The Champlain tercentenary

by New York . Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission; Henry Wayland Hill

I. CONSTRUCTION OF MEMORIALS TO SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN

The first Report of this Commission was presented to the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York, September 19, 1911. Subsequently thereto Commissioner and Senator James A. Foley, while still an Assemblyman, introduced a bill in the Assembly designed to empower the Commission to build two suitable permanent memorials to Samuel Champlain in that valley, one at Crown Point Forts and the other at Plattsburgh. Commissioner and Senator James J. Frawley had charge of the bill in the Senate. It was also designed to extend the term of the Commission into the year 1913, long enough to complete such memorials and to dedicate them with appropriate ceremonies. That bill passed the Legislature and upon its approval by Governor Dix, it became chapter 273 of the Laws of 1912. By its terms, it imposed on the Commission the duty of submitting to the Legislature of 1913, a full and complete report of its proceedings and transactions.

On March 27, 1912, the New York Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission submitted its Financial Report to the Legislature, showing its receipts and disbursements down to March 26, 1912. These two reports of the Commission, already submitted to the Legislature, comprise all the proceedings and transactions of the Commission down to their respective dates, so that all that is necessary to do in this Final Report is to continue the record of its proceedings and transactions from such dates. This will include an account of the visit to this country of the distinguished French delegation, headed by His Excellency, Monsieur Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux in April and May, 1912,—an event exponential of the perfect amity existing between the two Republics—and also an account of the dedicatory ceremonies of the Memorial Lighthouse at Crown Point Forts, New York, on July 5, 1912, and of the Champlain memorial at Plattsburgh, New York, on July 6, 1912.

These did not admit of so extensive an historical treatment of the important events occurring in the Champlain valley, nor of so wide a range of literary productions, as did the Tercentenary exercises, a record of which may be found in the First Report of this Commission. Nevertheless, the interchange of felicitations between the representatives of France and of this country, the cordial greetings everywhere extended to the French visitors and the amicable relations existing between the two peoples, prompting the warmest expressions of good will and generous impulses in addresses of rare literary quality, together with the dedicatory ceremonies themselves, are worthy a permanent record in this Final Report, thereby enlarging it into a volume, and are a fitting sequel to the historical Tercentenary Celebration.

The Commissioners fully realized the opportunity at Crown Point Forts for the construction and embellishment of a great Memorial Lighthouse to commemorate the advent of Samuel Champlain, the herald of civilization, into that valley, and they spared no pains to accomplish that result.

After examining some American memorials to Samuel Champlain and looking over the photographs of others and especially in view of the utilitarian character of the Crown Point memorial in the form of a Lighthouse and of its adaptability to sculptural embellishment, the Commissioners decided to undertake the production of such a Memorial after a design submitted by the architects, Messrs. Dillon, McLellan & Beadel of New York City, including a bronze statue group, the work of the sculptor, Carl Augustus Heber, of New York City. For three years, Mr. Heber was in the studios of Augustus St. Gaudens and Paul Bartlett in Paris and afterward worked on the embellishments of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo under Karl Theodore Francis Bitter.

Among Heber’s more important works are the equestrian statue of General Sheridan at Somerset, Ohio; the statue of Franklin at Princeton University; the Schiller at Rochester, N. Y., the heroic statue “Roman Poet” in the Brooklyn Institute, and the bronze statue in St. Andrew’s Church at Stamford, Connecticut. He received a medal at the St. Louis Exposition for his “Pastoral” which is now in the museum of the Chicago Art Institute, and he won the Avery prize at the Architectural League in 1910.

Contracts were let to Booth Brothers and Hurricane Isle Granite Company for the construction of the Memorial Lighthouse on the property of the United States at Crown Point Forts of Fox Island granite according to the design found at pages 346-347 of the original Report of the Commission and for the bronze statue group after the Heber model, consisting of a bronze statue of Champlain with one of his soldiers crouching at his feet at one side and an Indian at the other. Just below the group is a conventionalized stone canoe prow laden with the products of the country. The work progressed as rapidly as was planned. The Fox Island granite came from the State of Maine and had to be delivered at Crown Point Forts, several miles distant from a railroad station. The memorial was practically completed on July 5, 1912, although the foundry work on the bronze statue group was not finished, but was in place before the close of navigation. The Commissioners are gratified that the entire memorial, including granite and bronze work, and architects’ fees, was completed within the contract price of approximately $51,313.83, and has been generally approved by the Governors of New York and Vermont and by all others who have passed judgment upon it. In the production of such memorials, where æsthetics must be combined with utilitarian purposes, not readily susceptible of artistic treatment, it is not to be determined a priori from plans, what the result may be and especially when so much depends upon the location and landscape surroundings, as in the case of this memorial.

The artistic features of this memorial with its group of bronze statuary, with the Rodin allegorical bust “La France” set in its granite base, with eight free standing Doric columns surrounding its central shaft, supporting a visitors’ gallery, that gives a wide outlook over the lake and above that, a lantern platform 50 feet from the ground, all surmounted by a circular capital with the garlands of the frieze binding the top together rising 73 feet above the circular terrace and 101 feet above the level of the lake and in the main after the style of the architecture prevailing in France at the time of Champlain, are rather accentuated by the grandeur of the natural scenery surrounding it, produced by the rugged Adirondacks in the west, the long expanse of undulating waters in the north, historic Chimney Point, the fertile fields, green vales and receding mountains in the east and the majestic ivy-clad ruins in the south, all under an azure vault of sky, “glorious as the gates of Heaven.” This memorial of highly artistic design with surroundings of such natural beauty and sublimity and nearly “throned among the hills” cannot fail to make an impression on the imagination and to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind, which is said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be “the end of art.”