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There was no more interested reader of the account of the dedication of Prospect Hill Park and Memorial
Tower, we venture to assert, than the venerable
Dr. Putnam, of
Salem, and at the request of the president of the Somerville Historical Society, he has prepared the following article for publication.
It is a subject which has long interested him, and out of the fullness of his heart he writes as he has done.
He here makes some limited use of his pamphlet discussion of the command at
Bunker Hill, which was published several years ago, and was highly praised and approved by eminent historians, scholars, statesmen, lawyers, military men, and others.
The edition having long since been exhausted, he hopes to issue another by and by, to which he will add a copious Appendix, with various letters and several more illustrations.
The work bears the title of ‘
Israel Putnam and
Bunker Hill,’ as the following is entitled ‘
Israel Putnam and
Prospect Hill.’
John F. Ayer,
Esq.,
President Somerville Historical Society:—
Dear Sir: I thank you very much for the copy you sent me of the
Somerville Journal, containing a full account of the dedication, on the twenty-ninth of October, of Prospect Hill Park and Memorial
Tower.
The very appropriate and eloquent speeches, and all the proceedings of the occasion, as reported in that paper, are seen to have been most interesting and admirable, and you all are greatly to be congratulated on your signal success in such a commemoration of the important events of your local history that occurred at the outbreak of the
Revolutionary War. I only regret that I could not be present, then and there, it would have been such a real delight to me.
It gives me much pleasure to comply with your request for some facts about
General Israel Putnam and his occupancy of
Prospect Hill, additional to those which were briefly stated by the speakers on the day of celebration.
Let me say at the outset that I have not the honor of being a descendant of the old hero, yet from such study as I have been able to make of his life and character, I have too much admiration for him and too deep a
