OF YANKEE GRANITE

An Account of the Building of Bunker Hill Monument

By E. H. CAMERON

With a Foreword by John Silsbee Lawrence

BOSTON

Bunker Hill Monument Association

1953

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Had the British bullet that went through the hat of Major Samuel Lawrenceof Groton near Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775 been aimed a bit lower,some thousand descendants of Major Lawrence would not have beenborn and I should not now have his dispatch wallet, nor his letter explainingthe battle and mentioning General Dearborn, my first wife’s ancestor.The Bunker Hill Monument might not have been built; the MassachusettsHospital Life Insurance Company might not have been developed;various charitable institutions might not have had adequate financialsupport and the dams at Waltham, Lowell and Lawrence might not havebeen constructed to provide the power to operate textile mills. JohnBrown might not have been sent by the Emigrant Aid Society of Bostonto Kansas, where he called his camp Lawrence, now one of the flourishingcities of Kansas. Had Major Lawrence been killed we should not havehad a Lawrence as Mayor of Lowell, or as Ambassador to the Courtof St. James. Two Bishops of the Episcopal Church, a President of HarvardCollege, the present Senator Saltonstall, and many young men andwomen now actively interested in the problems of our nation might neverhave been born and I should not have qualified for membership in theSociety of the Cincinnati.

From reflecting upon the bullet that came so close to disposing ofMajor Samuel Lawrence at Bunker Hill I was led to the history of themonument commemorating the battle, in the building of which his son—andmy great-grandfather—Amos Lawrence took a leading part. Muchhas been wri