Charles Sumner, abolitionist Wendell Phillips and actor Edwin Booth, and in 1864, won his first major commission at age 19, to create three classical figures for the prestigious Massachusetts Horticultural Society Building on Tremont Street. 

Top left: Roxbury Civil War Soldier; Bottom left: American Sphinx, Cambridge; Top right: Framingham Civil War Soldier; Bottom Right, Charlestown Civil War Statue. 

Other commissions quickly followed over the next decade, and the Milmore studio created numerous Civil War statues across the northeast, including Roxbury, Charlestown, Fitchburg and Framingham in MA, Keane, NH, Waterbury, ME, and Eire, PA. 

Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common

Milmore’s most important work of art was the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common, which the City Council awarded to him in 1870. Shortly after winning the commission, Milmore moved to Rome, Italy for several years, immersing himself in classical traditions and working alongside a number of accomplished Italian sculptors as well as expatriate Americans, as he created the memorial and shipped them back to Boston.  The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common was unveiled on September 17, 1877 to great acclaim, and attended by 100,000 spectators. 

John Glover Statue, Boston

Other notable sculptures by Milmore included the statue of Revolutionary War hero John Glover (1875), on Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston, the bust of Senator Charles Sumner (1875) at the US Senate Chamber in Washington, and the American Sphinx Monument (1872) and Coppenhagen Monument (1874), both at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. 

In his short but prolific career, which spanned two decades, Martin worked closely with his brother Joseph, who did much of the carving and the architectural modeling, and brother James, who died suddenly in 1872.  

Death and the Sculptor Memorial to the Milmore Brothers, by Daniel French

Martin died at his home in Roxbury on July 21, 1883 at age 39 from liver disease. In his will, he set aside funds for a memorial to be sculpted in honor of his brothers James and Joseph. That memorial, called Death and the Sculptor, was assigned to fellow-sculptor Daniel French, who completed it in 1889. Death and the Sculptor is located at the entrance to Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, where the Milmore brothers and mother Sarah are buried.

Martin Milmore and his brothers were part of a generation of 19th century Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans who became notable sculptors in America, including Augustus Saint Gaudens, Launt Thompson, Thomas Crawford and William R. O'Donovan.  Read more here.

- Research and Story on Martin Milmore by Michael Quinlin