Everyone knows this handsome guy at the intersection of Compo Road South and Compo Beach Road, ostensibly the spot of the fiercest battle between the British (who cruised into Compo a bit earlier) and the Continental militias on the evening of April 25, 1777.
He’s the Minute Man, the everyman who leapt to his feet, threw on his clothes, and prepared himself to fight for our town in one minute flat.
Our beloved Minute Man, who looks in the direction of Westport’s last battle and greatest victory, was sculpted by artist H. Daniel Webster, 29, in 1909. Daniel designed him after the likenesses of several minute men descendants and, purportedly, used selectman Lewis P. Wakeman as a model.
Daniel created the sculpture in his workroom at his home on 56 Sylvan Road North. He had it cast by Tiffany & Co., shortly before Tiffany “discovered” morganite and named it after John Peirpoint Morgan, a renown banker and gemstone donor.
The statue was presented on June 17, 1910 to mild hysteria and a clambake. Two years later, Daniel died.
Today, this statue remains one of Daniel’s finest works and one of our country’s finest tributes to the American Revolution.
He’s the Minute Man, the everyman who leapt to his feet, threw on his clothes, and prepared himself to fight for our town in one minute flat.
