Monument by James Early Reid on Pennsylvania Avenue

The Billie Holiday Monument on Pennsylvania Avenue commemorates the life and legacy of the famed "Lady Day" who was born as Eleanora Fagan in Baltimore on April 7, 1915.

Billie Holiday's childhood was difficult. Both of her parents were teenagers when she was born. In 1925, a ten-year-old Holiday was raped by an older neighbor and was sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic penal institution (sometimes known as a "reform school") for Black girls. Holiday was held there for two years. After her release in 1927, she moved to New York City with her mother.

As a teenager, Billie began singing for tips in bars and brothels but soon found opportunities to sing with accomplished jazz musicians including Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie. She returned to Baltimore as a touring musician playing at clubs and restaurants along Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately, after struggles with addiction and a sustained campaign of harassment by law enforcement, Holiday died on July 17, 1959 at age 44 and was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Raymond's Cemetery in New York City.

Planning for a statue in Baltimore began around 1971 as part of the urban renewal redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding Upton neighborhood. The original plans included both a statue and a drug treatment center in Holiday's honor but while plans for the center were dropped the Upton Planning Council continued to push for the sculpture.

In 1977, Baltimore commissioned thirty-seven-year-old Black sculptor James Earl Reid to design the monument. A North Carolina native, Reid recieved a master’s degree in sculpture from the University of Maryland College Park in 1970 and stayed at the school as a professor. Unfortunately, by 1983, rising costs of materials due to inflation led to a legal dispute between Reid and the city over payment and delays. The $113,000 eight-foot six-inch high bronze sculpture was unveiled on top of a cement pedestal in 1985 but Reid skipped the ceremony.

Reid's original vision was finally realized in July 2009 when the city found $76,000 to replace the simple pedastal with 20,000-pound solid granite base with incised text and sculptural panels. Inspired by one of Holliday's most famous performances, the haunting anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit," one of the two panels depicts a lynching. The other, inspired by the song "God Bless the Child," includes the image of a black child with an umbilical cord still attached in a visual reference to the rope used in the hanging. At the re-dedication in 2009, Reid celebrated the completion of the work and the life of Billie Holliday explaining, "She gave such a rich credibility to the experiences of black people and the black artist."

Watch on this statue!

1400 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

The Municipal Art Society's Memorial to a Maryland Lawyer

The Severn Teackle Wallis Statue by French sculptor Laurent-Honoré Marqueste was dedicated on January 9, 1906 in the south square of Mount Vernon Place in front of the new building of the Walters Art Gallery. Today, the statue stands in the east park facing Saint Paul Street.

Wallis was born in Baltimore to a wealthy slaveholding family in 1816. He trained to become a lawyer as a young man and joined the bar in 1837. At the start of the Civil War in 1861, Wallis was elected to the Maryland State Legislature but, on September 12, he was arrested by Union troops due to his support for the secession of Southern states. Wallis was held at Fort Monroe along with several other elected officials from Baltimore for fourteen months before his release.

In 1900, six years after Wallis' death, the city's Municipal Art Society launched a campaign to erect new statues of both Wallis and John Eager Howard. S. Davies Warfield, a railroad executive and banker, originally proposed the idea of the Wallis statue and chaired the committee to direct the project. At the recommendation of George A. Lucas, a Parisian art critic and former Baltimorean, the committee selected French sculptor Laurent-Honoré Marqueste. Warfield collected photographs and items of clothing owned by Wallis then sent the materials to Paris as a source for the sculptor's design. At the dedication in January 1906, Mayor E. Clay Timanus accepted the statue on the city's behalf and Arthur George Brown delivered an address recalling Wallis as an "ideal Baltimorean."

By 1919, however, the city had decided to relocate the Wallis statue to the park's east square to make way for a monument to Revolutionary war hero Marquis de Lafayette. One resident wrote to the Sun the protest the move, presenting Wallis as "one of the greatest legal figures Maryland ever produced,” who should not be relegated to an “obscure piece of lawn.” Despite the critics, the statue moved east to join the George Peabody Statue in the east square of Mount Vernon Place where it continues to sit today.

