He was 22 years old, did not have an art portfolio, and was little known in the art world around Boston. He had received one month of art instruction from two separate teachers: May Alcott in Concord, Massachusetts, and John Q. A. Ward in 1870 in New York. In 1871, he took “art anatomy in connection with sculpture and painting,” from William Rimmer of Brookline for “two winters,” followed by brief instruction from William Morris Hunt. He was now twenty-one and about to be catapulted into an unexpected and illustrious career. Who was this young, inexperienced sculptor of the Minuteman statue?
Daniel Chester French was born on April 20, 1850, to Judge Henry Flagg French and Anne Richardson French in Exeter, New Hampshire. He spent his younger years in Cambridge and Amherst and moved to Concord in 1867.
Urged by his father, Daniel entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1867 for a formal education at seventeen years of age. Science, however, was not his forte—he failed chemistry, algebra, and physics and went back to work on the family farm the following summer.
His career began unheralded with the help of May Alcott (1840–1879), the sister of Louisa May Alcott. He remembers:
I had been whittling and carving things from wood and gypsum, and even from turnips, as many boys do, and as usual, ‘the family’ thought the product remarkable. My father spoke about them to Miss Alcott, as the artist of the community, and she, with her ever-ready enthusiasm, immediately offered to give me modeling clay and tools. I lost no time… in experimenting with the seductive material, although I didn’t even know how to moisten it.1
How did Daniel Chester French progress from whittling and carving with wood and turnips to creating the emboldened Minuteman statue, that of a patriot and farmer that stands heroically on the west bank of the Concord River at the North Bridge, to the iconic nineteen-foot figure of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.?
Minuteman statue
| public domainIn 1872, a Monument Committee was formed at the Concord Town meeting, tasked with determining what would be the most appropriate monument on the west bank to honor those who fought on April 19, 1775. The Centennial was three years away. Many suggestions were given, and a statue of a minuteman was chosen. It received approval. Now, how to find someone to make such a monument? The answer was to sponsor a competition.
“Daniel was reluctant to enter into competition with contemporary artists.” He had little experience. His father, Judge French, persuaded Daniel to at least try. With his father’s support, Daniel worked on a design that would best give voice to the spirit of the minutemen. He made sketches and a clay model and in 1873 took them to Mr. Keyes and Mr. Emerson of the committee. They liked what they saw and supported Daniel’s design. His sketches and clay model were presented at the town meeting in November. After much discussion, Daniel was commissioned to make a plaster study. He was allotted $500 to make the cast. However, he was to contribute free labor, materials, and any other expenses on his own. This last part of the commission was deemed fair as his skill was unknown and could be a career opportunity for him if the statue turned out well. Daniel accepted and now began his first professional assignment. A studio? He rented a room on the 3rd floor of the Studio Building in Boston. A model? He borrowed a plaster cast of Apollo Belvidere from the Boston Athenaeum and used himself in a full-length mirror for some of the more difficult views.
With an artist’s vision and insightful wisdom for a twenty-two-year-old, Daniel stopped pursuing that path. He felt that the representation of a minuteman would best tell the story by reproducing the image of one of the minutemen, not Apollo Belvidere or himself. He now began a ‘search’ to find Captain Isaac Davis of Acton, thirty years old, who gave his life, on April 19, 1775. Daniel wanted Isaac’s spirit and figure to speak to the people that would come to see the statue.
The Lincoln Memorial
| public domainWith the research support of his father, Daniel had success. The judge spent time in Acton trying to find as much information about Captain Davis as he could, especially trying to find a portrait of Davis. No portrait of Davis was found; however, his father did bring back pictures of relatives and family information that gave Daniel some idea of facial likeness. He went back to work and modeled the form of the minuteman.
For authenticity, he asked for a living model in minuteman dress. Young men in Concord volunteered. He needed a man with a strong physique to help with wrists, rugged arms and muscled forearms, the lingering fingers on the plow; a strong farmer who worked the soil. For this man, he looked to Patrick Harrington, who as a young man of twenty-three worked for the judge on their farm beginning in 1871.
Daniel finished the minuteman statue in September 1874. He wanted the historical authenticity of this statue to continue with its bronze casting. Calling upon Judge Hoar of Concord, Daniel had him use his influence to bring ten pieces of condemned cannon said to have been captured by New Englanders in the battle of Louisburg. These were shipped to the Ames Foundry in Chicopee, Massachusetts, melted down, and poured in the final casting. The statue was placed on the spot where Davis fell.
Daniel left for Europe to study in Italy before the centennial celebration in April 1875 took place and wasn’t at the dedication ceremony. He studied in Europe for several years after which he returned and opened a studio in Washington, DC, as well as working in New York City.
In 1909, Daniel sculpted Mourning Victory, which is in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, MA, a memorial to three brothers who perished in the Civil War. His most well-known sculpture is of Abraham Lincoln, nineteen feet high, in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC., finished in 1920.
Daniel Chester French died on October 7, 1931, at Chesterwood, after a brilliant career. His estate was bequeathed by his daughter to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1969 and is open to the public for tours.
NOTES 1 DCF, (June 14, 1926), Prelude to May Alcott: A Memoir by Caroline Ticknor (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1928), p. xx.
SOURCES
Harold Holzer, author of biography Monument Man The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French, Hudson, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019.
Library of Congress; April 2 ‘Today in History’
Robbins, Roland Wells, author of The Story of the Minuteman, The Country Press, Inc.
https://historicaldigression.com/2012/05/14/melvin-memorial-to-three-brothers-lost- in-civil-war/