This Independence Day weekend, Baltimore celebrates the rededication of its most recognizable landmark, the Washington Monument. The Mount Vernon Place Conservancy is hosting the Monumental Bicentennial Celebration on Saturday, July 4th, a festival to honor the reopening of the nation’s first memorial to George Washington. The monument has been closed to visitors since 2010, when it was deemed structurally unsound, and has been undergoing extensive restoration work to repair masonry and cosmetic issues since the fall of 2013.
A similar scene played out 200 years ago when the Washington Monument’s cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1815. Over 25,000 people attended the groundbreaking ceremony which had all of the pomp and circumstance befitting a celebration of the Revolutionary War general and inaugural president. The local Masons turned out in full regalia. Speeches were given in honor of Washington’s legacy. The crowd sang along to renditions of “Yankee Doodle.” A 39-gun salute was fired, a shot for each year of the newly independent country. The night ended with a display of fireworks that illuminated the monument in vibrant color. In his account of the day, John Horace Pratt described the atmosphere: “Divine providence seemed to smile upon the occasion; the air was delightfully cool and the firmament serene. The evening silence and tranquility that closed the joyful turbulence of the day, formed a striking contrast, and seemed to display that sobriety of pleasure which the solemnity of the occasion demanded.”(1)
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