Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1881 — Anecdote of Forrest. [ARTICLE]

Anecdote of Forrest.

The sculptor Mcdonald is credited with the following anecdote of Edwin Forrest, illustrative of the dangers attending the casting of statues in bronze and the coolness of the exBowery boy and eminent tragedian. When Clark Mills had completed his preparations for the casting of his equestrian i statue of Jackson, the much criticised statue which stands in Lafayette square, opposite the President’s house in Wasington, he invited a number of his friends to be Bresent8 resent and among them Forrest. In lose .days the casting of colossal bronze statues was not so well under stood in this country as it is now, and Mill’s preparations were somewhat crude. Forrest was standing near by looking on with folded arms, a silent but deeply Interested observer. When the fiery metal was poun d into the mold there was a erash like a young earthquake, and metal, clay, dirt,and what-not went streaming through the air while Mills and his friends (>ut themselves off as fast as their egs would let them—everyliody but Forrest: be remained as immovable as a rock, though covered with dirt and debris; ana when Mills hastened back, expecting to find the old hero a mutilated wreck, Forrest cooly greeted him with, “Mills, what in the— is the matter here?”