Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 2098
A fountain was dedicated in October 1885, in memory of Theodore Lyman, Jr., Mayor of Boston in 1834-35.
The Lyman Fountain, which now exists only in memory, was installed as a monument to the memory of Lyman as he was the first to propose the introduction of water into the city of Boston. The fountain was described:
… The fountain is a highly ornamental structure of original design and fine proportions, and is believed to be the highest and handsomest fountain in the New England States. Its entire altitude is twenty-six feet. The basin is of Monson granite and thirty-three feet in diameter. The first pan is twelve feet and six inches in diameter; the second pan six feet and eight inches. The surmounting group of figures represents Venus, Cupid, and swan, while the figures about the pedestal stand for the four seasons. The supply of water is from three pipes attached to a three-inch main, a sixty-pound pressure providing ample force. One of these pipes discharges through the swan’s mouth and through four dragons on the first pedestal and four griffins, between the first and second pans. Another furnishes a supply for one hundred and forty-four jets in the rim of the first pan, and eighty in the second, while the third pipe feeds the four cascades at the base of the pedestal. The water from the jets does not overflow the pan, but discharges through four gargoyle heads.
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