Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-11
THE MEMORY OF MARY, AGAIN.

Some weeks ago we referred to the
movement put on foot by the ladies of
Fredericksburg, Va, to rescue from the
neglect of years the grave of the mother
of Washington Since then the matter
has attracted much attention at the East
and on this coast, and it is ascertained
that very good promise is made that the
entombment of the remains and the cree
ton of monument will be accomplished.
We adhere to the position first taken by
the RECORD UNION, that the National
Government should do the work that
Congress should feel it to be duty and
privilege to do it. The danger is, that
the enthusiasm of the moment will die
out, and that the story Of neglect will be
continued. In 1926 a similar agitation
was started. 1t gained much attention
and scheme was set on foot to raise the
money by popular subscription to build
monument to the memory of that noble
woman; but it died out, and it remained
for S. E. Burrows, of New York, to I'M
dertake the work alone. In 1888 he had
the corner stone laid with appropriate
ceremonies, President Andrew Jackson
presiding or the occasion and laying the
stone in the presence Of very large as
semllage of people, an array of military.
clergy, relatives of Washington, heads of
departments of the Federal Government,
officers of the army and navy of the
United States, and the Virginia officials.
1t is recorded that fully $4,000 people
were present, a large concourse indeed for
those days. Mr. Bassett pronounced an
grafton and President Jackson made a
feeling speech in reply. A poem was
read that Mrs. Sigourney wrote for the oc-
casion, and then the President laid the
stone.
The monument was more than half COM
pleted when the patriotic donor met with
serious business reverses-was driven into
bankruptcy the work on the construction
of necessity ceased, so far as he was con-
| cerned, and since then nothing has been
done towards its completion. The fine
marble obelisk that was to crown the pile
has laid at the foot of the tomb ever since,
and through neglect and the assaults of
curiosity of visitors has been ruined, while
the marble base has partly fallen over, and
now a mass of ruins mark the spot.
AS late as 1853 Mr.. Burrows, then an
old man and trading between China and
California, was still striving to save the
means from his own income to complete
his self-imposed task of building the mon
ument. In 1886 Mr.. LOSING published
his interesting book MARY and Martha,
the Mother and the Wife of George Wash
ington," in which he bitterly complained
that the monument had been left unfn-
ished, and recited that but three of the
white marble columns of eight which had
been placed in the sunken panels, re-
manned; that no fence guarded the spot,
and that the stones were grass-grown,
partly overthrown and defaced. He
begged that the Government that had
Just completed noble pile to the memory
of the son, would do something to enable
the spot where repose the remains Of his
noble mother, to be modestly marked.
Custis in his mes4oirs of Mary Washing
ton, written in 1860, declared that had this
distinguished woman been of olden time
statues to her memory would have been
erected in the Capitol, and that she would
have been called the mother of Romans
Washington himself said that he had but
faint recollection of his father and his pa
ternal fondness, but to his mother he as
cribed the moral, intellectual and physical
training that made the son what he was,
and gave him "all the qualities of useful
ness he might be deemed to possess Now
comes Edwin D. Mead in the Men England
Magazine, and pleads with the people to
aid the women of Fredericksburg to COM
plete the monument. He presents two
views of the structure as it now appears in
its ruined state.
When CORVALLIS surrendered and the