Lewis Temple Memorial, New Bedford, Mass.

Around 1800, Lewis Temple was born into slavery in Richmond, Virginia. By the time he relocated to New Bedford in the late 1820s, he had mastered the blacksmith trade. He quickly became a leader in the local abolitionist movement, earning election as vice president of the New-Bedford Union Society—the city's first antislavery group—in 1834. It was in his Walnut Street forge that Temple developed the toggle iron. By utilizing a two-part point that swiveled and locked once embedded in a whale, the invention fundamentally transformed the whaling industry. It stood as the only major mechanical advancement in 19th-century whaling, though Temple never sought a patent for it.

Temple’s life was cut short in 1854 when he suffered a fatal fall on an unfinished sidewalk while constructing a new shop on School Street. The city later paid a cash award to his widow, acknowledging a "defect in the highway." Temple’s legacy and trade were carried on by his son, Lewis Temple Jr. When sculptor James Toatley was commissioned to create this monument in 1987, he used a historical photograph of the younger Temple to capture the face of the inventor.