Temperance Fountain

Washington's Temperance Fountain is a monument to one man's effort to reduce alcohol consumption in 19th-century America. The fountain was completed in 1884 with funding from a dentist and ardent supporter of the temperance movement, Dr. Henry D. Cogswell (1820-1900). Cogswell built several similar water fountains around the country, as did other temperance activists who, in an era when clean drinking water was sometimes hard to find, hoped that providing water to passersby would encourage them to avoid alcohol. Although not a trained artist, it appears he designed the fountains himself and took an active role in their placement. This fountain one resembles a small temple and features four Doric columns, a stepped pyramidal roof with a metal statue of heron standing next to a reed, and a cylindrical stone pedestal topped by two large, entwined bronze fish, both of which have water spouts. Water no longer flows from the fountain, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

Henry Cogswell was born on March 3, 1820 in Tolland, Connecticut. He started working at a young age in mills but managed to educate himself by studying in the evening. He became a teacher but was apparently dissatisfied with that profession and decided to become a dentist, a goal he achieved when he was 26. He married his wife, Caroline, in 1846. Cogswell was also an inventor and in 1847, he invented the vacuum method of securing dental plates. Two years later, Cogswell moved his family to San Francisco in the midst of the Gold Rush. However, instead of mining for gold, he opened a dentist practice to offer his services to miners. He also started to invest in real estate. Both endeavors were highly successful and as a result, Cogswell became one of the city's first millionaires and he retired in 1880. In 1887, he founded Cogswell Technical School (now the University of Silicon Valley), which was the first institution of its kind west of the Mississippi River.

It is unclear what drove Cogswell to support the temperance movement but he began building fountains in the 1870s. He paid for them out of his own pocket at an average cost of around $4,000 per fountain and placed around the country including in San Jose, CA; Pawtucket, RI; Rockville, CT; and New York City. Congress accepted Cogswell's offer to build a fountain in Washington D.C. in 1882 and it was built two years later, becoming the city's third fountain. It originally had a trough and a cup hanging from a chain that was eventually removed. The fountain was moved fifty feet to the north of its original location in 1987.

Most of Cogswell's fountains no longer exist. There was an attempt by U.S. Senator Sheridan Downey of California to remove this one, however. Downey hated the fountain, calling it a "monstrosity of art" and an "art travesty." He began collecting information about the fountain in June 1943. Two years later, Downey introduced a resolution to have the fountain removed but his motion was ignored and it now enjoys some protection by its including on the National Register.

"A Brief History." University of Silicon Valley. Accessed January 7, 2023. https://usv.edu/explore/about/why-cogswell.

Barsoum, Eve L. "Temperance Fountain." National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. October 12, 2007. https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_DC/07001061.pdf.

"Finding Aid to the Henry D. Cogswell Papers, 1846-1960 (bulk 1850-1899)." Online Archive of California. Accessed January 7, 2023. https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8k4006t6.

"The Founding and History of Cogswell Polytechnical College." Cogswell Polytechnic College. Retrieved from the Web Archive on January 7, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20070609130631/http://www.cogswell.edu/historicalOverview.html.

"Temperance Fountain." D.C. Historic Sites. Accessed January 7, 2023. https://historicsites.dcpreservation.org/items/show/587.