YORK, MAY 1857". Another on the opposite side reads: "MEN DO NOT LIVE BY BREAD/ALONE; SO WITH NATIONS, THEY / ARE NOT SAVED BY ART, BUT BY / HONESTY; NOT BY THE GILDED / SPLENDORS OF WEALTH BUT BY / THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF / MANLY VIRTUE; NOT BY THE / MULTITUDINOUS GRATIFICATION / OF THE FLESH, BUT BY / THE CELESTIAL GUIDANCE / OF THE SPIRIT." / EXTRACT FROM THE SPEECH ON / THE WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION, / DELIVERED AT CANADAIGUA, N.Y. / AUGUST 4, 1857". History Creation and dedication In 1894, John W. Thompson, began organizing for a monument recognizing the African-American soldiers who had died in the Civil War. Thompson worked as a waiter at the Powers Hotel and was the leader of Eureka Lodge #36 of Free and Accepted Masons, a lodge with mostly Black members; the lodge was associated with Prince Hall Freemasonry, which largely did not admit non-white members. Thompson was prompted by the Soldiers and Sailors Monument; the monument, which was located in Washington Square Park, which did not depict any black figures. The Eureka Lodge formed a committee to create a monument for the African-American soldiers and sailors who perished in the Civil War, but received little support. He then sent a letter to Douglass, who was then living in Anacostia, Maryland. Douglass replied in a supportive letter dated December 3, 1894: "I shall be proud to live to see the proposed monument erected in the city of Rochester, where the best years of my life were spent in the service of our people—and which to this day seems like my home." On December 21, appeals for funding for the monument were made in Rochester newspapers, but there was opposition from those who thought that the existing monument already represented all of the war dead. On December 22, a meeting held in the offices of state legislator Charles S. Baker decided to erect a shaft for the black war dead topped with a statue of Douglass. However, Douglass unexpectedly died on February 20, 1895. The next morning, Thompson announced in the local newspapers that the monument would be erected in Douglass's memory. Once funds were collected, sculptor Stanley Edwards began creating an 8-foot bronze statue, using Charles Remond Douglass, Frederick's son, as a model. The location of the statue was controversial. The committee initially proposed located it in Plymouth Park in the