Posted on May 21, 2005
By Kenneth Aaron – Times Union
First published: Saturday, May 21, 2005
For a while, the big rock to honor William Henry Seward on Union College's campus threatened to become Crary's Folly.
But Union alumni and cousins Cal and Duncan Crary pushed through whatever doubts they had in establishing a memorial for Seward, a member of Union's Class of 1820. And now, after a five-year campaign, a 3,700-pound boulder from Alaska — which Seward bought for the United States from Russia in 1867 — sits at Nott Terrace and Seward Place.
The monument will be dedicated at 2 p.m. today.
The Crarys, who graduated in 2000, led the charge for their class gift to be some kind of marker for Seward, who previously had no memorial on campus even though he helped write the Emancipation Proclamation and was a New York governor, U.S. senator and secretary of state. And there was the Alaska thing, too — “Seward's Folly” and “Seward's Ice Box,” wags of the day called it.
“What's a guy got to do to get some kind of recognition around here?” Duncan Crary asked.
School officials gave them three years to raise money for the gift, and donors gave $10,200 to the effort. That's more than the typical Union class gift, which clocks in around $2,000 or $3,000. It still wasn't enough for a big statue, which would have run $100,000. The best they could do was a small marker of the type made by tombstone makers — and, unsurprisingly, they got proposals that looked like tombstones, Cal Crary said.
A photography professor suggested hauling a rock from Alaska. Eventually, the Crarys worked with Dick Miller, owner of Damco Paving Corp. in Anchorage, a rock buyer. He found the Seward memorial in the midst of 250,000 tons of stone excavated for a parking lot off the Seward Highway.
Miller said he liked the shape and size of the hard, dark sandstone, known as graywacke. (You can call it a sedimental favorite.)
“Seward was very important to Alaska,” said Miller, proud to be included in the effort. “We would have liked to have seen a much larger stone go there, but so be it.”
True, Cal Crary said. “Dick and I had dreams of a boulder that would block the sun,” he said, throwing his arms skyward.
The one they got is about 4-by-5-feet wide. Getting a rock that big 4,500 miles took some doing. The company that ultimately sold and shipped the rock to Schenectady, Anchorage Sand and Gravel, needed to make a special pallet to accommodate it on its two-week journey: from a truck, to a ship bound for Fife, Wash., to another truck that headed across the country.
For Seward, though, it was worth it.
“Every school kid knows that Alaska was purchased for, gosh, it was a penny an acre, two,” said Steve Lovs, vice president and general manager of Anchorage Sand & Gravel, which sold the rock to Union.
Now, the boulder carries a large plaque detailing Seward's accomplishments, and a quote of his about the struggle between free and slave states. Duncan Crary hopes residents and students will be inspired to learn more about Seward.
The whole memorial, including plaques, rock and shipping, cost $6,500.
But if a bigger rock would bring more attention to Seward, Dick Miller vowed to help. “If they'll pay the freight, I'll ship them a huge one. Free,” he said.
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