— Brevet Major William Jenkins Worth, inscribed in West Point’s “Bugle Notes”, a book of knowledge all cadets must know by heart.
The Worth Monument is one of two monuments in the city, along with Grant’s Tomb, that is also a mausoleum.The remains of Major General William Worth are buried a 51-foot granite monument on a traffic island between Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 25th Street. The Worth Monument is the second oldest existing monument in New York City. The oldest is a dozen blocks down Broadway in Union Square Park; it commemorates the day George Washington liberated NYC from the British. There was an earlier monument, of King George III in Bowling Green at the lower tip of Manhattan but patriots pulled it down when they decided ideas like monarchy didn’t fit with the society they wanted to create. They shipped the statue to Connecticut where it was melted down for ammunition to use against the king it had honored.
Worth Street in lower Manhattan is named for the general, as are cities, villages, lakes, and counties in Illinois, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Florida, and Texas, including Fort Worth in the Lone Star State.
Words & Music by Mike Power 