East square of Mount Vernon Place, Saint Paul Street and E. Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

A Controversial Obelisk on Harford Road

The Columbus Monument is a forty-four foot tall brick and cement obelisk standing in a small park at Harford Road and Walther Boulevard. The monument to Christopher Columbus was erected by French consul, Charles Francis Adrian le Paulmier Chevalier d'Anmour, in 1792, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival to the Americas.

After discovering that the newly created United States had no monuments dedicated to Columbus, the Chevalier decided to erect a monument to commemorate the Italian explorer and colonizer. The base of the monument was incised with the words “Sacred to the memory of Chris. Columbus, Octob. XII, MDCCVIIIC.” The work was unveiled on August 3, 1792, to honor the date the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria set sail from Palos, Spain then more formally dedicated two months later on October 12th. It remained the only monument dedicated to Columbus in America for another sixty years.

225 years later, in the middle of the night in late August 2017, a small group of unnamed protestors smashed a sledgehammer into the base of the obelisk breaking the incised stone panels. The event was recorded and shared on YouTube on August 21, 2017. Coming less than a week after protestors poured paint over the Key Monument on Eutaw Place, the video explained that “tearing down monuments” is linked to “tearing down systems” that maintain white supremacy.

Historians, activists, and indigenous people in North and South America have long rejected efforts to honor Columbus as a national hero. As early as 1977, participants in a UN-sponsored conference on discrimination against indigenous peoples in the Americas discussed replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. A statue of Christopher Columbus statue outside Union Station in Washington, DC splashed with red paint in an act of protest back in 1991.

In Baltimore, the controversy was perhaps more unexpected. Perhaps because the monument was located on private property—Villa Belmont, located at the present-day intersection of Harford Road and North Avenue—it was half-forgotten more than once. In the 1880s, a local historian felt compelled to debunk a popular rumor that the obelisk memorialized a horse named “Columbus” instead of the man. When the monument was relocated to Harford Road in 1963 it was replaced by an expanded Sears Roebuck Company parking lot.

Soon after the monument moved to northeast Baltimore, the city’s Columbus Day Parade (an annual tradition since the erection of the 1892 Columbus Monument in Druid Hill Park) followed. But the parade moved again in 1977 first to East Baltimore and then to the Inner Harbor after a third monument to Christopher Columbus was erected on Eastern Avenue near Little Italy in 1984. Even if the parade has moved on, however, the complicated legacy of the monument and the commemoration of Christopher Columbus remains.

Parkside Drive and Harford Road, Baltimore, MD

This sculpture is depicts Glory, an allegorical figure that looks in this sculpture like an angel, holding up a dying Confederate soldier in one arm while raising the laurel crown of Victory in the other. The dying soldier holds a battle flag. Underneath, the inscription states “Gloria Victis,” meaning “Glory to the Vanquished.”

The Maryland Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy funded the construction of this monument. It was sculpted by F. Wellington Ruckstuhl (also spelled Ruckstull), a French-born sculptor based in New York. It is located in a wide median on Mount Royal Avenue near Mosher Street in Bolton Hill. The inscriptions on the monument are the following:

Inscription on front of base: GLORIA VICTIS/ TO THE/ SOLDIERS AND SAILORS/ OF MARYLAND/ IN THE SERVICE OF THE/ CONFEDERATE STATES/ OF AMERICA/ 1861-1865.
On base, right side: DEO VINDICE
On base, left side: FATTI MASCHII/ PAROLE FEMINE
On base, back side: GLORY/ STANDS BESIDE/ OUR GRIEF/ ERECTED BY/ THE MARYLAND DAUGHTERS/ OF THE/ CONFEDERACY/ FEBRUARY 1903

The Latin phrase on the base is "Deo Vindice, " meaning "Under God, Our Vindicator." The Italian phrase on the base, "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine" is Maryland's state motto, "Strong deeds and gentle words," although the direct translation is "Manly deeds, womanly words."

This monument bears a striking resemblance to two of Ruckstuhl's other sculptures - one Union, one Confederate. The Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1896) in Major Mark Park in Queens, New York, features the solitary Glory holding the laurel crown. The Confederate Monument (1903) in Salisbury, North Carolina is almost an exact replica of Baltimore's Confederate Soldier's and Sailors Monument, except that the dying soldier is holding a gun instead of a flag.

W. Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Absent Statue of the Author of the Dred Scott Decision

The Roger Brooke Taney Monument is not explicitly a Confederate monument. However, Taney is most famous for his decision in the Dred Scott case, which advanced slavery in America and is tied to the Confederate cause. Taney served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years beginning in 1836. During that time Taney oversaw the ruling of the Dred Scott decision that stated that African Americans could not be considered as citizens, and by extension could still be considered as property even if they were in a free state.

This sculpture is an 1887 copy of an 1872 original that was made by William Henry Rinehart. Rinehart was one of the first well-renown sculptors in Baltimore, and the Rinehart School of Sculpture was established after his death.

The original sculpture was commissioned by William T. Walters for the Maryland State House in Annapolis, where it is still located. Fifteen years later, Walters had this copy made and gave it to the City of Baltimore. Baltimore's Taney Monument resides in Mount Vernon Place because of Taney’s close relationship to Francis Scott Key, who frequently visited and eventually died there.

In 2016, the Special Commission to Review Baltimore's Public Confederate Monuments recommended removing the Taney Monument along with the Lee-Jackson Statue at Wyman Park Dell. After the murder of a counter-protestor during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, Baltimore City responded to renewed calls to take down Confederate monuments by removing the Taney Monument, the Lee-Jackson Monument, the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument, and the Confederate Women's Monument and placing all four statues in storage. By January 2018, the city had not yet announced any plans for the permanent disposition of the statues.

 – 91ĘÓƵ

704 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

On the west side of Druid Lake, opposite of the Moorish Tower, stands an imposing statue. At nearly thirty feet from the ground to the tip of the sword, the Wallace the Scot statue strikes an imposing figure. Bearing little resemblance to Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart,” the question remains of why a statue of a national Scottish hero is in Druid Hill Park. Beginning in 1905, the St. Andrew’s Society of Baltimore, or the Scottish Society, has used the Wallace the Scot statue as a site of pilgrimage. Gathering at the monument on St. Andrew’s Day, the anniversary of real William Wallace’s death, and the founding of their organization in 1806, members of the society wear traditional clothing (such as kilts or capes) and celebrate their heritage as Scottish Americans. By the 1850s, more than 100,000 Scottish immigrants were living in the United States and, between 1890 and 1910, this number grew to over a million. Successful Baltimore banker William Wallace Spence was proud of his heritage as a Scottish immigrant and claimed to be a distant descendant of William Wallace. Considering Wallace a personal hero as well as a national one, he shared how he admired Wallace’s character and saw him as a “champion of freedom whose memory not only Scotland, but all the world should honor." As the leader of the Scottish resistance against English rule, the original William Wallace spent most of his life battling with English forces for Scottish independence. His takeover of Stirling Castle is considered by many historians to be the first major victory for the Scottish resistance. Unfortunately, his victory was short lived and after a defeat at the Battle of Falkirk, Wallace was taken captive and executed in 1305. The statue itself is cast in bronze, a perfect replica of the famous William Wallace statue that stands on Abbey Craig in Scotland. Originally sculpted by D.W. Stevenson in 1881, Spence commissioned his replica at a large scale to make the figure seem more dramatic and imposing. The figure stands at an impressive fourteen feet tall, from his feet to the tip of his raised sword. The sculptor specifically chose the pose for its symbolic meaning—Wallace supposedly struck this pose at the Abbey Craig as he watched the army of Edward I gather before the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Stevenson also designed the pedestal upon which the Druid Hill Park statue now rests. The sixteen-foot tall granite base was carved of Maryland granite and is engraved with the inscription "William Wallace, Patriot and Martyr for Scottish Liberty, 1305."

Watch our on this statue!

3100 Swann Drive, Baltimore, MD 21217

Overlooking the Inner Harbor from Federal Hill stands the statue of Major General Samuel Smith (1752-1839). Smith's life as a Revolutionary War officer, merchant, ship-owner, and U.S. Senator earned him the experience and fortitude in the momentous crises before to successfully command Baltimore during the War of 1812 and its darkest hour: the British attack on Washington and Baltimore in 1814.

