Thomas Starr King Monument - Civil War Grove - Sacramento, CA
N 38° 34.604 W 121° 29.493
10S E 631397 N 4270886
This statue and plaque are dedicated to Thomas Starr King and located at the entrance to the Civil War Grove, within Capitol Park and near the State Capitol Building in downtown Sacramento, CA.
Waymark Code: WMJDM1
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 11/04/2013
Views: 8
Located within
Capitol Park on the east side of the State Capitol Building and near the northern entrance to the Civil War Memorial Grove is a statue and plaque dedicated to
Thomas Starr King. Although this statue and plaque honor an individual (something this category discourages), it is obvious through reading King's bio of accomplishments that his presence as a great orator and preacher to the people of California greatly benefited the state as a whole during the Civil War and for these reasons he should be remembered as a key and central figure in this category.
The statue of King is bronze and stands 7 feet 2 inches tall. The sculpture was originally installed inside the United States Capitol as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection in 1931. It was replaced in 2009 by a statue of former US Prresident, Ronald Reagan, and moved outside to the park grounds and next to the north entrance to the Civil War Memorial Garden. The plaque next to the statue reads:
Thomas Starr King
1824-1864Courageous and inspirational San Francisco minister, stalwart
defender of the Union during the Civil War, advocate of racial
justice, admired educator and pioneering nature writerStarr King was a Unitarian preacher credited with keeping
California from seceding from the Union at the dawn of the
Civil War. His ceaseless advocacy for the Union cause would
earn him the title "Apostle of Liberty". This prominent location
welcomes visitors to the Civil War Grove, the first monument
in Capitol Park. The grove was dedicated on May 1, 1897,
and honors all those who fought in the war. |
The Architect of California website (link below) has the following bio of King and reads:
Thomas Starr King, "the orator who saved the nation," was born December 17, 1824, in New York City. The sole support of his family at age 15, he was forced to leave school. Inspired by men like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Ward Beecher, King embarked on a program of self-study for the ministry. At the age of 20 he took over his father's former pulpit at the First Unitarian Church of Charlestown, Massachusetts.
In 1848 he was appointed pastor of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church, Boston, where he became one of the most famous preachers in New England. He vacationed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and in 1859 wrote a book about the area entitled The White Hills: Their Legends, Landscapes and Poetry. In 1860 he accepted a call from the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco. In California during the Civil War, he spoke zealously in favor of the Union and is credited with saving California from becoming a separate republic. In addition, he organized the Pacific Branch of the Sanitary Commission, which cared for wounded soldiers.
A fiery orator, he raised over $1.5 million for the Sanitary Commission headquarters in New York, one-fifth of the total contributions from all the states in the Union. The relentless lecture circuit exhausted him, and he died in San Francisco on March 4, 1864, of diphtheria. Mountain peaks in New Hampshire and in Yosemite Park are named in his honor.
In 2009 the state of California replaced this statue with one of Ronald Wilson Reagan.