"In memory of ESTHER, the beloved wife of Joseph Reed, President of this State, who departed this life On the 18th of September, A. D. 1780, aged 34 years. Reader! If the possession of those virtues of the heart Which make life valuable, or those personal endowments which Command esteem and love, may claim respectful and affectionate Remembrance, venerate the ashes here entombed. If to have the cup of temporal blessings dashed In the period and station of life in which temporal blessings May be best enjoyed, demands our sorrow, drop a tear, and Think how slender is that thread on which the joys And hopes of life depend." COMPLETION OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. The tardy pile, slow rising there, With tongueless eloquence shall tell Of them who for their country fell. SPRAGUE. Ladies, you deserve To have a temple built _you_. SHAKSPEARE. The Bunker Hill Monument Association was incorporated in June, 1823. Nothing further was done that year. At the second annual meeting, which was held on the seventeenth of June, efficient plans were devised to carry forward the enterprise; and at the end of another year, just half a century after the battle, the corner stone was laid. General Lafayette was then on a visit to the United States, and was appropriately chosen to take a leading part in this interesting ceremony. The monument did not get fairly under way till the spring of 1827. This apparent tardiness was owing to the circumstance that the material was to be brought from a granite quarry in Quincy, and a rail road--the first in the United States--had to be built from the quarry to the wharf in Quincy to convey the stone. In 1828, the funds were exhausted, and the work was not resumed till 1834. Within a year the work was again suspended for the same cause. Nothing further was done, and but little said, till 1839, when it was announced that two gentlemen--Amos Lawrence, Esq., of Boston, and Judah Truro, Esq., of New Orleans--would give ten thousand each, provided a sum sufficient to complete the monument could be raised. This liberal offer caused some momentary stimulation; but no proposal immediately made was deemed expedient.