Located in the heart of the Sudbury Center Historic District, a Revolutionary War Monument designed by well-known architect A.F. Haynes pays tribute to the local Patriots who served during the Revolution.

The monument features a seventeen-foot statue of a musket-bearing soldier, carved from Westerly, Rhode Island granite and resting on a Quincy granite base. Together, the base and statue stand twenty feet above the ground, making it an especially striking and meaningful expression of gratitude to those whose sacrifices secured the country’s independence during the Revolutionary War.

The monument, which was dedicated in 1896, overlooks the old Revolutionary Cemetery. Its origin is credited to local resident Joanne Gleason, who gifted $500 on June 17, 1895 towards its completion with the provision that the same amount, or greater, be expended by the town on the monument. When the project came in over budget, the town scrambled to procure additional resources. An additional gift of $500 by Gleason saved the day.

Although she was unable to attend the dedication ceremony, Gleason’s motivation for her gift is recorded in Curt Garfield’s history, Sudbury, 1890-1989, 100 Years in the Life of a Town. “Being myself a granddaughter of a soldier of the Revolution, who was one of the earliest in service of his country, and who kept the field as long as his bodily strength allowed,” Gleason noted, “I have an especial personal reason for desiring to perpetuate the memory of all those Patriots who, like him, risked everything for the cause of freedom.”

The monument was dedicated on Bunker Hill Day as Gleason’s grandfather, Captain Timothy Adams, assisted in its defense and her father Major Jonas Parker defended Boston’s Fort Warren during the War of 1812. Parker also joined Daniel Webster and the Marquis de Lafayette on June 17, 1825 when the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument was installed.

The front of the monument’s granite base bears the following words:

Tribute
of
Sudbury
to her
Revolutionary
Patriots

On the reverse side, the monument has another inscription:

Erected 1896
in honor of the
soldiers and sailors
of
Sudbury
who fought at
Lexington, Concord,
Bunker Hill,
and other battles of the
Revolutionary War
1775 – 1783

This story is featured in How We Remember: Monuments, Memorials & Markers in the Freedom’s Way National Heritage Area, part of our semiquincentennial initiative, Freedom’s Way 250, made possible with support from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati and the National Park Service.