Matrix of Liberty: The National Monument to the Forefathers

The lesser-known National Monument to the Forefathers, in Plymouth Mass. Public Domain

Some sculptures that celebrate America’s past are well known to most of us. The Washington Monument, that obelisk shooting up 500 feet above our nation’s capital, is one of these. The Lincoln Memorial appears on the $5 bill and the penny. Movies ranging from “Planet of the Apes” to “Splash” have showcased New York’s Statue of Liberty, and the dramatic Marine Corps War Memorial is a military icon. Above South Dakota’s Black Hills rises Mount Rushmore with its massive figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Hundreds of other lesser-known statues dot the American landscape, telling their stories of the past in bronze or stone to passersby. Some of these qualify as works of art, yet they lack the grandeur, the drama, or the charisma of meaning to imprint themselves on the national consciousness. In some cases, such as South Dakota’s Crazy Horse Memorial, location may hinder a sculpture’s popularity.

Perhaps that last circumstance explains why the National Monument to the Forefathers, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is unfamiliar to many Americans.

The Designer

Portrait of the sculptor Hammatt Billings. Public Domain

Though largely forgotten today, in his time, Bostonian Hammatt Billings (1818–74) was a renowned and prolific architect and artist. Among other projects, he designed the vestibule to the Boston Athenaeum, the Tremont Methodist Episcopal Church, and the colossal 400-room College Hall, in which the entire community of Wellesley College was housed for years. His many illustrations appeared in books like John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Poems” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys,” and in magazines like Gleason’s Pictorial.

Most famous of these were his drawings for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” When that novel appeared during the 1852 Christmas season, seven of Billings’s illustrations decorated its pages. Once the book proved a smashing success, the publisher commissioned the talented Billings to draw 117 new pictures for Stowe’s story of slavery.

But of all his works, the National Monument to the Forefathers, dubbed The Pilgrims’ Monument at the time, remains the greatest of Billings’s achievements. In 1855, the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth made public its intentions to erect a Forefathers monument, and Billings won the competition, in part by promising to raise the money for the project.

A Long Time Coming

Billings’s original design for this piece was extravagant—a 153-foot monument topped by a statue of Faith and buttressed below by four figures representing Morality, Law, Education, and Liberty. Though the original contract called for a completion time of 12 years, meeting this deadline soon became impossible. The demands of the Civil War interfered with construction, as did erratic fundraising and postwar inflation.

To help cut costs, Billings successfully negotiated with the Pilgrim Society to reduce the monument’s height to 81 feet. When Billings died shortly after this compromise, his brother Joseph supervised sculptors and craftsmen, but funding and finding artists remained a problem. Only in 1889 was the project completed.

Tucked away in a residential neighborhood and facing toward Plymouth Harbor, the National Monument to the Forefathers is the tallest solid granite monument in the United States, but its unique attributes only begin there.

A Credo in Granite

In his 2011 documentary “Monumental” and in his recently released book “Born to Be Brave: How to Be Part of America’s Spiritual Comeback,” actor, film producer, and writer Kirk Cameron points our attention to Billings’s sculpture and its important message for all Americans. Cameron is guided in his exploration by historian and theologian Marshall Foster, who calls the monument a matrix of liberty. A 2021 article, “America’s Covenant of Liberty and the Forefather’s Monument” is also an excellent source of information for this landmark.

A closer look at Faith. Dsdugan/CC BY-SA 4.0

The imposing figure of a robed woman at the top of the monument, Faith, has her right hand raised toward heaven while her left holds the Bible. Seated in chairs on the granite buttresses below Faith are representations of Morality, Education, Law, and Liberty. Morality is the only figure without eyes, representing internal contemplation of the heart. She holds the Ten Commandments in her left hand and the scroll of Revelation in her right. Below her are statues of an Evangelist and a Prophet, figures again stressing the connections between Morality and religious faith.

Law represents civil authority, holding a legal codex and extending the right hand toward the viewer as if to say, “Come and see.” The panels beneath Law display the smaller figures of Justice and Mercy, the consequences of a morality based on the principles of faith and liberty.

