It didn’t take long for the Battle of Bunker Hill to be memorialized in the hearts of Americans. The famous conflict of June 17, 1775 almost instantly earned a special place in revolutionary lore.
Although the first major battle of the American Revolution was considered a British victory, it was not the final crushing blow to the rebellion that the regulars hoped it would be. Instead, their plan to commandeer the heights of the Charlestown peninsula was leaked to the Massachusetts Provincial government. When the British arrived, approximately 1,000 Yankee soldiers were awaiting them. Although those American forces eventually ran out of ammunition and retreated, the British lost several key officers and sustained nearly twice as many casualties as their rivals. It was a sobering moment for the British, but it steeled the American resolve to pursue revolution.
It was common for Americans to visit the Bunker Hill Battlefield in the years following the war. A small wooden monument placed there by King Solomon’s Lodge honored Dr. Joseph Warren, who became a martyr for the revolutionary cause when he perished during the third and final British assault of the day. Warren was also memorialized in works of art, such as John Trumbull’s painting, The Death of General Warren, and the Battle of Bunker Hill was cited as a grave injustice to the colonies in Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet, Common Sense.
In the early 1820s, word got out that the battlefield’s owners were considering selling the land for development. The Bunker Hill Monument Association (BHMA) formed in response and purchased fifteen acres of the battlefield in 1825.
The BHMA sponsored a competition to find the design for their monument. The winning submission came from twenty-two-year-old Horatio Greenough of Boston, who was inspired by the Egyptian obelisk style of the Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. Despite laying the cornerstone on the battle’s 50th anniversary during a grand ceremony led by the Marquis de Lafayette and Daniel Webster, it would take seventeen years for Greenough’s design to come to fruition.
The construction of the monument was an enormous undertaking. The BHMA tapped well known architects, engineers, and stone masons including Solomon Willard, Alexander Parris, Loammi Baldwin Jr., Gridley Bryant, and James S. Savage to lead the project. To supply the granite for the 221-foot obelisk, the BHMA purchased a quarry in nearby Quincy, Massachusetts that was connected to the Neponset River by a three-mile railroad. A rope and pulley system, powered by horse (and later by steam engine), helped workers hoist the 3,000 granite blocks that would make up the monument. After nineteen months, work came to an abrupt halt in December of 1828 as the BHMA ran out of funds. This would prove an ongoing challenge for the BHMA throughout the following decade.
In an effort to keep the project afloat, the BHMA sold off ten acres of the battlefield in 1839. It was’t enough. Fundraising efforts continued while the engineers considered reducing the height of the monument. Sarah Josepha Hale, a women’s rights advocate and magazine editor, disliked that compromise. Hale suggested a week-long “Ladies’ Fair” at Quincy Market, where women would sell craft items to raise money. The women collected a whopping $33,3035 for the monument and with an additional $80,000 in private donations, work resumed in May of 1841.
The pyramid-shaped capstone was laid on July 23, 1842 and a “great monumental celebration” was planned for June 17th the following year. Daniel Webster dedicated the obelisk in front of an audience of approximately 100,000 people, including President John Tyler, thirteen survivors of the battle, and ninety other veterans. The Bunker Hill Monument was the tallest structure in the United States until the Washington Monument, more than twice its height, was completed in 1880.
Forty-six years later, the City of Boston installed four bronze tablets a few blocks from the monument that list the names of those Provincial militia members killed in the battle. Ownership of the Bunker Hill Monument transferred to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1919 and then to the National Park Service in 1975, becoming a unit of the newly established Boston National Historical Park. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
Today the Bunker Hill Monument is one of the top tourist attractions in Greater Boston, and one of the most iconic Revolutionary War monuments in the nation. Much like the Battle of Bunker Hill itself, this recognizable hilltop spire has come to symbolize the steadfast resolve and sacrifice that come with building something new.