SKETCH OP THE LIFE OF ANDREW DOWNS, FOUNDER OF THE FIRST 

 ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN IN AMERICA. BY HARRY PIERS. 



(See frontispiece. ) 



ANDREAV DOWNS was born in the town of New Brunswick, New 

 Jersey, U. S. A., on 27th September, 1811. His father, Robert, left 

 Scotland, of which he was a native, with the intention of taking a 

 position in Quebec, Canada. Some of his possessions having been 

 landed at Halifax, N. S., he came here, but afterwards left for New 

 Jersey, where he remained for some years. There he married Eliza- 

 beth, daughter of John and Catherine Plum, who was, I understand, 

 of German descent. With recollections in his mind of the city by the 

 sea, Robert returned to Halifax in 1825, bringing with him his 

 family, including his son Andrew, then a lad of about fourteen. 



Andrew was for sometime engaged in the plumbing business with 

 his father, and later, on his own account. His tastes, however, were 

 entirely of another kind, and he gradually gave more and more of his 

 time to the study of nature, the preserving of birds and other animals 

 and the propagation of the same, and to this work he finally devoted 

 all his energies. 



I would like to emphasize the fact that to him belongs the honour 

 of founding the first zoological garden in America. This he started 

 at Halifax in 1847, sixteen years before the Central Park collection at 

 New York was opened to the public. The Philadelphia garden did 

 not open till July, 1874, although the society was incorporated a num- 

 ber of years before ; while the "zoo " at Cincinnati opened in 1875, 

 that at St. Louis in 1877, and the Lincoln Park Garden, Chicago, in 

 1881. 



Mr. Downs commenced with a piece of land of five acres, but by 

 1863 he had enlarged his premises to one hundred acres (" Walton 

 Cottage "), near Dutch Village, North-West Arm, Halifax County, 

 embracing wood and field, stream and pond, hill and valley. This 



(cii) 



