Baron von Steuben

Utica’s statue of General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1914). A replica of this statue was placed at the Valley Forge National Battlefield in 1915.

Located in a place of honor and prominence, at the very foot of the Parkway, where that boulevard intersects with Genesee Street, the statue of General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was dedicated in August 1914 by local German Americans at a ceremony attended by tens of thousands. President Woodrow Wilson was supposed to have to attended, but he had to cancel due to the impending death of his first wife and an crisis unfolding in Europe.

This is the first of three monuments on the Parkway—along with the later Columbus and Pulaski statues—representing the ties of local immigrant groups to both the US and their homelands. Unfortunately, this statue was unveiled on the day World War I began—a war for which Germany was widely blamed then and later—which set off an ugly wave of suspicion and devastating cultural prejudice toward all things German. What should have been a high point for local Germans served as the prelude to disaster.

Utica’s von Steuben statue was created by Swiss artist and Philadelphia resident J. Otto Schweizer (1863-1955), whose other works include: the statue of Lincoln on the Illinois monument at the Gettysburg Battlefield; 7 statues of Union generals at Gettysburg, more by him than by any other artist at that battlefield; a statue of Lincoln at the elegant Union League of Philadelphia; the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors, located in Philadelphia’s Logan Square. In addition, a replica of Utica’s von Steuben statue can be found at the Valley Forge National Park in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.