Be on the lookout for the works of H.L. Mencken – not literal copies of his books but brass, book-like facsimiles honoring the writer that adorned a fountain in Baltimore’s Union Square Park and were stolen last week.

In view of Mencken’s home across the park, the thief (or thieves) pried off and carted away about 14 of the book-shaped plaques in all, according to community leaders.

“To us they mean so much, but what will someone get, selling these for scrap – $150?” said Thomas Hams, who has lived in the neighborhood for 13 years. “It’s hard to believe it was worth it for somebody.”

Last Wednesday, Hams had surprised a man inside the fountain area who fled on foot when Hams tried to take his photo.

Hams told the story by phone yesterday to a reporter who had just surveyed the scene at the park, where the fountain (and a graceful Greek Revival Pavilion) are centerpieces of this historic southwest Baltimore neighborhood.

On the fountain’s circular surround, shadows showed the spots (about 30 of them) where there once were plaques for “The American Mercury” (the magazine Mencken founded), “Happy Days,” “The American Language” and other works.

All that remained in place was a single book plaque, the one honoring “A Book of Prefaces,” Mencken’s 1917 collection of essays criticizing American culture, authors and movements, and reportedly a source of inspiration for the author Richard Wright.

Also untouched was a brass dedication plaque that reads: “The H.L. Mencken Fountain – Presented to the City of Baltimore Sept. 12, 1971 by the Union Square Association Incorporated.”

Some Saved, Thieves Return for the Rest

Hams said he had been walking his dogs in the park that Wednesday at about 5:30 p.m. when he saw the man and heard the sound of metal banging.

“I said ‘Are you taking the plaques?’ and he said ‘Oh no, I’m uhh, making them straight for somebody,” Hams recalled.

When Hams took out his phone and started to take a photo, the man ran off.

Scattered around in the snow were a number of the book plaques the man had apparently removed.

Hams said he called the police and a neighbor and took the 12 pried-off plaques for safe-keeping. He let the community association know what had happened and posted a notice on the Union Square Facebook page.

The next morning Hams returned and found that all but one of the remaining plaques, about 14 of them, were gone.

“I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news, but the person(s) that attempted to steal the brass plaques from the US fountain succeeded,” Hams reported on Facebook, adding a description of what was taken.

“Each plaque is 6″ wide and 8.5″ high,” he wrote.

Asked if he holds out hope they may be found and saved from being sold and melted down, Hams was not optimistic.

“It’s unlikely,” Hams said. “If we had acted quickly and said to the scrap yards ‘Don’t do this’ we may have saved some. At this point, I don’t know.”

UPDATE: Bif Browning, president of the Union Square Association, contacted us today (3/4/15) to say that more of the plaques were saved than they thought:

“We learned today that eight more of the plaques were recovered by Chris Taylor who confronted the thief when he returned and stole the remaining plaques,” Browning said, in an email to The Brew.

“In this interaction, the thief dropped the additional eight plaques and only got away with five plaques,” Browning wrote. “The police are distributing flyers and contacting metal scrappers in hopes to help us recover the missing five plaques.”

Historic Neighborhood Centerpiece

Henry Louis Mencken, the brilliant and curmudgeonly journalist and essayist considered one of the most influential writers of the early 20th century, lived from the age of three at 1524 Hollins Street.

Union Square Park, a 2.2-acre parcel deeded to the city by the area’s developers in the mid-1800s, is the anchor of an architecturally rich neighborhood, used for the filming of the 1997 movie “Washington Square.”

But the presence of a fountain in the park predates the idea of paying tribute to “The Sage of Baltimore.” For that background, Hams and others in Union Square deferred to neighborhood history expert, Francis Rahl.

“No visual or descriptive reference has been found for the original iron fountain, although two family photographs from about 1910 do include a fountain that may be the original,” Rahl wrote us.

“The fountain was removed in the early 20th century. There has been a theory that it was removed for its iron to support a war. This is unverified,” Rahl said.

In 1971, the Union Square Association commissioned a replacement that honored Mencken, he said.

“It was made of non-traditional materials and was eventually replaced with a 19th century authentic cast iron fountain” in 2012, he said.

“The plaques were part of the fund raising for the 1971 fountain. They commemorated donors to the effort.”