This life-size bronze statue of Ichabod Washburn is located in front of 720 S Kansas, in a pocket park. The statue is shown in a mourning coat with a cane in the right hand and a tophat in the left. The text of the nearby marker reads:
(Seal of Washburn University)
Ichabod Washburn
1798 - 1868
Innovative businessman, fervent Congrgregationalist,
abolitionist and philanthropist, Ichabod Washburn
is the generous benefactor from Massachusetts
after whom Washburn University was named.
Apprenticed at the age of nine into the trades of
harness making and blacksmithing, by the age 20
Washburn had struck out on his own. Ultimately,
with innovations and inventions which revolutionized
the manufacture of wire products, he became a
captain of industry and made his fortune.
Washburn was a man of deep convictions. He was
a deacon in his church, active in abolitionist causes,
served a year in political office, and was an active
proponent of education as a right for all people
including women and people of color. He hoped
that education might one day take the place of
indentured apprenticeship.
His philanthropy focused primarily on education,
health care and churches. He, with two other men,
established a technical school in Worchester known
today as Worchester Polytechnic Institute. Other gifts
established Memorial Hospital (Worchester), Mission
Chapel, ans a home for elderly women.
In 1868, a mere two months before his death,
Washburn was approached about the financial
struggles of a small college in Topeka. Lincoln
College had been founded by the Congregational
Church in 1865 and had admitted women and African
Americans from its inception. Washburn pledged
$25,000 to the cause, ensuring the school's future.
Dedicated October 2015 as part of Washburn University's sesquicentennial celebration.
From Wikipedia - (
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"Ichabod Washburn (1798–1868) was a church deacon and industrialist from Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. His financial endowments led to the naming of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas and the foundation of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Washburn became an apprentice in a Leicester, Massachusetts blacksmith shop at the age of sixteen. He attended Leicester Academy with his distant relative Emory Washburn (later Governor of Massachusetts) and Stephen Salisbury II, both of whom would many years later help in the founding of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.[1]
By 1865, Washburn was co-proprietor (with his son-in-law Philip Moen) of Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company, the world's largest wire mill. The company manufactured piano wire, crinoline and supports for hoop skirts, wire for fences and other similar products."