The statue, funded by the city's 1914 centennial celebration of the Battle of Baltimore, is the design of sculptor Hans Schuler (1874-1951) who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The statue was first erected at Wyman Park Dell at North Charles and 29th Streets in 1917 and dedicated on July 4, 1918.

In 1953, the Recreation and Parks Department moved the sculpture to "Sam Smith Park" at the corner of Pratt and Light Streets, the future waterfront site of the 1980 Rouse Company Harborplace project. In 1970, with the Inner Harbor renewal project underway, the statue moved again to the present site on Federal Hill, where in 1814 a gun battery had been erected and the citizens of Baltimore witnessed the fiery bombardment of Fort McHenry.

The inscriptions on the monument read:

MAJOR-GENERAL SAMUEL SMITH, 1752-1839 / UNDER HIS COMMAND THE ATTACK OF THE BRITISH UPON BALTIMORE BY LAND AND SEA SEPTEMBER 12-14, / 1814 WAS REPULSED. MEMBER OF CONGRESS FORTY SUCCESIVE YEARS, / PRESIDENT U.S. SENATE, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, MAYOR OF BALTIMORE. /HERO OF BOTH WARS FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE – LONG ISLAND – WHITE / PLAINS – BRANDYWINE – DEFENDER OF FORT MIFFLIN – VALLEY FORCE – / MONMOUTH – BALTIMORE. /

ERECTED BY THE NATIONAL STAR-SPANGLED BANNER CENTENNIAL

Federal Hill Park, 300 Warren Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21230

Monument to the Boy Heroes of North Point

Baltimoreans celebrated the two young sharpshooters credited with killing British General Robert Ross in the 1850s with this monument, their final resting place.

Daniel Wells and Henry Gough McComas gained fame as the "boy heroes" of the Battle of Baltimore. Though the historical record may offer slim evidence to confirm their role during the battle, Baltimoreans have celebrated the legend of Wells and McComas for over 150 years.

The young men, aged nineteen and eighteen, served as privates in Captain Edward Aisquith's Sharpshooters of the 1st Rifle Battalion of the Maryland Militia during the Battle of North Point. Wells, an Annapolis native, and McComas had enlisted in Baltimore, where they both worked as apprentices in the city's leather industry. Their battalion first encountered Ross at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 14, just three weeks before the Battle of Baltimore. Although evidence verifying this claim is scant, Wells and McComas have been credited with firing the shots which killed beloved British commander General Robert Ross. Whether or not it was Wells and McComas or other American sharpshooters, this act certainly dealt a heavy blow to the British in their attempt to capture Baltimore. They could not confirm or deny the story themselves since Wells and McComas were found dead after the Battle—two of the twenty-four Americans killed at North Point.

It wasn't until some forty years after the battle that Wells and McComas gained local celebrity status. During the 1850s, two military companies formed the Wells and McComas Monument Association and solicited subscriptions from citizens to erect a monument in their honor. The group had the boys' bodies exhumed from their vault in Baltimore's legendary Green Mount Cemetery. They laid in state at the Maryland Institute building at Market Place, where thousands of Baltimoreans came to pay their respects. The Sun described the ceremonial catafalque, a platform on which the two coffins rested, as having "a marked degree of good taste" draped in black.

To commemorate Defenders' Day in 1858, Baltimoreans carried the coffins in a procession to their current grave site in Old Town's Ashland Square. An unnamed Baltimorean composed an original song to mark the occasion: , sung to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner. These two local sons were painted in a romantic, dramatic fashion: "'Twas McCOMAS and WELLS - so Fame the fact tells; / This heroic deed their fame evermore swells, / As martyrs of liberty! - And we now raise / A monument high, to continue their praise." In addition to this song, famed playwright Clifton W. Tayleure published a play,, performed at the Holliday Street Theatre.

Their remains lay at Ashland Square for fifteen years before the monument was completed. The simple twenty-one-foot tall obelisk, made of Baltimore County marble, cost a total of $3,500. The City Council ultimately provided most of the funding.

Watch our on this monument!

647 Aisquith Street, Baltimore, MD 21202