I thought I knew every monument and half the tombstones in the territory, but I missed this one. Digging into the history of the Badger family recently, this photograph popped up. Although located on private property in a residential area today, the Samuel Badger Monument still rates its own page on Wikipedia, where it is called “one of the most distinctive examples of funerary art” in Maine.
The monument is described as a “stepped rectangular granite shaft, set on a granite foundation.” It is really a fancy tombstone that includes a marble bust of Samuel Badger (1794-1857) set into a curved alcove. Below the grave figure is a bas-relief image of a tall ship under construction, very similar to the one depicted on the New Hampshire state seal, only without the masts and rising sun.
Samuel was the nephew of William Badger, who married two sisters (one at a time) from the Rice family of Kittery. That’s how William procured three acres of land on what was renamed Badger’s Island. William reportedly built 100 ships in his lifetime, though only a portion of them on his island shipyard in Kittery. According to an inscription on his memorial, Samuel erected 45 ships in his career. Exactly why Samuel got the memorial and not William, I’ve yet to figured out. Samuel did outlive his uncle by many years. And from the stones surrounding the memorial in the Badger family plot, he also outlived his wife Alphia, two infant children, and son George W. Badger, who died at age 22. So who was left to build this memorial?
The Samuel Badger Monument is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was designed by David M. French (1827-1910). French is best remembered today for his bronze statue of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, of Portsmouth’s Rev. Andrew Peabody, and of poets John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. According to his eulogy in Granite Monthly, French was a native of Newmarket, as was William Badger. French did not take up sculpting until he was in his thirties. He pursued his work, for a time, in Portsmouth before settling in Newburyport, MA.
Copyright J. Dennis Robinson, all rights reserved.
Painting Portsmouth on the Eve of the Revolution