3Īn interval of almost twenty-five years ensued before the completion of the Monument, which accounts for a slight change of color at a height of a hundred and fifty feet. ![]() The event took place in the presence of members of the legislative and judicial branches of the government, foreign ministers and officers, and a vast concourse of citizens from all sections of the Union. United States to the Memory of George Washington.Ĭonstruction began on July 4, 1848, with President James Knox Polk presiding at the laying of the cornerstone, in accordance with the decision of the National Monument Society. This cornerstone laid of a Monument by the people of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.Ĥ th July, 1848. The inscription on the copper plate covering the deposit recess of the cornerstone reads:Ĥ th July, 1776. Constitution United States Presidents’ messages to date of cornerstone laying likenesses of all Presidents and their inaugural addresses to same date a portrait of Washington taken from Gilbert Stuart’s famous painting and daguerreotype likenesses of General and Mrs. Among these are: a copy of the Holy Bible, presented by the American Bible Society, instituted in 1816 an American silk flag the coat of arms of the Washington family copies of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. ![]() ![]() When the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on Independence Day, 1848, deposited within its recess were many items and documents of value. The design originally selected for the Monument was that submitted by Robert Mills, comprising, in its main features, a vast stylobate, surmounted by a tetrastyle pantheon circular in form, and with an obelisk six hundred feet high rising from the center. In the advertisement inviting designs for the Monument from American artists, it was recommended that they should “harmoniously blend durability, simplicity and grandeur.” 1
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