 The first of these monuments was the largest . The cornerstone was laid for the Myles Standish Monument in Duxbury in 1872 , with a crowd of ten thousand people attending the ceremonies . It was finished in 1898 , the third tallest monument to an individual in the United States . It is surpassed only by the first dedicated Washington Monument ( 178 feet ) in Baltimore , Maryland ( finished in 1829 ) and the Washington Monument ( 555 feet ) in Washington , D.C. ( dedicated in 1885 ) . The top of the monument is 116 feet ( 35 m ) overall , and at the top stands a 14 @-@ foot ( 4 @.@ 3 m ) statue of Standish . 
