High Capstone
On Saturday, 23 July 1842, several hundred of our early rising Bostonian ancestors rose earlier than usual to arrive at the monument at 6:00 A.M. On the ground at the base, they studied the capstone; a small stone pyramid, three feet, six inches high, stoutly lashed to the derrick hook, and with an American flag at the top. Standing on the capstone, firmly grasping the hoisting rope, Colonel Charles R. Carnes waited for the signal to hoist. When the clock struck six, a signal gun was fired, and the capstone, bearing the good colonel, started up. In 16 minutes it had reached the top; at 6:30 A.M. it had been bedded, and a national salute announced to all Boston that the Bunker Hill Monument was completed.
By railroad, great multitudes came to Boston for the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument, nearly a year later, on 17 June 1843. Unlike the time of 18 years earlier, when the cornerstone had been laid, stagecoaches were not the main conveyance for visitors to Boston. Indeed they were decidedly on the way out, and would soon be but symbols of an era of traveling discomfort, as the railroad completely took over. President Tyler and his cabinet attended; Daniel Webster matched with sonorous eloquence his famous speech at the laying of the cornerstone, and there were still 13 very aged surviving veterans of the battle able to attend.