The Braddock Boulder

At the National Cathedral

This boulder, sitting on the front lawn of the National Cathedral on Wisconsin Avenue, may be the oldest historical marker in the Washington, DC, area commemorating a Colonial event. 



Photo from Benjamin, 1908



On November 10, 1907, the Society of Colonial Wars held a ceremony at the site of the National Cathedral to dedicate this marker commemorating Braddock's ill-fated 1755 march to Fort Duquesne. In his speech, Marcus Benjamin, Governor of the society, called it "the first memorial ever erected in this vicinity in commemoration of a historical event during the Colonial period." The boulder pre-dates the cathedral, construction of which began only a month earlier.



Photos from Benjamin, 1908

This  drawing  appeared in The Northern Wisconsin Advertiser in 1911:



The bronze tablet reads:

This Memorial

Was Erected In 1907

By The Society Of Colonial Wars

In The District Of Columbia

To Mark The Road Over Which

On April 14, 1755

A Division Of The British Army

Under General Braddock

Marched On Its Way

To Fort Duquesne

Benjamin goes on to say:

Over yonder highway, known in history as Braddock's road,

a little more than 150 years ago, following the flag of our

mother country, a brave band of soldiers, in order to better

protect the homes of our ancestors, passed in front of this

spot on their way to cruel disaster.

To-day, under the green canopy of these splendid trees,

silent witnesses of that scene, within the precincts of this

sacred ground, recently consecrated by the presence of the

holy prelates of both the English and our own Church, we,

the descendants of worthy ancestors, are gathered to place a

permanent marker in enduring stone and bronze in memory

of that event.

"Yonder highway" would be Wisconsin Avenue, the southern end of the Rockville Pike (modern day MD 355). Benjamin is at pains to show that "...the line of march from Rock Creek to Frederick could have been over no other road than that now known as the Rockville pike".

When I visited in November of 2009, I found this lady gathering ginkgo nuts in the Cathedral close.