Walking the brick paths of the King’s Garden, visitors can’t help but notice the statue of Diana rising above the flowers from her pedestal in the reflecting pool. It is the work of Anna Hyatt Huntington, a prominent and prolific American sculptor whose works can be found in museums and public spaces around the world. A cousin of museum co-founder Stephen Pell, Anna Hyatt Huntington and her husband Archer donated to the restoration efforts at the Fort and were frequent visitors to the Pavilion during the 1930s where they enjoyed spending time among the flowers of the King’s Garden, appreciating the symmetry of Marion Cruger Coffin’s design with its central reflecting pool.
On October 1, 1937, a large crate arrived at the Pavilion bearing a gift from Anna Hyatt Huntington to her Cousin Steve. It contained her Young Diana. After getting over his initial shock—Stephen had been expecting the more mature form of Diana of the Chase—the statue was installed in its current location as the central point of the garden. Sarah Pell was inspired to write a sonnet to this Diana, included in one of the family scrapbooks and later published in the Bulletin of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum:
Fair lover of the Chase, how comest thou here
To grace this historied shrine in garden close
Where Romance vies with Ware tale, Phlox with Rose,
The Past and Present joined in equal sphere.
Goddess Diana of youthful form,
Thou art the Future, fearless, ageless, free,
Untouched thy dreams by either sun or storm,
Beholding neither pain nor calumny,
Nature proclaims the message Thou does’t give,
Arise, take aim, aspire, hope, triumph, live.