Boston's Noted Civil War Sculptor Martin Milmore Dies at 39 on July 21,1883

Martin Milmore (1844-1993), considered one of America's most talented and consequential sculptors in the late 19th century, died at his home in Boston on July 21, 1883, at age 39.

Born in Kilmorgan, County Sligo on September 14, 1844, he was the youngest of five brothers born to Martin Milmoe and Sarah Hart.  When the father died, Sarah and her five sons emigrated to Boston in 1851, where Sara's sister Ann was living.  They lived on Warren Street in the South End before moving to Hammond Street in Roxbury. 

Martin showed an early inclination for art at the Martin Brimmer School on Common Street, where he was encouraged by his teachers and by Headmaster Joshua Bates.  It was here that one of Martin's teachers seemingly encouraged the family to change its name from Milmoe to Milmore, to align more closely with a popular Boston musician and bandleader at the time, Patrick S. Gilmore.

After grammar school Martin attended Boston Latin School, graduating in 1860.  He was then taken on as an apprentice by Boston's famed sculptor Thomas Ball, who was then working on the George Washington statue in the Public Garden.  

As a teenager Martin created a number of drawings and busts that astonished his teachers and mentors, and in 1864, the year he turned 20, he received a major commission to create giant statues of three Roman goddesses, Ceres, Pomona, and Flora, atop the Mass Horticultural Building.

Other commissions quickly followed, including busts of notable Bostonians including Senator Charles Sumner, abolitionist Wendell Phillips, Governor John Andrew, poet Henry Longfellow and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson.

After the Civil War, Martin and his brothers Joseph and James, worked closely together, with Martin doing the clay modeling and Joseph and James carving the granite or marble.  Together they created dozens of Civil War monuments placed in towns across the region, starting with the Roxbury Civil War Monument in 1868, and the Charlestown Civil War Monument, and a variety of similar monuments in Woburn, Fitchburg, Framingham and various other towns in New England and Pennsylvania.  

He and his brother Joseph were also commissioned by Dr. Jacob Bigelow of Mass General, an enthusiastic Egyptologist, to create the iconic Sphinx Monument, a tribute to the Civil War dead that was unveiled at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge in August, 1872.  The monument was immediately popular and gained "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," wrote the Vermont Christian Messenger. 

Milmore's most famous work is the  Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common, which he was commissioned to create after beating out a dozen other sculptors of note.  In order to complete this massive project, Milmore moved to Rome in 1872 and spent nearly five years working on the monument, which was unveiled on September 17, 1877. At the time and still today, it is considered one of the premier Civil War monuments in the nation.

Other notable monuments created by the Milmore brothers include the Colonel John Glover statue on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, the Weeping Lion at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and the Maria Frances Coppenhagen statue at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. 

Following his death in 1883 from liver disease, Martin's will set aside funds for a Memorial at Forest Hills Cemetery for his family.  The Milmore Memorial was created by Concord sculptor Daniel French, a friend and colleague of the Milmores during their brief but shining careers.  

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common is part of the city's Irish Heritage Trail.

ⓒ Research + Text, Michael Quinlin