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zh Historical Quarterly Dallin and His Paul Revere Statue ?al to the Great S piritJ 'J still stands in front of )it at Plymouth, MassaII of a Native American. at Brigham Young and 1ge1 Moroni on the spire it on the State Capitol ~ City Park. eptance for his Revere edible tale in the history nor has the controversy ItS. After careful study reconstructed here. The Dallins eventually settled in the small frontier town of Springville, fifty miles south of Salt Lake City. Here Cyrus, second oldest of nine children, wa5 born on November 22, 1861 , in a log cabin surrounded by an adobe wall intended to keep out hostile Indians. Cyrus, better known as "Bird" or "Birdie" by his family and playmates, learned to get along with the Indians, ride their ponies, and shoot their bows. In fact, the outdoors was his first classroom and studio. The nearby Wasatch Mountains, so sculptural Dallin at age fi ve with his mother, Jan e in form, fascinated him and beHamer Dallin. Photograph courtesy came an important stimulus in his of Mrs. E. Bertram Dallin. life. In their shadows he molded figures of toys, animals, Indians, and playmates from clay he found along 'the spring-fed creeks and ponds. In such an environment he indulged in fantasy to develop his imagination, but it was from his gentle mother that he gained an appreciation for art: :tllin's principal subject, his first and last major :rpiece out of some two nonuments. In his perlis Revere statue, Dallin Id humble beginning in lat Dallin "came from formon," 2 the sculptor that church. But it was is father, Thomas, sailnnonism in 1849 by a g Cyrus was to receive Hamer, also a Mormon :th with other pioneers ,ere Are Rekindling," clipping in Collection, Robbins Library, on newspaper, March 7, 1936, nes principally from a variety Iding Vittoria Colonna Dallin, s include : Smithsonian Institu; Martin K . Bovey's typescript Id family records in the Genea,ake City. 7 I owe my art to my mother, Jane Hamer Dallin, who loved beauty. In childhood days she modeled things out of clay and baked them in the oven. It was a case of heredity. I always liked art and began sketching and modeling when just a child and she, with my father Thomas Dallin, gave me every encouragement. 4 At eight years of age, Cyrus attended the small neighborhood schools where he excelled only in drawing sketches on his slate. Later he gained additional education, devoid of any art instruction, at a mission-type school sponsored by the Presbyterian church. The Dallins, who soon found that they could not conform to the strict requirements of the Mormon faith, changed over.to this denomination. The townspeople first recognized Birdie's talent when at age twelve he modeled a clay bust of Fanny Sutherland, a playmate, and two earthen heads of Joseph and Hyrum Smith from clay busts of the Mormon prophet and his brother. Cyrus had briefly observed busts of the two martyrs in a traveling show conducted by Philo Dibble who • Harold H . Jenson, "True Pioneer Stories, Cyrus E. Dallin," Deseret News, June 7, 1934.