Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Titanic Memorial: A Tribute to "Friendship"

Just a few yards from the White House south lawn sits a little-known monument related to the ill-fated passenger ship Titanic, which struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage on April 15, 1912. Described as a “tribute to friendship,” this fountain along E St. honors Francis Davis Millet and Archibald Butt, two men who went down with the vessel, selflessly assisting women and children as the ship sank. Millet was 60, and Butt 46 at the time of the tragedy.

The two “devoted friends” shared a house in DC, even though Millet had married (his wife lived elsewhere). Butt described Millet as “my artist friend who lives with me.” Their only recorded spat was over the wallpaper Millet had chosen for their home (too many red and pink roses for Butt’s taste). Their live-in Filipino houseboys served presidents, cabinet members, ambassadors and Supreme Court justices during lavish parties and dinners the male hosts were famous for. President Taft wept openly when he learned that Butt had perished in the Titanic tragedy, yet the two well-connected men have been forgotten with the passage of time.

The joint monument is a stone fountain designed by the sculptor Daniel Chester French and architect Thomas Hastings. Among other of French's works here in Washington are the seated statue of Lincoln inside the Lincoln memorial and the Dupont Circle Fountain. Hastings was architect of the elegant amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, but his best known building is the New York Public Library. At any rate, the design team boasted impeccable pedigrees.

This memorial was paid for by funds raised privately by friends of the two men, both of whom were widely known in Washington's cultural, social, and political circles. Frank Millet (above), a skilled painter, was a member of the Fine Arts Commission who also directed the American Academy in Rome, Italy. Major Butt had been a military aide to both President Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The fountain today sits not far from where Major Butt's White House office was located.

The two men had a tenant in their Washington home, a young diplomat named Archie Clark Kerr, who worked at the British Embassy. He returned to Washington 35 years later as Lord Inverchapel, the British Ambassador. Kerr caused quite a stir among diplomatic circles by suddenly disappearing to Eagle Grove, Iowa, to stay with a strapping farm boy Kerr had come upon while the lad was waiting for a bus on the streets of Washington. So there you have it.

Frank Millet had a studio in Rome in the early 1870s, and one in Venice a few years later. While in Venice Millet lived with Charles Warren Stoddard, a well-known American travel journalist and poet who had a sexual interest in men. Historian Jonathan Ned Katz published letters from Millet to Stoddard that confirm they lived a bohemian life together in a romantic and intimate relationship. But the most important relationship of Millet’s life was not with Stoddard or even his wife – it was with Archibald Butt.

Fast forward to the early spring of 1912. Millet and Butt (left) together boarded the steamship Berlin for a six-week trip to Europe. To say that they were a conspicuous pair is understatement. Butt wore bright, copper-colored trousers with a Norfolk jacket, fastened by big ball-shaped buttons of red porcelain, a lavender tie, a tall collar, broad-brimmed hat, patent leather shoes with white tops, a bunch of lilies in his buttonhole and a handkerchief tucked into his sleeve. The two men returned home to America together, too, in first class cabins aboard the “unsinkable” Whitestar liner RMS Titanic. On the night of April 14, the ship struck an iceberg and sank the next morning with Butt and Millet among the 1,517 victims of the disaster.

Although the intimate relationship between Millet and Butt was never mentioned publicly, it was common knowledge among Washington insiders, and the fact that their friends erected a joint monument to their memory is a remarkable and poignant tribute, considering the mores of the day.

The 8-foot tall marble fountain displays bas-reliefs of both men. On one side of the shaft placed atop the fountain is a military figure with sword and shield representing Major Butt, and an artist with palette and brush represents Millet. Besides being a memorial, the fountain was designed to double as a water fountain for the horses ridden by U.S. Park Police while on patrol.

Inscription carved around the upper rim of the fountain:

IN MEMORY OF FRANCIS DAVIS MILLET · 1846 - 1912 ·
AND ARCHIBALD WILLINGHAM BUTT · 1865 - 1912 ·
THIS MONUMENT HAS BEEN ERECTED BY THEIR FRIENDS WITH THE SANCTION OF CONGRESS

8 comments:

  1. This story gave me goosebumps! If you don't mind, I'm gonna re-post this and say that it came from your site.

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  2. There is more about Millet and Butt on OutHistory.org at: http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Press_Release:_Frank_Millet,_Archie_Butt,_and_the_Titanic_at_100

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  3. have read about millet, very interesting stuff. His dad was a military surgeon during the civil war and Frank was trained to assist him in surgery. He was a talented artist & opted for that career over medicine.

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  4. I had no idea. Great article. This gives Millet an entirely new dimension. I have visited his studio in Massachusetts and am fascinated by him. (He lived about five miles from my present day house and is buried not far from his old studio.) I just visited Chesterwood (Daniel Chester French's studio and home) and remembered there was some kid of connection to Millet. That is how i found this page. I could have sworn Millet and French were good friends. Trying to confirm this.

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    1. Millet can't be buried a few miles from his studio. He went down with The Titanic.

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    2. From your blogger: 340 dead bodies were recovered from the ocean. Millet's body was recovered by the cable boat Mackay-Bennett and returned to East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he was buried at Central Cemetery. However, most (about 200) of the victims were buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I visited that cemetery during a trip to Canada in 2011.

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  5. Sometimes I disagree with your choices (Aiden Shaw or Michael Lucas don't seem worthy of an entry) but that certainly doesn't stop your blog from being FANTASTIC and the lost stories of prominent or important gay men that you feature are revalatory and enlightening. THANK YOU for doing and sharing this interesting and important work.

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  6. Thanks for visiting my blog, and greater thanks for your kind words.
    My standard for featuring a man on my blog is the word "influence" (the title of my blog is Gay Influence). By that standard, both Aiden Shaw and Michael Lucas wield greater influence on gay culture than Archibald Butt and Francis Millet. But the Titanic couple's story has greater human interest than the porn stars.
    Before I did the research, it was news to me that gay men had perished toiling to save the lives of women and children struggling to survive the Titanic disaster. The whole point of my blog is to make gay men feel better about themselves, so I feature success stories of hundreds of gay and bisexual men who have made a difference and achieved success.
    I included Shaw and Lucas because they are both polymaths who defy stereotypes. Lucas is a lawyer who survived religious persecution (he's Jewish) and went on to establish an enterprise employing dozens in a NYC environment (he pays benefits such as health insurance, etc.). He is an in-demand lecturer at major universities, etc. (I'm sure you read the post). He has fostered a legitimacy to the field of adult entertainment and has strongly influenced it. Same with Shaw, who has become a mature model for luxury goods (what other former porn star has done that?) who sings, publishes poetry, writes essays, edits magazines, teaches English, etc.
    These days I am spending most of my free time overseeing the care of my aging parents, so I have little time to write new posts, but if you have suggestions, please send them my way.
    Best regards,
    Your blogger Terry

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