Big Willie Thunder (JWB Photo, 2009) |
And this our life exempt from
public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books
in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in
every thing.
As You Like It Act 2, scene 1
Happy birthday, Big
Willie Thunder. That’s what I used to
call the greatest writer in history when I was bringing him to high school kids
back in the day. Born into a world that
was changing in huge ways with new lands over the horizon and printing presses
to spread the word, he seemed to understand everything -- man and woman, old
and young, rich and poor, humankind and the natural world -- in ways that were
not for his age but for all time.
In Chicago we have
a nice little piece of sculpture dedicated to Mr. Thunder just across the
street from the Lincoln Park zoo.
It was dedicated on
this date, April 23, 1891.
The sculpture was
the gift of a Chicagoan, Samuel Johnston, who died in October of 1886 at his
residence on Pine Street, today’s North Michigan Avenue. He was born in Cincinnati in 1833, attended
Harvard University, and came immediately after his graduation to Chicago at a
time when the city was growing from a small hamlet to the largest inland port
in the country.
Little is known
about what he did to accumulate $525,000 by the time he died although his
obituary refers to the property that he managed and the proceedings of probate
court indicate that all but $25,000 of his fortune was in real estate. He was at one time a major investor in
Chicago’s first cable car system, the Chicago Surface Railway, and for a time
served as its director. He never married
and is buried in Cincinnati.
In his will he
appointed John De Koven and William E. Furness as executors of the estate and
indicated precisely how the money was to be spent. He left, for example $10,000 for the erection
of a gate at the main entrance of the Harvard University college yard, another
$10,000 to the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum, and $50,000 to St. Luke’s Hospital in
Chicago. [Chicago Tribune, November 5, 1886]
He matched the
grant to Harvard and the orphans in Cincinnati with another $10,000 to be used
for “erection of a bronze statue of Shakespeare on a pedestal in Lincoln Park,
Chicago.” Mr. De Koven and Mr. Furness
were vigilant executors and by 1891 the statue was ready for dedication.
The sculptor was
William Ordway Partridge, who was born in Paris to American parents, both of
whom were descended from the Massachusetts Pilgrims. [http://scdb.swem.wm.edu] He left Paris as a young man for a college
education at Adelphi Academy and Columbia University in New York City, after
which he returned to Paris to study sculpture.
It was there that he formed a close friendship with Ralph Adams Cram (Think
Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and much of the campus of Richmond
University).
In 1893 eleven of
his sculptures were exhibited in the Fine Arts building (now the Museum of
Science and Industry) at the great Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. One of
those pieces was the “plaster replica of statue of Shakespeare for Lincoln
Park, Chicago.” He divuded his time
between Milton, Massachusetts and his studio on Thirty-Eighth Street in New
York. One of his assistants at the New
York studio was Lee Lawrie (Think Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago and Rockefeller
Plaza in Manhattan).
The sculptor was at
the dedication ceremony for his sculpture at which “long lines of carriages
were drawn up along the roadways, while for a radius of several hundred feet
around the pedestal was grouped a solid mass of people.”
[Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1891]
First to speak was
the Chairman of the Lincoln Park Commissioners, Franklin H. Head. His words were brief but on the mark . . .
Shakespeare was a man known
and loved by the people. Shakespeare was
the supreme poet of humanity. We grow
wise with him as he becomes known to us.
His thoughts become our thoughts, and the more we study him the more do
we find him to be one of us. I
congratulate the City of Chicago on receiving this superb creation of the
genius of man.
Cornelia Williams,
the grandniece of Samuel Johnston, then “pulled the cord that released the flag
draped round the statue and it was revealed for the first time to the expectant
hundreds.” The cheering died only when
Mr. Partridge rose to make his remarks.
His words to the crowd . . .
A sculptor speaks best in bronze and marble,
yet it may please you to know how I have put three years of work on this
statue. I cannot tell you the story of
it; it was a labor of love. The study of
Shakespeare has not been to me the study of an abstract science, but the study
of humanity. He has humanized every one
who has approached him. I find his life,
like all great lives, one of industry, conscience, imagination . . . The large
statue I worked out in Paris. I visited
England, Stratford and London . . . I left no stone unturned, I walked with the
poet, and dined in the old garden – in fact, I did my best to get at the spirit
of the man, and after all how little we can put of this man’s personality in
bronze. Whatever criticisms may be made
upon the work, believe me, I have done for you my level best.
The ceremony ended
with actor E. S. Willard reciting Algernon Swinburne’s Sonnet to England, ending with the lines
More than all deeds wrought of thy
strong
Right hand, --
This praise keeps most thy fame’s memorial
Strong,
That thou was head of all these streams of
song,
And time bows down to thee as Shakespeare’s land.
Mr.
Partridge vowed that he had done his level best. Big Willie Thunder did all that and much,
much more. And he continues to do
it. Do yourself a favor --make a friend
of a sonnet.
Not for an age but for all time (JWB Photo, 2009) |
1 comment:
What a nice history of this statue. One never knows how these statues arrive at their destinations. You make their history come alive. Thank you!
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