The Pope's Stone and the Washington Monument

Kevin Schmeising was on the Son Rise Morning Show yesterday to talk about this week in Catholic history and mentioned the events of March 5, 1854, as a sad reminder of anti-Catholicism in the USA during the mid-nineteenth century, all because Pope Pius IX had sent a large marble stone carved from the Temple of Concord in Rome to the Washington National Monument Society after they had requested such stones in donation from around the world. As this website explains:

On the night of March 5-6, 1854, at 1 AM to 2 AM, several men descended upon the grounds to steal the Pope’s Stone. What happened next was vividly described in the March 8, 1854 Daily National Intelligencer on page 1. The night watchman George Hilton was on duty in his watch box, so the men tied clothes-line cords around the box, and warned him to be quiet. The thieves also pasted newspapers over the box windows facing the lapidarium. Somehow they got the block into a handcart used by the workmen, and carried it off for dumping in the Potomac River.

This wasn’t as far a trip as it would be today. Back then, the Potomac was much wider than it is now, before the land reclamation of the 1870s and 1880s, and it flowed quite close to the southwest corner of the Monument.

Afterwards, the watchman came under suspicion. After all, he did have a double-barreled gun, and the pasted-over windows could be raised or lowered at will. He was fired from his job.

On March 9, 1854, on page 1, the Intelligencer announced that the Washington National Monument Society, in charge of the project, had put up a $100.00 reward for catching the thieves, raised on April 4 to $500.00. The crooks were never caught, however.

In addition to stealing the Papal donation, however, the Know-Nothings also took over control of the Washington National Monument Society, and as this other website notes, that's when the progress on the monument slowed down, because the Know-Nothings wanted to make sure that there was no Catholic or foreign influence on the project:

They then took over the Society for several years, did some shoddy construction work which later had to be removed, and presided over the drying up of funding for the project. By attempting to turn the monument of all people in honor of Washington into a monument to themselves, they found themselves suddenly confronted with a Tower of Babel that was impossible for them to finish.

The Know-Nothings as a party were a short-lived phenomenon, even if anti-Catholicism never entirely died out. They quickly fell apart over the issue of slavery, with Northern members supporting abolition and Southern members opposing it. They eventually relinquished control of the Society, which in any case by 1860 was depleted of funds thanks to public dissatisfaction with the Know-Nothings running the show. After the interruption of the Civil War, thanks to the efforts of President Ulysses S. Grant and a government takeover of the project, the Washington Monument was eventually completed and dedicated in 1884.

As Kevin Schmeising noted in his segment, Father James E. Grant (any relation to Ulysses?) donated a replacement stone in 1982 inscribed in Latin "A Roma Americae". You may see a picture of it here from the National Park Service.

As The Blog of the Courtier notes, however, the Know Nothings were certainly ignorant of George Washington's friendly tolerance of Catholics. He ordered his soldiers not to observe the Fifth of November/Pope Day/Guy Fawkes Day because it would offend the Catholic French and Polish officers assisting the Continental Army in the War for Independence. And he wrote to some Catholics when they congratulated him on his election as the first President of the United States words that would shock the Know Nothings:

As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed. (March 15, 1790)

As ever, hatred and prejudice make us stupid.

Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789

Issued by President George Washington, at the request of Congress, on October 3, 1789:

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and—Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favor, able interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other trangressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go. Washington

Remember that Go. Washington forbade his soldiers from celebrating the Fifth of November in 1775:

As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope – He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.