page_title: Monument Avenue
section_title: Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument
hierarchical_section_title: Monument Avenue / Monuments / Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument
caption_attribution_description: English: Maury Monument, Richmond, VA, USA, 1929 ,F William Sievers, sculptor, 1929
context_page_description: Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its monuments memorializing Confederate veterans of the American Civil War. Between 1900 and 1925, Monument Avenue greatly expanded with architecturally significant houses, churches and apartment buildings. Four of the bronze statues representing J. E. B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and Matthew Fontaine Maury were removed from their memorial pedestals amidst civil unrest in July 2020. Two others still retain their bronze statues: the Robert E. Lee monument dedicated in 1890 and the Arthur Ashe monument memorializing a black American tennis champion dedicated in 1996.
  In the wake of the riots that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020, the Davis monument was torn down by rioters, while the Lee monument was ordered to be removed by Governor Ralph Northam. In July 2020, Richmond mayor Levar Stoney directed removal of the remaining Confederate monuments on city-owned land including J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Matthew Fontaine Maury, the cannons marking the Richmond Defenses, and other monuments around the Richmond area.
context_section_description: The "Pathfinder of the Seas" monument of Matthew Fontaine Maury was located on Monument Avenue at Belmont Avenue,.
  In 1915, the Matthew Fontaine Maury Association was founded with the purpose of erecting a monument to Maury, though serious fundraising did not happen until after the end of the First World War. Eventually, the United Daughters of the Confederacy joined in the fundraising, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Richmond each donated $1,000, and even President Wilson, a native Virginian, joined the Association.
  The committee selected Richmond sculptor Frederick William Sievers to produce the work. The statue was known as the "most allegorical of Richmond's monuments."  The monument was unveiled as part of an Armistice Day celebration on November 11, 1929. 
  The figure of Maury had faced eastward, toward the Atlantic Ocean that Maury, the "Pathfinder of the Seas," had charted. He held in his left hand a pencil and compass and in his right hand a copy of his charts. Beside his left foot was his book, Physical Geography of the Sea, as well as a Bible, indicating the central role that faith played in Maury's life. A globe of the Earth was tilted slightly on its axis behind his head. It represented both land and sea, and the woman that stood calmly was a representation of Mother Nature between the land and sea. Around the base of the globe were depictions of people clinging to a sinking boat in bad weather representing the dangers of the sea with a woman in the center, and on the right (north) side of the globe there was a farmer, boy and a dog representing Maury's work promoting land weather service, which dated back further than 1853. Maury attended the International Meteorological Organization conference in Brussels, Belgium on August 23, 1853, leading this conference with his ideas of land and sea weather predictions and representing the United States while promoting his ideas of safety on both land and at sea to many nations which agreed to follow his ideas. Every maritime nation had its ships reporting to Maury at the National (later Naval) Observatory in Washington D.C. These elements represent Maury's work with atmospheric science, to the benefit of all mankind and their enterprises on land and on the sea. Weather warnings and reports had been dreams of Maury during his lifetime up until when he died and he was successful in his work. He thought of the ships at sea as "a thousand temples of science for all of humanity" and believed these brought men and nations closer together in a common self-protection against storms and deaths. There were fish, dolphins, jellyfish and birds around the monument's perimeter.
  The statue of Maury was removed on July 2, 2020, and the globe followed on July 9.
caption: Maury Monument
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