Martin Milmore – Master Sculptor

By Irish Boston Tourism Newsroom

In 1851, Martin Milmore (1844-1883) and his four brothers arrived in Boston from Co. Sligo, Ireland with their widowed mother Sarah Milmore, along with thousands of Irish famine refugees fleeing Ireland. It was a difficult time to be Irish Catholic in Boston during this KnowNothing Decade, but the Milmores prevailed.

The older boys became apprentices in carpentry and stonecutting, while Martin attended Brimmer Grammar School on Common Street, where Headmaster Joshua Bates quickly encouraged his artistic talents. Martin graduated in 1860 from Boston Latin School, and apprenticed himself to sculptor Thomas Ball, soon earning the nickname Boy Sculptor.

Starting in his early 20s, Martin’s success as a sculptor was meteoric; he and his brothers Joseph and James created dozens of monuments and statues that still stand today in village greens and town halls, parks and cemeteries, and museums and libraries across New England, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

When Martin died suddenly at age 38 after a brief illness in his Roxbury home on July 21, 1883, it was a surprise ending to his brief but shining career as one of Boston’s most prolific sculptors. At his funeral mass at Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End, his friends laid a banner with a Latin inscription by Hippocrates: ‘Ars Longa, Vita Brevis’ — ‘Art is Long, Life is Short.’

Many of Milmore’s works of art are along the Irish Heritage Trail in Boston.

The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, unveiled September 17, 1877 on Boston Common, is Milmore’s crowning work of art and is considered a masterpiece of Civil War statuary.

The American Sphinx Monument at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge (1872) features an Egyptian god with “a face belonging to the noblest type of American womanhood.”

The iconic Civil War Standing Soldier resting his rifle at his side while reflecting on his dead companions is found in Fitchburg, Framingham, Roxbury and Woburn, MA; Claremont, Keane, and Peterborough, NH; Waterville, ME and in Chester, Eire, and York, PA.

The America Monument in Charlestown (1872) and Fitchburg (1874) features a female goddess of Liberty representing America, placing laurels upon the heads of her soldier and sailor sons.

Revolutionary War memorials include Colonel John Glover (1875) on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston’s Back Bay and Samuel Adams (1875) at Cary Hall in Lexington.

Busts of leading citizens include President Abraham Lincoln, writers Henry W. Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Senator Charles Sumner, Governor John Andrew, botanist Jacob Bigelow and publisher George Ticknor. They are found at the Museum of Fine Arts, Harvard University, Boston Public Library, and the U.S. Senate Chamber.

Ceres, Pomona, and Flora, three Roman goddesses in granite unveiled in 1866 adorned the Massachusetts Horticultural Society building on Tremont Street, and are on display today at the Society’s Elm Bank in Wellesley.

irishboston.org/irish-heritage-trail

Research, photos, Text, Michael Quinlin