Landscape Information
This .19-acre triangular park, roughly half-a-mile from the eastern shore of the Hudson River, is bound by Market Street to the east, Montgomery Street to the south, and Little Market Street to the west. It was developed in the late 1860s by a group of eight local citizens, including Harvey Eastman, the founder and president of a nearby college. The group hoped to establish a memorial to commemorate fallen Civil War Soldiers and purchased the lot opposite Eastman’s estate, situated on Montgomery Street. Community members helped regrade the sunken site, using coal ash and other materials as fill. Installed in 1870, a circular, twenty-foot-tall cast-iron fountain, painted white and inscribed with the words, “To The Patriot Dead,” is the central focal point of the park. The fountain was produced in the Bronx foundry of Janes, Beebe & Company and is one of four extant examples of their “Model No. 5,” inspired by designs displayed at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London.
The selection of an ornate fountain to serve as a war memorial, instead of a more austere monument, was atypical and speaks to the desire to create not just a commemorative landscape, but an aesthetically pleasing public space. The fountain is surrounded by a border planted with perennials and shrubs and an iron railing, both installed in 1977. A concrete path furnished with benches encircles the fountain and connects with perimeter sidewalks shaded by Bradford pear trees. The triangular park’s corners are covered with lawn, with two cannons installed in the northern and southwestern points in 1871. The northern lawn also features a flagpole set on a concrete pedestal.
Donated to the city in 1878, the fountain and park were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
