Letter from LARKIN GOLDSMITH MEAD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated November 11, 1859.
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Hon Geo. P. Marsh
Dear Sir
I have been looking over a Reference Book and have found a Recipe which I think is what you require for coating your plaster figures
Amalgam for Varnishing Plastic Figures
Melt two ounces of tin, with one half ounce of Bismuth, and add one half ounce of quicksilver.- When cold, grind it with the white of an egg and apply it to figure.-
You will have noticed that the Legislature have appropriated $2000.- for a Statue of Allen. I believe it is left in the power of the Governor to decide upon its location when completed.- I
suppose it will be a question to be discussed (its location) when it is completed.-
A Mr Hager (I believe)
who once delivered an address before the Vermont
Historical Society upon the Marbles of Vermont-told me that a statue made of Soaps
Stone (or Steatite) would stand the frost and out door exposure better than marble.-
I have taken my model into my room again and shall make some corrections before
attempting to cut it in marble.-
With my regards to Mrs MarshI remain Very respectfully YoursLarkin G. Mead Jr.
Hon Geo P. Marsh
Burlington
References in this letter:
In 1855 the Vermont legislature appointed a committee to be in charge of a monument over the grave of Ethan Allen in the Green Mount Cemetery in Burlington. John Norton Pomeroy was appointed chair and Marsh served with him. Larkin Goldsmith Mead was chosen to create a figure of Allen for the monument. Unable to raise the necessary funds, the project was not completed until 1873. Mead's statue was instead placed on the portico of the State House and another figure, by Boston sculptor Peter Stephenson, surmounted the granite base erected in Burlington.
Hiland Hill (1795-1885) of Bennington, Vermont was governor from 1858 to 1860.
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.