Plans and Sections of the Obelisk on Bunker’s Hill. With the Details of Experiments Made in Quarrying the Granite

Boston: [Samuel N. Dickinson]; Chas. Cook’s Lith, 1843. First edition. 14 plates, one folding. 31 pp. 1 vols. Folio. Leather-backed boards, printed paper cover label. Rebacked with brown morocco spine, endpapers renewed, some foxing and corners stained. Very good. First edition. 14 plates, one folding. 31 pp. 1 vols. Folio. Solomon Willard designed the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 and oversaw its consturction, which began in 1827. He examined many granite quarries before settling on the quarry at Quincy, Mass., and invented the machinery to cut and handle the stone. The first railway in the United States, with a length of 2-3/4 miles, was built to haul the cut slabs to a dock on the Neponset River. The Bunker Hill Monument was the first monumental obelisk in the United States. Hitchcock 1409; American Imprints 43-5291; not in Sabin