tallest Doric column. The column carries the inscription: "1776 THE PRISON SHIP MARTYRS MONUMENT 1908". The monument's column contained a staircase accessed by a bronze door. The stone for the monument came from Lacasse quarry, about east of Newport, Vermont. The grand staircase of 100 granite steps rises in three stages. At the foot of the staircase, the entrance to the vault was covered by a slab of brown sandstone, now in storage, that bears the names of the 1808 monument committee and builders, as well as this inscription: At the top of the column are uprights in diameter which are the shape of lion's heads. Each head weighs more than . These hold up the urn. At the top of the column is an eight-ton bronze brazier or a funeral urn. The urn, which is tall and weighs 7.5 tons, was cast by the Whale Creek Iron Works in Greepoint from designs of Manhattan sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman. The top of the urn is glazed with extra heavy plate glass. The inside of the urn contains the mechanics for the lighting. The top had a light, the "eternal flame". It went out in 1921 and was never relit until 1997 when a new solar-powered eternal beacon was turned on as part of a ceremony. The solar powered beacon or "eternal flame", now consists of solar powered lights reflected from a mirror. It is lit daily during the hours of darkness. Around the urn is a bronze railing also cast at Whale Creek Iron Works. Four open-winged eagles stood at the corners of the square terrace at the column's base, each on its own pedestal in front of a Doric column. They were designed by Adolf Weinman, who also designed the six-ton brazier that sits upon the monument's principal column. The crypt is in a vault at the base of the stairs. Inside the vault the floor is made of concrete and the walls and ceiling are a bisque-colored brick. One enters the crypt through a copper-clad door. When entering it is three steps down and then a short passageway into the hill and at the end of the passage is the brick-lined crypt. The crypt is approximately square. There are a series of slate coffins inserted into a double-set of shelves on the right and left. Various bones are said to be sorted by type into different coffins, presumably