This walking tour is desribed by the Public Garden Monument Walking Tour as follows:
"Overview: Follow this guide through the Boston Public Garden to visit all the major sculptures and monuments in the area. I've provided links in order of the route; you will see them within the description section of this guide.
Tips: The Public Garden is located in downtown Boston. The easiest way to get there is to park outside the city at a T Station and take the Arlington Station exit next to the garden.
You can download the walking tour to your phone from the website. The stops along the tour are as follows:
1 - Small Child Fountain - This fountain is a nice break from all the historical figures you will find on this walk.
2 - George Washington Monument - This statue commemorates the first president as the leader of the United States and commander-in-chief of the Army.
3 - 9/11 Memorial - This monument commemorates more than 200 people who had ties to Massachusetts who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
4 - William Ellery Channing - Channing was one of the country's foremost Unitarian ministers.
5 - Charles Sumner - Sumner was an outspoken abolitionist who opposed compromising on anything with the South before the Civil War.
6 - Tadeusz Kasociuszko - The Polish-Lithuaninan immigrant became an American military hero in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
7 - Col. Thomas Cass -
Cass was an Irish immigrant who founded the Fighting Ninth Regiment of volunteers during the Civil War.
8 - Wendell Phillips - The Boston lawyer was a famous abolitionist during the Civil War.
9 - Marvin E. Goody Memorial - Adorned with great eagles and surrounded by benches, this memorial honors Goody, who was chairman of the Boston Art Commission and friend of the Public Garden as well as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
10 - Bagheera Fountain - This sculpture is inspired the panther in the famous book, "The Jungle Book."
11 - Edward Everett Hale - Hale was a writer and another Unitarian minister who edited the Boston Daily Advertiser.
12 - 'Triton Babies' Fountain - This fountain is named after the sea god Poseidon.
13 - 'Make Way for Ducklings' - This is the most adorable bronze art in the whole garden. It was created in 1987 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Public Garden and is inspired by the book of the same name.
14 - George Robert White Memorial - This statue stands at the edge of a fountain to honor one of Boston's most famous philanthropists.
15 - Ether Monument/'Good Samaritan' - This is a tall (40 feet) monument that commemorates the use of ether as an anesthetic.
16 - Japanese Lantern - Although created in 1587, the lantern was given as a gift to Boston in 1904.
17 - Public Garden Foot Bridge - This beautiful foot bridge crosses the pond. Take a moment in the middle to gaze around and take in the peace of the Public Garden."
Wikipedia website provides the following:
"Together with the Boston Common, these two parks form the northern terminus of the Emerald Necklace, a long string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. While the Common is primarily unstructured open space, the Public Garden contains a lake and a large series of formal plantings that are maintained by the city and others and vary from season to season.
The Public Garden is rectangular in shape and is bounded on the south by Boylston Street, on the west by Arlington Street, and on the north by Beacon Street where it faces Beacon Hill. On its east side, Charles Street divides the Public Garden from the Common. The greenway connecting the Public Garden with the rest of the Emerald Necklace is the strip of park that runs west down the center of Commonwealth Avenue towards the Back Bay Fens and the Muddy River.
Several statues are located throughout the Public Garden.
- Located at the Arlington Street gate is the Equestrian Statue of George Washington, by Thomas Ball in 1869, which faces Commonwealth Avenue.
- John Quincy Adams Ward's "Good Samaritan" Ether Monument commemorates the first use of ether as an anesthetic.
- Just north of the "Good Samaritan" is Daniel Chester French's memorial to the Boston philanthropist George Robert White entitled "The Angel of the Waters", created in 1924.
- The first statue in the Garden that was made by a woman was Anna Coleman Ladd's Triton Babies Fountain on the east side of the garden. Though some people think the children are a boy and girl, they are in fact her two daughters. It was acquired by the garden in 1927.
- Bashka Paeff's "Boy and Bird", in the fountain on the west side of the garden, was made by a Russian immigrant who did the model of it while she was working as a ticket taker at the Park Street Station of the MBTA.
- A set of bronze statues based on the main characters from the children's story Make Way for Ducklings is located between the pond and the Charles and Beacon streets entrance.
- At the east gate on Charles Street is a bronze statue of Edward Everett Hale by Bela Pratt in 1869.
- Along the south walk in the park is a statue of Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) an orator and abolitionist.
- Colonel Thomas Cass, commander of the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry which served in the American Civil War is also memorialized on the south walk.
- Next to the statue of Cass is Thomas Ball's statue of Charles Sumner, a congressman from Boston during the Civil War.
- The walk also has a statue of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish citizen who fought in the American Revolution as a Colonel.
- The bridge crossing the lagoon, designed by William G. Preston, opened in 1867. It was the world's shortest functioning suspension bridge before its conversion to a girder bridge in 1921. Its original suspension system is now merely decorative.
- In July 2004 a memorial was dedicated to the 206 people from Massachusetts that died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It is located just inside the Public Garden, at the corner of Arlington and Newbury streets."