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The monument at St. Paul's Chapel had been ordered by Congress as early as 1776. It was bought by Benjamin Franklin in Paris, and was shipped to America on a privateer, A British gunboat captured the privateer, and in turn was taken by an American vessel, and so at last the monument reached its destination.
The inscription read:
This Monument is erected by order of CONGRESS, 25th Janry, 1776, to transmit to Posterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotic conduct, enterprise and perseverance of MAJOR GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY, who after a series of successes amidst the most discouraging Difficulties Fell in the attack on QUEBEC 31st Decbr, 1775. Aged 37 years.
The State of New York caused the remains of Majr. Gent. Richard Montgomery to be conveyed from Quebec and deposited beneath this monument the 8th day of July, 1818.
At that time Mrs. Montgomery, in the forty-third year of her widow-hood, was living near Tarrytown on the Hudson. Governor Clinton had told her of the day when the steamboat Richmond, bearing her husband's remains, would pass down the river; and sitting alone on the piazza of her home, she watched for its coming. With what emotions she saw the pageant is told in a letter written to her niece:
"At length they came by with all that remained of a beloved husband, who left me in the bloom of manhood, a perfect being. Alas! how did he return? However gratifying to my heart, yet to my feelings every pang I felt was renewed. The pomp with which it was conducted added to my woe; when the steamboat passed with slow and solemn movement, stopping before my house, the troops under arms, the Dead March from the muffled drums, the mournful music, the splendid coffin canopied with crepe and crowned with plumes, you may conceive my anguish. I can-not describe it."
The most conspicuous monuments in the St. Paul's Chapel yard near Broadway are those of Thomas Addis Emmett and Dr. William J. MacNevin, both of whom participated in the Irish rebellion of 1798, came to New York and achieved distinction, Emmett at the bar and MacNevin in medicine. The inscriptions are in English, Celtic and Latin. West of St. Paul's Chapel is the urn with flames issuing from it, which marks the resting place of George Frederick Cooke, the distinguished tragedian; born in England 1756; died in New York 1812. The monument was erected in 1821 by the great English actor, Edmund Kean, and has been the subject of pious care by Charles Kean, who restored it in 1846, Edward A. Sothern in 1874 and Edwin Booth in 1890.
The epitaph is by Fitz-Greene Halleck:
Three Kingdoms claim his birth,
both hemispheres pronounce his worth.
In the high building which looks down upon St. Paul's Churchyard from the south is the home of the Evening Mail; and across the church-yard on Vesey street is the Evening Post. The twenty-five-story St. Paul Building occupies the site of the old Herald Building, and before that of Barnum's Museum. The Park Bank, adjoining, is one of the largest banks in the city.
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