Boatswain

This memorial in the gardens at Newstead is for Byron's beloved dog, Boatswain, who died of rabies. Byron had wanted to be buried nearby, but when he died in 1824, he no longer owned Newstead and had been living abroad for many years because of the backlash to his scandalous lifestyle. He ended up buried in the family vault at St. Mary Magdalene Church, with a somewhat less impressive memorial than the one he had erected for Boatswain.

The inscription reads, in part:

Near this Spot

are deposited the Remains of one

who possessed Beauty Without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferosity,

and all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.

This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

if inscribed over Human Ashes,

is but a just tribute to the Memory of

BOATSWAIN, A DOG,

who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,

and died at Newstead Abbey Nov. 18, 1808.

More closeups

I love that hand, with the Lilliputian cranes and trucks. Crazy Horse's face is almost 50% taller than the heads on Mount Rushmore.

Unknown soldier memorial

A closer look at the memorial. (The bright sun and shadows from the trees made it hard to read the inscriptions.)

Garryowen

Someone at the trading post recommended that we come here since we couldn't visit the park. This is a few miles down the highway from Last Stand Hill, and was the location of Sitting Bull's camp before the battle.

Wikipedia tells me that the town is privately owned, and has a population of 2 (which may explain why the GPS got so confused when we were trying to find it.) There's a small museum, and a tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which may (or may not—there is apparently some doubt about this) contain the skeleton of a cavalry soldier found in 1926 when an irrigation ditch just outside of Garryowen was being repaired.

Garryowen started as a railroad station on the Little Bighorn River, where supplies for the local forts and homesteads could be delivered. The name referred to an Irish song that was the marching song for the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

Saturday reflections

October skies reflected near the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan today. I took my class on a walking tour to see where some of the history we've been reading about happened. We had a wonderful time, and I am exhausted.

Good exhausted, but exhausted!

Two angels

The pelican memorial

One more filtered image: the grave of Baroness Elizabeth de Munck, who died in 1841. The carving on the stone shows a pelican feeding her chicks with her own blood, a common heraldic device, and was probably commissioned by the Baroness's daughter, Maria, who was a well-known opera singer.

The Triangle Fire Memorial

The Asch Building where the fire occurred is now called the Brown Building and is part of NYU. There have been two plaques on the building noting its historical significance for as long as I can remember, but after the centennial in 2011, there was a competition to design a more fitting memorial. The first part of the memorial was completed in October; it consists of a panel of mirror stone at street level, and twelve feet above, a ribbon of stainless steel with the names and ages of the 146 victims laser-cut in reverse. When you look at the mirror stone you see the names reflected, looking as though they're written with the sky. Depending on the light, sometimes the names appear as shadows on the sides of the building as well.

An additional vertical steel ribbon will be added this summer. It will run up the corner of the building to the ninth floor, where most of the victims were trapped.

The Big Man

Many of these benches along the boardwalk are dedicated to friends or family; this one is a memorial for all of us.

UPDATED: We walked the boardwalk one last time this morning before heading back to the city, and when we walked past this bench, I said, “Good morning, Big Man.”

As we passed, I turned back to see what it said on the other side, and it was, “Back at you.”

George Washington slept here

The Washington Headquarters historic site overlooking the Hudson in Newburgh. The memorial stone is actually from the Civil War, erected by the Newburgh Guards in June 1860.

The structure on the left is called the Tower of Victory. It was built in 1887 to celebrate the centennial of the end of the Revolutionary War.