American Revolution
1843 "Battle, June 17, 1775." Bunker Hill Battle Monument Commemorative Silk Ribbon with text (Webster's Address)
1843 Bunker Hill Battle Monument Completion Commemorative Silk Ribbon, Printed in Black ink on a White Silk, Choice Crisp Mint.
A exceptional quality rare Bunker Hill Battle Monument Completion Commemorative Souvenir Silk Ribbon, printed in 1843 by Nathaniel Dearborn, measuring about 7.5" x 4", very rare being Choice Crisp Mint. This historic, highly decorative white silk ribbon includes printed images of the Monument itself and an active historic theme scene of Major General Joseph Warren standing in front while in command with his soldiers surounding and in the background. General Warren was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Paragraphs of extremely fine small text appear at top and bottom, explaining the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the history of the Monument and the text (Webster's Address). We have seen similar ribbons that used the same images, but this is one of only two we've seen with the text blocks at top and bottom. It is the first we have ever offered.
On June 17, 1775, New England soldiers faced the British army for the first time in a pitched battle. Popularly known as "The Battle of Bunker Hill," bloody fighting took place throughout a hilly landscape of fenced pastures that were situated across the Charles River from Boston.
Though the British forces claimed the field, the casualties inflicted by the Provincial solders from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire were staggering. Of the some 2,400 British Soldiers and Marines engaged, some 1,000 were wounded or killed.
Fifty years after the battle, the Marquis De Lafayette set the cornerstone of what would become a lasting monument and tribute to the memory of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
The project was ambitious: construct a 221-foot tall obelisk built entirely from quarried granite. It took over seventeen years to complete, but it still stands to this day atop a prominence of the battlefield now known as Breed's Hill. Marking the site where Provincial forces constructed an earthen fort, or "Redoubt," prior to the battle, this site remains the focal point of the battle's memory.
The Bunker Hill Monument, Lodge, and Museum are National Park Service sites.