Set every threadbare sail;
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!"
These stirring lines of earnest protest touched the popular heart, there was an universal outburst of indignation, and the "Constitution" was saved. The old ship was rebuilt on her original lines, only a few timbers, including the keel, being retained, and the former allegorical figure-head was replaced by one modelled in the image of Andrew Jackson, then President of the United States. This change was sanctioned by the Secretary of the Navy, although Commodore Hull, who had charge of rebuilding the ship, protested against it. The reconstructed "Constitution" was launched in 1834, and anchored, with her figure-head, but a short distance from Charlestown bridge. Politics ran high at the time, and the change caused great controversy, particularly in and around Boston. One stormy night, Captain Samuel W. Dewey, then a hardy young sailor, managed without discovery to saw off Jackson's head, and carried it away. When the mutilation was disclosed next day there was another great clamor, and so intense was the excitement that the utmost exertions were vainly made to find the man who did the daring deed. Dewey kept his secret for several weeks, but suddenly, under an unexplainable impulse, decided he would go to Washington and give the sawed-off head to President Jackson himself. He appeared before the Secretary of the Navy, and stating that he was the man who had removed the figure-head from the "Constitution," said he had brought it along to restore it, exhibiting the grim features tied up in a bandana handkerchief. The Secretary was indignant, and spoke of having him arrested, but Dewey said there was no statute that he had violated, and the Secretary, calming down finally, listened to the man's story of how he took away the head, and agreed to take it to President Jackson. He took the mutilated head over to the White House, exhibited it to Jackson, and repeated to him Dewey's story. When Jackson had heard the tale he burst out in loud laughter, and pointing at the head, said: "That is the most infernal graven image I ever saw. The fellow did perfectly right; you've got him, you say; well, give him a kick and my compliments, and tell him to saw it off again." Captain Dewey was afterwards called the "figure-head man," and was given a public dinner in Philadelphia on his return from Washington. He died at an advanced age, in 1899.
The crowning glory of Charlestown is the Bunker Hill Monument, marking the greatest historical event of Boston, the famous battle fought June 17, 1775, when the British stormed the Yankee redoubt on the hilltop north of Charles River, which was then open country, but long ago became surrounded by the buildings of the expanding city, excepting the small space of the battlefield, now reserved for a park around the monument. The granite shaft rises two hundred and twenty-one feet, upon the highest part of the eminence. The Provincial troops had assembled in large numbers north and west of Boston, mainly in Cambridge to the westward, and hearing that the British intended to occupy Bunker and Breed's Hills, in Charlestown, a force was sent under Colonel William Prescott, a veteran of the old French war, in the night, to fortify Bunker Hill. Upon crossing over, they hastily decided that it was better to occupy Breed's Hill, which, while part of the same ridge, was nearer Boston, and they constructed upon it a square redoubt. The British ships in Charles River discovered this at daylight, and began a cannonade; American reinforcements were sent from Cambridge; and in the afternoon General Gage attacked, his onslaught being three times repulsed with heavy slaughter, when, the Americans' ammunition being spent, they could only resist with clubbed muskets and stones, and had to retreat. Facing Boston, in front of the monument, the direction from which the attack came, is the bronze statue of Prescott, the broad-brimmed hat shading his earnest face, as, with deprecatory yet determined gesture, he uttered the memorable words of warning that resulted in such terrible punishment of the British storming column: "Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." The traces of the hastily constructed breastworks of the redoubt can be seen on the brow of the hill, and a stone shows where Dr. Joseph Warren fell, he being killed in the battle. He came to the fight as a volunteer, and had been made a General in the Provincial army. The top of the tall monument gives a splendid view in all directions over the harbor and suburbs of Boston, with traces of Mount Wachusett far to the westward, and on clear days a dim outline of the distant White Mountains. The corner-stone of the monument was laid by Lafayette on his American visit in 1825, and it was completed and dedicated in 1842, the oration on both occasions being delivered by Daniel Webster. One of his glowing passages thus tells the purpose of the monument:
"We come as Americans to mark a spot which must forever be dear to us and to our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the Revolution was fought. We wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from eternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. We wish that labor may look up here and be proud in the midst of its toil. We wish that in those days of disaster which, as they come upon all nations, must be expected to come upon us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, and be assured that the foundations of our national powers are still strong."
CAMBRIDGE AND HARVARD.
Various long causeways over the wide expanse of Charles River where it spreads out to form the Back Bay, and passing in front of the newly filled-in West End, lead from Boston to the academic city of Cambridge. This populous city, best known from Harvard University, is beautifully situated on a plain, has important manufacturing industries, handsome public buildings, and a large number of elegant private residences in spacious grounds ornamented with fine old trees, shrubbery and flower-gardens. Cambridge was settled soon after Boston, as the "Newe Towne," in 1630. Its Common contains the venerable "Washington Elm," over three hundred years old, under which, after the battle of Bunker Hill, General Washington assumed command, July 3, 1775, of the American army besieging Boston. Opposite the southern end of the Common are old Christ Church, built of materials sent out from England, and the First Parish Church, with a Gothic steeple, having between them the burying-ground of the old town. Of these, Oliver Wendell Holmes has written:
"Like Sentinel and Nun they keep
Their vigil on the green;