By Alissa Inman
Courtesy of the Boston Courant

The Commonwealth Avenue Mall is home to a series of statues nearly as eclectic as the mix of people who have shaped Boston's history over the years.

From Alexander Hamilton near Arlington Street to Leif Eriksson at Charlesgate East, the Mall's canopy of trees frames a series of eight major monuments, with a ninth planned to arrive within a year.

Given the proliferation of monuments it may come as a surprise that the mall's original designers, including Frederick Law Olmsted, planned the 8.7 acre Emerald Necklace park in the newly-filled Back Bay as an area free of public art.

"The designers of the Mall never anticipated there would be sculptures on the mall,"said Margaret Pokorny, historian and co-chair of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee. "There were supposed to be these long, uninterrupted views."

The original provisions did not last long. The Hamilton statue went up in 1865, "almost before the fill had settled," according to Pokorny. What began as an exception to the rule soon became tradition, and more monuments followed.

"The community thought of that as a promenade that they could walk down and have an appreciation of early history," said Sarah Hutt, director of public art for the city's Office of Cultural Affairs. "It gives people something to see besides buildings; it can give them a respite from the day [and] a place to reflect."

Following is a list of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall's statues, beginning at Arlington Street.

Alexander Hamilton
Though the statue of Hamilton came first, it did not set an artistic precedent. Its sculptor, Dr. William Rimmer, was known more for his medical than artistic skills. Because he did not thoroughly reinforce the figure, parts have fallen off more than once during its lifetime. It remains the only granite statue on the mall, and, according to some accounts, the first statue of that material in the country.

John Glover
The next to appear, an 1875 larger-than-life likeness of Revolutionary War soldier John Glover of Marblehead, is in the traditional bronze, the material of every other statue on the mall. Glover led a regiment largely comprised of Marblehead fishermen that braved snow and ice to help General George Washington and his army cross the Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776. The heroics of Glover and his men are said to be the origin of the military term "Marine."

Patrick Andrew Collins
The only bust on the mall honors Patrick Andrew Collins, who became mayor of Boston in 1902 but died suddenly in office three years later at age 61. Within a week of his death community members had donated enough to create the monument. Originally placed at Charlesgate West in 1908, construction of an overpass led to a relocation to the Clarendon-Dartmouth Street block in 1966, where it has remained atop its granite pedestal ever since.

Vendome Memorial
The memorial to the firefighters who died while fighting the Hotel Vendome fire has become a favorite among mall walkers. A curved black granite slab draped with a bronze firefighters' coat and hat commemorates the nine killed on June 17, 1972 when the fire-damaged hotel's floor unexpectedly collapsed. Dedicated on the accident's 25th anniversary in 1997, a facing bench provides a spot for reflection, literally and figuratively, before the polished granite.

William Lloyd Garrison
Seated atop a bronze chair between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets, a larger-than-life statue of William Lloyd Garrison gazes down the mall. Garrison's family reportedly hated the likeness, but the original 1886 version has remained nonetheless. The statue's base reproduces part of a quote from the first issue of Garrison's abolitionist publication The Liberator: "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."

Samuel Eliot Morison
One of the mall's most popular statues has a maritime origin. Between Exeter and Fairfield Streets stands a monument to Samuel Eliot Morison, a sailor and maritime historian who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his literature. Morison, holding binoculars, perches on the edge of a rock encrusted with bronze barnacles and surrounded at the base by a cement "beach" affixed with stones and bronze shells and sea life.

"I always see people taking photos there," Pokorny said. "It seems that people identify with it because it's so easy to understand."

The Boston Women's Memorial
The Mall's first monument to women, erected in 2003, graces the park's block between Fairfield and Gloucester Streets. Three statues honor women who have made a local impact: former first lady Abigail Adams, newspaperwoman and suffragist Lucy Stone and poet Phillis Wheatley.

"The public approached the city and said it would be wonderful to recognize women's contributions as well as men's on the mall," said Marie A. Turley, executive director of the city's Women's Commission.

Domingo F. Sarmiento
Standing on a quiet stretch of the mall near Gloucester Street, the statue of Domingo F. Sarmiento arrived in 1973 as a gift of the Republic of Argentina. Former Argentine president Sarmiento was so impressed by the work of education reformist Horace Mann that he based his country's school system on Boston's. His countrymen donated the statue in honor of this connection.

Leif Eriksson
One of the park's oldest statues was initially one of the most controversial. In 1887, patent medicine maker Eben N. Horsford, the discoverer of baking powder, commissioned a statue of Viking explorer Leif Eriksson. Horsford believed that Eriksson sailed up the Charles River to discover Vinland, a lost Viking colony in North America, a theory that few others shared. Despite community opposition Horsford's wishes prevailed, and the bronze Eriksson went up at Charlesgate East on a pedestal tall enough to allow him to look over the Charles River. Because of development in the area, today Eriksson only looks over streets and buildings.