Law is seated holding what appears to be a book of laws. Dsdugan/CC BY-SA 4.0

Education is a portrait in stone honoring the freedom to teach our children virtue. Education holds an open book her lap and, on her head, wears a laurel wreath of victory. With her are panels depicting Youth and Wisdom. Youth offers a particularly striking image: a mother gripping a book in her left hand while holding her child’s hand in her right and looking down with love on him. The bearded, much older figure, Wisdom holds the Bible and points Youth toward the morality taught in that book.

A profile of Education. Below her on the side panel is Youth, showing a child holding hands with his mother. Dsdugan/CC BY-SA 4.0

The fruit of this combination of virtues is Liberty, or “Liberty Man,” as Marshall Foster calls him with a smile. Here is a muscular hero with an open and noble look to him. His left hand holds a broken chain, representative of the bonds he has escaped, while the lion’s skin draped about him signals his freedom from a tyrant. His right hand holds a sheathed sword, to be drawn whenever liberty is threatened. The side panels for this protector and warrior are Tyranny and Peace.

More Messages From the Monument

Four bas-relief panels depict specific events in the story of the Pilgrims. “Embarcation” gives us the image of the Pilgrims departing from England. Beneath Law, viewers find the “Treaty” bas-relief, hailing the agreement reached by the Pilgrims and some members of the Wampanoag tribe. “Compact” refers to the Mayflower Compact, to which Education is linked, and Liberty is matched up with “Landing,” showing the moment the Pilgrims stepped onto Plymouth Rock.

Two other panels display the names of the Pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower.

This panel lists some of the passengers on the Mayflower. Dsdugan/CC BY-SA 4.0

On a rear panel are words only recently added, taken from William Bradford’s account of the colony “Of Plymouth Plantation”:

“Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation; let the glorious name of Jehovah have all praise.”

The Statues Are Speaking to Us

The greatest of American sculptures not only honor past people and deeds but also deliver important messages to present and future generations. The Statue of Liberty, for instance, welcomes legal immigrants to the United States, but her torch of liberty serves to remind all citizens that we must keep that flame alive. The Marine Corps War Memorial honors valor on the battlefield, but it also asks us to keep the American flag aloft and flying.

The National Monument to the American Forefathers, sometimes called more simply the “Faith Monument,” contains all the touchstones associated with the success and goodness of our republic. Here, if you will, are America’s most sacred principles embedded in granite.

The National Monument to the Forefathers and its surrounding park. Raime/CC BY-SA 3.0

At the 1889 dedication of the monument, Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge reinforced the monument’s message with these words:

“In the name of the Fathers we dedicate this monument and ourselves. For ages it will stand the enduring witness to grave and resolute conduct; to privations and sacrifices; to thrift and frugality; to domestic love and unaffected piety; to rectitude in thought as well as in life; to earnest principles and true beliefs; to Christian fidelity and faith ... here and now we rededicate ourselves to a more fervent love for man as man; to a braver allegiance to truth for truth’s sake, and this ‘in the name of God’ and Amen and Amen!”

Born in England, artist John Pototschnik came to the United States as a young boy. In his 2016 blogpost “The Greatest Monument in America?” he pays similar homage both to his adopted country and to the Faith Monument:

“A memorial is at its best when it is beautifully executed and expresses a great truth. ... I think the National Monument to the Forefathers in Plymouth, MA is one such memorial. I went to Plymouth several years ago for the sole purpose of seeing this monument. It brought me to tears. It powerfully represents core beliefs of our nation’s founders and is also beautifully executed.”

After citing Breckinridge’s quote, Pototschnik then writes:

“Thanks to the brilliant work of artist Hammatt Billings, architect, sculptor, painter, and illustrator, he gave form and substance to a belief, a truth which I believe America has carelessly abandoned. For those that care, this memorial convicts us daily of our forsaking of the truth.”

If we agree, then we might parrot Breckinridge and say: “Amen and Amen.” We might also consider the National Monument to the Forefathers a wake-up call to begin abiding in truth, faith, morality, and liberty.

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