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Two Washington Monument Certificates, given to a contributor to the construction of the monument for a donation of $2.00 and signed by the donor and the project Architect, William Dougherty.
The top certificate, published in Philadelphia, the image was drawn by John Sartain and engraved by Clarence Montfort Gihon, showing the Washington Monument as designed by Robert Mills. Includes printed inscription: "Earnestly recommended to the favor of our countrymen" with signatures of Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, John Quincy Adams, and others.
The lower certificate, lithographyed in Baltimore by Weber, shows several different views of the Monument, as it was intended to look based upon the winning design by Robert Mills.
Washington National Monument Society
Formed in 1833, the Washington National Monument Society took charge of creating a memorial to George Washington on the National Mall, raising money through public donations.
The original Board of Managers were Daniel Brent, James Kearney, Joseph Gales, Joseph Gales Jr., William W. Seaton, George Watterston, John McClelland, Pishey Thompson, Thomas Carberry, and Peter Force. They solicited donations from the public and had raised $28,000 by 1836.
From 1836 until the mid 1840s the Society held a design competition where American artists and architects could submit their ideas for the monument. They settled on a design by Robert Mills, who had worked on other Mall projects and also designed the U.S. Treasury Building and the U.S. Patent Office (now the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art). The design included a pantheon with 30 columns, wider at the base than the facade of the U.S. Capitol and containing statues of each of the Founding Fathers, topped by a statue of a god-like George Washington riding a horse-drawn chariot. An Egyptian obelisk adorned with a single star, would rise 500 feet above the Greek temple.
In 1854, Congress transferred the land on the Mall to the Society so it could being construction, and the cornerstone was laid in July of that year. By 1854, however, the Society had run out of money. The Society returned the land and the unfinished monument to Congress in 1876, then serving as advisors to the Congressional committee charged with completing the Monument.
William Dougherty
William Dougherty an Architect. He was the superintendent of construction for the Washington Monument, and was also the foreman of marble work for the extension of the General Post Office building in Washington, D.C.
He worked with Robert Mills on the construction of the State House in Columbia, South Carolina.
