Reproduced from Solomon Willard, Plans and Sections of the Obelisk on Bunker’s Hill
(Boston, 1843), Plate V
As described in the Baldwin Report, the circular winding staircase is composed of granite steps, starting with a width of about four feet and narrowing as the ascent is made. Baldwin called for “places of repose” (landings) at intervals. Modern architects call the part around which a circular staircase winds, the “newel.” Baldwin’s newel is a hallow wall, 10 feet in diameter at the base, about two feet thick.
Thus, the monument was designed by an engineer, not an architect. Baldwin violated a common rule for the proportions of ancient Egyptian obelisks, that the pyramidion should be as high as the base is wide, which is one reason why the Washington Monument is so beautiful. One regrets that architect Willard, who picked up where Baldwin left off, did not see fit to modify the Baldwin lines. There seems never to have been any question as to the monument’s material: granite, the native New England stone. Although we admire the Bunker Hill Monument for its somber strength, it cannot be called a structure of beauty, as is the lighter-tinted and finer-textured marble Washington Monument, with its sharper apex.
We can also speculate on why Baldwin made the monument wholly of granite. At today’s prices, the circular inner surface of the shaft and the circular chimney, or newel, around which the stone staircase winds, would be of tremendous cost. The dressing of the stone for a square inner area would be much cheaper.
Before criticizing Baldwin on his ponderous stair design, which could be replaced by a light, modern fire escape, we should look at the status of the tiny American iron industry of his day. The ironmasters were recovering from the decline of activity in the War of 1812, during which they had lost their British market. Baldwin would know that certain early railroad promoters estimated that granite tracks mounted with iron plates would be less expensive than the English-rolled rails, which the Americans could not produce. With masons in Massachusetts receiving about $0.18 an hour, granite was considered cheaper than iron. Baldwin therefore designed his stairway of granite, with a massive granite chimney “newel” to support the inner ends of the treads. Long before the monument was completed, however, a square staircase of either cast iron or wrought iron could have been produced, economically, by American ironmasters. It was then too late to make the change, however.
At about the time of the completion of the monument the first mechanical elevator was exhibited, but there was no room for an elevator at Bunker Hill—the newel was in the way. To climb a few score steps would be an easy task to our sturdy forebears, and to say that one has “climbed the Bunker Hill Monument” is a boast that hundreds of thousands of tourists to Boston have been proud to make for over 100 years. Baldwin may have been right again, as he usually was.
Baldwin specified that the monument should be square with the compass, a common Egyptian practice. As built, however, it is oriented to fit the redoubt (southeast corner) of the battle fortification. Structurally, Baldwin designed a sound foundation, 12 feet deep, built of six courses of stone with no small rubble that might deteriorate through the years. He specified that the starting level of the base of the monument should be established at the best elevation to avoid an uneconomical distribution of the excavated earth; today we would say that he balanced cut and fill.
The modern building contractor finds the estimate that went with the report both practical and quaint. He will find that the digging of the pit for the foundation of the monument was figured in “squares,” at $2.00 each; and since a square meant eight cubic yards, hand excavation was therefore priced at $0.25 per cubic yard. This price must have included the expense of shoring; also the pumping that such a deep pit would require. Baldwin proposed to dig a deep well on the site (today called a test pit), which would not only indicate the adequacy of the soil, but would also furnish water for construction purposes. Much water would be needed to mix the lime and sand mortar for the monument as well as for the Roman cement, for which the estimated 100 casks were figured at $7.00 each.[5]
[5] “The use of natural cement was introduced by Mr. Parker, who first discovered the properties of the cement-stone in the Isle of Sheppy, and took out a patent for the sale of it in 1796, under the name of ‘Roman Cement.’”—Edward Dobson, Rudiments of the Art of Building (London: John Weale, 1854).