German Immigrant Ancestors
in Syracuse and Onondaga County, New York
Postcards
from Michelle's
"Views of Syracuse, New York
Through Four Generations" collection
Monuments
This monument commemorates two famous German writers and was erected in Schiller Park by the Syracuse’s German/German-American community in 1911. It was dedicated to Syracusans of German ancestry on 5 October of that year. It is a copy of a monument created in 1857 by sculptor Ernst Reitschel (1804-1861) of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), regarded as Germany’s greatest poets/playwrights. The original monument was erected in 1857 in Weimar, Saxony, and has since become a national landmark in Germany. Schiller and Goethe were greatly admired in the United States as well. There are similar copies of this monument in San Francisco, California’s Golden Gate Park (erected in 1901), in the German Cultural Gardens in Cleveland, Ohio (erected 1907), and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Washington Park (dedicated in 1908). Schiller was very popular in the U.S. as a literary figure in 1905, the 100th anniversary of his death. Schiller Park (previously known as Round Top Park and encompassing what was previously St. Cecelia’s Catholic Cemetery) received its name officially on 3 July 1905. For more information see http://www.takeahike.org/Schiller.shtml
[Under construction -- more to come.]