THE TANEY STATUE

Unveiling of a Magnificent Bronze in Mount Vernon Place

[Reported for the Baltimore Sun.]

The bronze statue of Chief Justice Taney, the gift of Mr.  Wm. T. Walters to the city, was unveiled in the north square of Mt. Vernon Place on Saturday afternoon in the presence of a large number of prominent citizens and many ladies. The statue, which is a replica of Rinehart’s statue of Taney in the State capitol grounds at Annapolis, stands on a beautiful granite pedestal in the south oval of the square, and faces southward. Both statue and pedestal were hidden from view by a covering of dark cloth until the time for the unveiling had arrived. When all was ready, Master Roger Brooke Taney Anderson, a great-grandson of Chief Justice Taney, took his position at the rear of the statue, and at a signal from the workmen he drew the string, and in an instant the magnificent work, the product of the genius of the great sculptor, stood unveiled to the gaze of the admiring multitude. The unveiling occurred a couple of minutes after three o’clock. A moment after the applause elicited by the sudden display of the splendid statue had died away Mr. Gillet Gill stepped upon the grass and proposed three cheers for Mr. Wm. T. Walters for his munificent gift to the people of Baltimore. These were given with hearty good will, and the ceremony of the unveiling was at an end.

Mayor Latrobe attended the unveiling, and stood on the east side of the oval with several friends. He said he wished to testify his respect for the memory of Taney and for the genius of the Maryland sculptor, and to show his high appreciation of the noble gift made by Mr. Walters. Masters Mason C. and Heber H. Stryker, great grandsons of Chief Justice Taney, and sons of Rev. A.P. Stryker, were present. Mr. Walters did not attend but was busy at his office down town. Mr. S. Teackle Wallis did not attend the unveiling but it was stated that he visited the square soon afterwards. He has always been a great admirer of this work of Rinehart. There was present a large delegation of students of the Maryland Institute, the principal, Prof. Otto Fuchs and faculty, resident Jos.M. Cushing, Messrs. Ernest Hoen, Prof. M.A. Newell, Jas. H. Bond, John M. Carter, Geo. L. McCahan, and others of the board of managers. Many members of the Charcoal Club of Baltimore artists were present.

Messrs. Gill & McMahon furnished the pedestal for the statue. It is a piece of conspicuously good work, and the granite is without blemish. The stone was quarried at Watersville, two miles from Woodstock, Howard county. The pedestal includes base, subbase, die and cap, and is about 6 -1/2 feet in heigh. On the front of the die is the inscription, “Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, Chief Justice.” The statue is heroic, or larger than life size, sitting on the seat of Justice, and clothed in the robes of office. It is precisely a replica of the statue at Annapolis, but it has the advantage of a better situation. The north Mount Vernon Place Square, with its carefully laid out grass plots and walks and its fine surroundings, could not well be surpassed as a spot for this beautiful work of art. It can be approached from any direction and the grandeur of the figure strikes the beholder, even from a distance. The statue was cast at Munich and the same establishment where the original bronze of Taney was made for Rinehart.

On Sunday the clear, delightful weather was an inducement for an unusually large number of persons to take a walk and the central point of attraction was the Taney statue. From early morning until night there were people standing around the statue looking at it from different points of view, and commenting with admiration on the dignity of the figure. Another thing that seemed to be commented upon pretty generally was a suggestion that a statue would look better in the south square than the funnel0shaped fountain which now stands there. Among the other suggestions was one to the effect that there ought to be statues of Smallwood, Gist and Howard, of revolutionary fame, in some of the reservations. Statues of Johns Hopkins and George Peabody will be placed in those squares in the near future.

Roger Brooke Taney, chief justice of the United States, was born in Calvert county, Md. March 17, 1777, graduated at Dickinson College in 1795, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1799. He commenced practice in Calvert county, from which he was chosen a Delegate to the Legislature of Maryland. He removed to Frederick in 1801 and in 1816 was elected to the State Senate. He removed in 1822 to Baltimore, where he remained until his death. Originally belonging to the federal party, he became in 1824, a supporter of Gen. Jackson, by whom in 1831, he was appointed United States Attorney-General, and in 1835 was nominated as Secretary of the Treasury in place of Mr. Duane, who had been dismissed in consequence of his disagreement with the President in the matter of the removal of the public deposits from the United States Bank; but the Senate, by a vote of 28 to 18, refused to confirm the nomination, although he had for nearly nine months exercised the functions of the secretary, and had ordered the removal of the deposits. Chief Justice Marshall having died in 1835, the President appointed Mr. Taney as his successor, and the administration having secured a majority in the Senate, the nomination was confirmed in March 1836, he was taking his seat upon the bench in the following January and occupying it until his death. Chief Justice Taney died in Washington, October 12, 1864. His wife was a sister of Francis Scott Key, the author of the “Star Spangled Banner.” His remains are buried in the old Catholic graveyard in Frederick city.

Wm.H. Rinehart, the sculptor, was born September 25, 1825, in the part of Frederick county that is now included in Carroll county. A quarry opened on his father’s farm led to a shop for rustic gravestones. When 21 years of age he came to Baltimore and apprenticed himself to a marble worker. In 1850, with no instruction, he began modeling in clay. In 1855, when 30 years of age, he sailed for Italy, determined to be an artist. In 1857 he returned to Baltimore with examples of work that won attention to him as a real artist. For a year he occupied a studio in Baltimore and modeled several busts. In 1858 he went to Rome, which he made his home. His success was immediate, and continued until his death. At the instance of Crawford’s widow he completed the modeling of the bronze doors of the United States Capitol. One of Rinehart’s very highest works, “Love Reconciled with Death.” bronze, life size, was made for the tomb in Greenmount of his early and ever helpful friend, Mrs. Walters. His portrait bust became widely recognized, and he made upwards of one hundred of them. His statue of Clytie, Sweetheart of the Sun, the work on which he said he was content to rest his fame, was bought by Mr. John W. McCoy, of Baltimore, who gave it to the Peabody Institute in this city as a perpetual trust for free exhibition. The State of Maryland having commissioned him to make a heroic statue in bronze of the late U.S. Chief Justice Taney, Rinehart unveiled this work in the State House grounds at Annapolis Dec. 10, 1872, amid a distinguished company Mr. John W. McCoy, in a sketch of Rinehart published in Johnson’s Encyclopedia, says of this work: “It was regarded at once as not only a living likeness, but in a manner and expression as the ideal of a lawgiver – upright, wise and calm.” Further MR. McCoy says of the great sculptor: “The style of Rinehart was original, deeply imaginative, and profoundly infused with the old Greek feeling; his invention striking yet full of truth; his modeling tender, strong, and patient; but the crowning excellence of his work lay in a dramatic singleness of conception and expression, which, hiding design, is the highest art, and which gives to each of Rinehart’s mature works a true poetic life.” Rinehart died at Rome October 28, 1874, of pulmonary consumption. He was never married. By will, after providing for his kinsmen, he left $45,000, the whole remainder of the savings of his art career, in trust in Baltimore for the helping of struggling art students and to found a lectureship on sculpture. Mr. Wm.T. Walters is the trustee of this fund, which now yields an income of $4,000 a year, and its disposal is soon to be announced. Rinehart’s remains were buried in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome. The were afterwards disinterred, and January 4, 1875, were finally buried in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore.