Robert A. Mills, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Robert A. Mills
234th 4th OF JULY 7/2/2011 5:39:49 AM
[This column traditionally appears on the first Saturday of every July]
Our subdivision in Marietta — Chatsworth, arguably the gem of Cobb County — is hosting Georgia’s social event of the season: a July 4th day-long pool party and Bar-B-Q [Monday] with a Parade, Food, Games, Prizes, Music (no Fireworks? Yeah, right!) It made me think . . .
That night, while you’re watching PBS’s [Monday] July 4th Concert on the Mall, you’ll see shots of the Washington Monument from various vantage points. When you do, think of my namesake: Robert Mills.
People often Google “Robert Mills” and find that he was the first native-born American architect of international renown. A Southerner, born in South Carolina, he ran hot and cold on the issue of slavery. Plantations, as such, were not his architectural forte; one of the few mansions he designed is in Columbia, South Carolina. A framed poster of it adorns a hallway of my home in Marietta, Georgia. It hangs there for obvious reasons.
Mills, sadly, never lived in the Robert Mills House in Columbia’s Blanding Street. Nor did Mr. and Mrs. Ansley Hall, the couple who commissioned Mills to design and build their manor — another story for another time.
He was befriended by Thomas Jefferson and spent many hours at Monticello; as a student of James Hoban who designed the White House, Robert Mills created and built many national landmarks in Washington — such as the Treasury Building and the U.S. Patent Office. He designed numerous edifices in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Charleston — not to mention the campus of the University of South Carolina.
The author of six books on architectur, he is, however, best known for having designed the Washington Monument, the result of winning a competition for the assignment when he was a wisp of a lad of 55.
The nation’s capital was the product of the genius of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who laid out the city as a cross with the White House to the north, the Jefferson Memorial on the south, the Capitol to the east, and the Lincoln Memorial on the west.
Though construction of the Washington Monument began in 1848 when James Polk was President, it was not until 1888, long after the Civil War, that the obelisk was inaugurated and opened to the public (Mills died in 1855 and, presumably, watched the event from atop his own monument in the Congressional Cemetery, where he is buried alongside Mathew Brady, John Phillip Sousa, and “Tip” O’Neil.)
I bring this up as we celebrate July 4 because I recently became aware that at the very top of Mills’s creation on the National Mall is an aluminum cap no one can see, on which the old architect had engraved the words “Laus Deo.” In Latin, it means, simply, “Praise be to God.” (Actually, the phrase also appears along the east side of the obelisk, but no one ever alludes to it, other than the very occasional pious tourists — I think there have been three since 1941.)
But it gets better. Within the Washington Monument, there are 897 steps to the top, with 50 broad landings. At the 12th, 20th, and 24th landings there are plaques given by the city of Baltimore, some Chinese Christians, and some Sunday school kids from New York and Philadelphia.
When the cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848, aging Mr. Mills placed a copy of the Bible inside and cemented it over, along with George Washington’s immortal prayer for America: “ . . . that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government . . . ” (This was long before the ACLU and the Tea Partiers.)
Outside, the monument is 555 feet, 5.125 inches tall. From the apex one can see all 69 square miles of the City of Washington. Combine that with its 897 steps and 50 landings, and what do you have? The sum of 1,577.125. What does it mean? As of today’s date, that equals, computed in trillions, our national debt.
One thing is for sure: the Washington Monument honors our most predominant and recognizable Founding Father (the other Four Horsemen of the American Dream are James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton. [Sorry, Mrs. Bachmann, John Quincy Adams did not make the cut; he was only 9 in 1776.])
They endorsed the oldest but shortest Constitution in world history, with one Preamble, 8 Articles, and 27 Amendments. The original was signed by 39 patriots (these digits total 74. Divide 1,577.125 by 74 and you get 21.3129 — the exact number, again in trillions, what all our wars have cost!)
So, with July 4th a day of reckoning, be careful when you Google “Robert Mills.” You will learn a great deal about one of my noble ancestors, but nothing about me. For that data, Google “Robert A. Mills” — and be sure to include the middle initial “A.”
Oh . . . you ask, are we related? I’m not 100%sure, but a few years ago I was asked by the docent-on-duty at the Robert Mills House if I would honor them by conducting the next guided tour. A busload of senior citizens was about to arrive, and since I was leaving South Carolina the next day, anyway, I said, “Sure, why not? Bring ‘em on!”
For over an hour, I faked my way from room to room with stories I’d squirreled away from things I’d read about ol’ Bobby Mills.
When they finally made their way back to their tour bus (I declined all tips, though the effort would have netted me $362.74) the docent said, “I heard most of your spiel. But how did you know Robert Mills was one of the few designers of his day that always insisted on a ‘Jeffersonian’ staircase, rather than the broad circular kind, à la Tara?”
I didn’t answer, mainly because frankly I didn’t give a damn. I just shrugged and walked away. . . . Hav-a-Happy holiday!
