Located at the Burnside Fountain in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a statue known to the locals as “Turtle Boy”. Officially named as “Boy With A Turtle”, the statue is not something that you could say as “child-friendly”, and you would know this just by taking one look at it (see full photo here). But how did this statue come to be? The answer goes back to the early 1900s.
The Burnside Fountain was commissioned in 1904 after the death of Harriet Burnside, who bequeathed upon the city $5,000 from her will to build a fountain that could also serve as a drinking trough for horses and dogs. The design of the basin was left to Henry Bacon, who would later help architect the Lincoln Memorial, and the sculpture itself, our beloved "Turtle Boy," was assigned to Charles Y. Harvey. Burnside made no mention of turtles in her request, so the design's blame most likely lies with Harvey, who perhaps heard "a drinking trough for dogs" and thought that must be coded language…
But only a week after beginning to build the sculpture, Harvey started to hear voices, which he believed came from the unfinished sculpture, which told him to kill himself. Unfortunately, Harvey gave in to these voices.
Sherry Fry finished the statue but had Charles Harvey lived to fully realize his creation, perhaps Turtle Boy would look much different.
(Image Credit: Daderot/ Wikimedia Commons)
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