Letter from LARKIN GOLDSMITH MEAD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated March 17, 1858.
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Hon. Geo: P. Marsh
Dear Sir, I have mended the little model so that it looks quite like itself again,
but it was shamefully broken. The head was off and one cheek was gone,--besides the
end of the nose and chin. The sheaf was completely destroyed: I relieved the right
arm by the wrist and if nescessary it can be cut away farther up, though I could not
well do it in the plaster. I took one of the large folds away from the left hand. I
have indicated two holes in the two upper folds on the breast and I believe it will
now shed water. Some marks under one or two of the large folds show that they are to
be hollowed out in the wood. I think (though I am not sure) the buttons on the
shoulders will show their outline in a front view and full in a side view at a
proper angle of sight. If not they must be changed.
Perhaps it will be well to
instruct the carpenter if one is employed to execute it, that he may have it in view
to make it shed water ampc. I am in hopes Mr Powers will
decide to have me do it. I have been quite unwell since my return from Washington
but am now strong again.
Hoping the model (which I intend sending in a day or two) will reach you safely I remain
Your Ob SerLarkin G. Mead Jr
Hon. Geo: P. Marsh
Burlington
Vt
References in this letter:
Dr. Thomas E. Powers, (1808-1876), of Woodstock, Vermont, was appointed by Governor Fletcher to be the Superintendent of Construction of the 1858-1860 project, to build a new State House in Montpelier to rebuild the structure burned in 1857. He and the architect, Thomas W. Silloway, were soon at loggerheads over their roles in the project. Powers became State Senator in 1861.
Larkin Goldsmith Mead Jr.(1835-1910) was a sculptor from Brattleboro, Vermont. although he spent most of his life in Florence. He created the statue of Agriculture that crowns the Vermont State House in 1857, and the statue of Ethan Allen in the same building in 1861. He was also responsible for the statue of Allen in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol and for an elaborate memorial to Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois.