Dedication ceremonies took place at Shepard Memorial Church.[14] Thomas Wentworth Higginson addressed the crowd on the occasion.[15] Higginson described the statue as being noteworthy in representing "the common man," and even suggested that it was "the first time...that the every-day Puritan has appeared in sculpture."[16] He further stated that Bridge "was one of those who kept back the Indian and brought civilization forward."[17] Harvard President Charles William Eliot also addressed the crowd, and hailed how Bridge's life "foretold the life of the teeming millions who in two centuries were to vivify the wild continent."[18]