Hannah Duston, (sculpture).

Hannah Duston, (sculpture).

Andrews, William, sculptor.

Blanchard, David, fabricator.

Blanchard, Porter E., fabricator.

Orsolini, Andrew, assistant.

Murray, James, assistant.

Andrews, Charles H., assistant.

Porter Blanchard & Sons, fabricator.

Hannah Duston, (sculpture).

Hannah Dustin Monument, (sculpture).

Installed 1874. Dedicated June 17, 1874.

Digital Reference:

Sculpture: Concord granite, unpolished; Base: Concord granite.

Sculpture: approx. 6 x 2 x 2 ft.; Base: approx. 18 ft. x 9 ft. 2 in. x 9 ft. 2 in.

(On side of sculpture base, incised letters:) W. ANDREWS. SC. (On lower front of base, incised letters:) DAVID BLANCHARD/W. CONCORD. N.H. (On front midsection of base, incised letters:) HEROUN GESTA/FIDES JUSTITIA/HANNAH DUSTON/SAMUEL LEONARDSON/MARCH 30 1697/MID-NIGHT (On back midsection of base, incised letters:) MARCH/15 1697 30/THE WAR WHOOP TOMAHAWK/FAGGOT AND INFANTICIDES/WERE AT HAVERHILL/THE ASHES OF/WIGWAM-CAMP-FIRES AT NIGHT/AND OF TEN OF THE TRIBE/ARE HERE (On side midsection of base:) STA TUA/KNOW YE THAT WE WITH MANY PLANT IT/IN TRUST TO THE STATE WE GIVE AND GRANT IT/THAT THE TIDE OF TIME MAY NEVER CANT IT/NOR MAR NOR SEVER/THAT PILGRIMS HERE MAY HEED THE MOTHERS/THAT TRUTH AND FAITH AND ALL THE OTHERS/WITH BANNERS HIGH IN GLORIOUS COLORS/MAY STAND FOREVER/WITNESS (List of five names) (On other side of base:) DONORS/(List of 22 names)/AND MANY OTHERS signed

A portrait of Hannah Duston with long wavy hair dressed in a flowing nightgown. She stands with her proper left foot set forward and holds a tomahawk with her lowered proper right hand. In her proper left hand she holds ten scalps. The sculpture is placed atop an incised unpolished base that is surrounded by a low curb.

History -- United States -- Colonization

History -- United States -- Massachusetts

History -- United States -- New Hampshire

Portrait female -- Duston, Hannah -- Full length

State of Being -- Evil -- Violence

Literature -- Caverly, Robert Boody

Object -- Weapon -- Axe

Outdoor Sculpture -- New Hampshire -- Boscawen

Administered by State of New Hampshire, Division of Parks & Recreation, 172 Pembroke Road, P. O. Box 1856, Concord, New Hampshire 03302

Located Dustin Island, Just west of Interstate 93, exit 17, 4 miles north of Concord, on Route 4, Boscawen, New Hampshire

Hannah Duston (or spelled variously Dustin) was a pioneer settler, living in Haverhill, Massachusetts. On March 16, 1697, the city was raided by Indians and Duston, her week old daughter, and her neighbor and midwife, Mary Neff, were taken hostage. The Indians took the three, along with fourteen year old Samuel Leonardson, already a captive of eighteen months, and forced them to march north to New Hampshire. En route, the Indians, not wanting to be burdened by useless captives, killed Hannah Duston's child by smashing its head against a tree. During the night of March 30, 1697 while the Indians slept, Hannah Duston and her companions stole their tomahawks and attacked their captors, killing all but two, who escaped during the struggle. Hannah Duston and her companions scalped the Native Americans and then made their way back to Boston, Massachusetts, where a Colonial court awarded them fifty pounds for the scalps.

A monument to Hannah Duston was first proposed about 1840. It was not until the early 1870s that Robert Boody Caverly of Lowell, and Major Eliphalet S. Nutter and Rev. Nathaniel Bouton of Concord took up the cause. John Calvin Gage gave the land on Dustin Island for the site. The monument cost $6,000 and was funded by private subscription. The monument was the first portrait sculpture to be installed in New Hampshire and the first piece of outdoor sculpture acquired by the state. The monument is believed to be one of the earliest portrait sculptures of a woman installed as a public monument in the United States. (An earlier marble statue of Duston was erected in Haverhill in 1861, but the sponsors were unable pay for it when the Civil War started. The Haverhill statue was dismantled, sold, and moved to Barre, Massachusetts, where it was later incorporated into a remodelled Civil War monument. (See IAS record 77000015).

The New Hampshire memorial to Duston was designed by William Andrews of Lowell. Andrew Orsolini, James Murray, and Charles S. Andrews did the carving. The monument was installed by David Blanchard or Porter E. Blanchard. The inscription on the base was written by Caverly, possibly Robert Boody Caverly. Three to five thousand people, including Governor James A. Weston and a delegation of legislators jammed the island on the day of the monument's dedication. A wrought iron fence once surrounded the statue, but it was removed around 1952, when the statue was sandblasted and refurbished. Sometime after the 1952 restoration efforts, the figure's nose was broken off and subsequent repairs were made by Robert C. Sampson and Emanuel Brochu, workmen from the John Swenson Granite Company.

IAS files contain clippings from the Concord Monitor, July 1, 1987, pg. A-1, A-10; and The Boston Sunday Globe, Aug. 20, 1995, N.H. Weekly, pg. NH-1, NH-9. IAS files contain excerpts from Leon Anderson's "Hannah Duston: Heroine of 1697 Massacre of Indian Captors on River Islet at Boscawen, N.H.," Concord, New Hampshire: Evans Printing Co., 1973; Charles Carlton Coffin's "The History of Boscawen and Webster, from 1733 to 1878," Concord, New Hampshire: The Republican Press Association, 1878, pg. 648-649; James O. Lyford's "History of Concord, New Hampshire," Concord, New Hampshire, 1903, pg. 641; Bruce Sloane's "New Hampshire's Parklands: A Guide to Public Parklands in the Granite State," Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher, c1985, pg. 64-65; and David Ruell's typescript "The Public Sculpture of New Hampshire," Concord, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1980, pg. 125-128. The SOS! report and inscription on base list fabricator as David Blanchard of West Concord, New Hampshire; excerpts from David Ruell's typescript "The Public Sculpture of New Hampshire," Leon Anderson's "Hannah Duston," and Charles Coffin's "The History of Boscawen and Webster" list fabricator as Porter E. Blanchard. The sitter's last name varies in spelling newspaper and published sources list either as Duston or Dustin.

Save Outdoor Sculpture, New Hampshire survey, 1993.

New Orleans, Sept. 2000, pg. 8.

Moore, Merl M., Jr., 1994

The Evening Post (New York), June 2, 1874, 2:4.

The Aldine (Aug. 1874): pg. 168.

The Boston Sunday Globe, Aug. 20. 1995, N.H. Weekly, pg. NH-9.

The information provided about this artwork was compiled as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database, designed to provide descriptive and location information on artworks by American artists in public and private collections worldwide.

Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum, P.O. Box 37012, MRC 970, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012

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