Mad Anthony is worth a million in prizes

Probably the only Revolutionary War general to suffer metal-plate-in-the-head-induced epilepsy, Anthony Wayne is likely best known for having a ton of things named after him. At least twelve counties, twenty municipalities (including nearby Wayne, PA), one river and one national park are named for “Mad Anthony,” who earned his nickname either from his fiery personality and daring on the battlefield or from the aforementioned metal plate – used to repair a musket hole in his head – which caused him epileptic seizures and ‘foamy-mouth.’ Sources disagree on which.

Wayne, like everyone in those days, started off as a surveyor. Surveying was, understandably, big business in the New World, and I’m assuming most of them worked for Thomas Jefferson, an architect and the only founding father who was not a surveyor. Wayne did in fact work for Benjamin Franklin, surveying land in Nova Scotia owned by Franklin and some associates.

When the Revolutionary War broke, Wayne determined that his topographical mapping skills made him a perfect military leader. Others agreed with him, and within a year he was colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Pennsylvania. He turned out to in fact be pretty good at military tactics, though to be fair at that point the bar was set fairly low. Wayne was the first one to suggest training American troops, and after all how great can an army be if they’re hiring epileptic colonels? Within another year, he was brigadier general.

In combat, Wayne was known for two things: (1) holding out way longer than expected in battles he lost; and (2) winning sometimes. Like most of the American Revolutionary forces, he started slow but won more often as the war went on. Wayne became one of George Washington’s go-to guys (Washington once confided to Jefferson, “I like the way he shimmy-shakes”). Wayne was at the Valley Forge encampment, and he was a delegate at the Georgia state Constitutional Convention. He became a successful politician before re-entering the military at Washington’s request to join the Northwest Indian War, which he was instrumental in ending.

Returning from that War, Wayne died of complications from gout. Not one to do anything simply, he was first buried in Erie, PA, dug up thirteen years later, boiled to remove his flesh from his bones, and then his bones were brought to Radnor, PA (outside Philadelphia). Story says that along the trip (which followed the road today known as PA-322) many of Wayne’s bones were lost, and that his ghost still haunts that roadway to this day, in search of his lost bones.

General Wayne left quite a legacy. Batman (AKA Bruce Wayne), John Wayne (real name Marion Robert Morrison – his first screen name was Anthony Wayne until producers had him change it to John) and race-car driver Tony Stewart (Anthony Wayne Stewart) were all named for him, along with the places mentioned above and the assorted schools, libraries, sporting venues and other mishigos that gets named for you when you’re important and dead.

The statue beside the Philadelphia Art Museum was sculpted by John Gregory and installed in 1937 by the Sons of the Revolution, with a pedestal designed by architect Paul P. Cret (yes, it required an architect to design a rectangular pedestal). Wayne is on horseback, with sword drawn (a dangerous tendency, one would think, for an epileptic) and faces northeast toward….well… Northeast Philadelphia. What he sees there I couldn’t say. Perhaps he’s challenging Rocky to a fight? He is kinda nuts, from what I hear.

The inscription at the foot of the monument reads:

Anthony Wayne
A memorial of his valour
A tribute to his achievements
In the War of Independence
The Pennsylvania Society
Sons of the Revolution
Here inscribe his name
In honour
1937

Sculptor: John Gregory
Dedicated: 1937
Location: Art Museum (exterior) just southwest from the top of “the steps”