“Seated Lincoln” is a sculpture by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind the memorial at Mt. Rushmore. Lincoln is seated on a landing of the staircase coming down from the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. The statue was unveiled by former President Theodore Roosevelt on Memorial Day 1911. In 2004 the courthouse and the famous statue underwent restoration and preservation.
This is a Lincoln who is not up on a pedestal. He is street-level and many people have sat next to him on his bench to be photographed with him. This is not the Lincoln on Mt. Rushmore, he is an ordinary man, plunged into an extraordinary war, trying to rest momentarily from burdens too great for any man.
Lincoln’s face is alive with what he is thinking. Some have called the sculpture “Lincoln of Gethsemane.”
Five years after the sculpture was unveiled, Gutzon Borglum became the lead sculptor at Stone Mountain. Helen Plane of the United Daughters of the Confederacy approached Borglum to create a tribute to the Confederacy. Borglum was enthusiastic about building a monument to Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and J.E.B. Stewart. Plame told Borglum that seeing Birth of a Nation “Since seeing this wonderful and beautiful picture of Reconstruction in the South, I feel that it is due to the Ku Klux Klan which saved us from Negro domination and carpet-bag rule, that it might be immortalized on Stone Mountain.” Borglum agreed to have a Klan altar at the base of the mountain.
Although his father was an immigrant, Borglum was afraid of immigrants. He referred to them as “assassins.” He also made disparaging remarks about Blacks, Jews, and Native Americans. While he agreed with the Klan’s bigotry, he engaged in fights with these important backers of Stone Mountain and he left the project after destroying the Confederate plans for the mountain.
In any event, by the time Borglum left the future-Confederate Amusement Park at Stone Mountain, he may have been reminded of how Lincoln looked in his own “Seated Lincoln.”
Behind the statue is a more recent dedicatory panel which neglects to mention the famous name of the sculptor.
Borglum was born in 1867 in Idaho to a Danish immigrant father who converted to Mormonism. He married two sisters, the younger of who was Borglum’s mother. When the father left the church, he left Borglum’s mother behind. Borglum gained a reputation producing monumental sculptures of Civil War figures including among his subject Abraham Lincoln and Phil Sheridan. He sculpted four works for Newark, N.J.
Newark was a large city at the time when the Civil War broke out with a population of 71,000 in 1860 and 105,000 in 1870. During the Civil War, what is now called “Military Park” was used to recruit and train local companies for the Union Army.
Not only is the statue in very good shape, so is the bench!
Here is a shot from the top of the stairs leading to the courthouse’s entryway down at Lincoln from behind.
The sculpture is where Market St. and Springfield Ave. intersect. There is metered parking across the street.
All color photos were taken by Pat Young. To see more sites Pat visited CLICK HERE for Google Earth view.
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