Record. xxi 



the following report, which was ordered entered on the 



minutes and transmitted to the family of the late Mr. 



Chouteau : — 



IN MEMORIAM. 



CHARLES PIBRRE CHOUTEAU. 



Born, in St. Louis, December 2, 1819; died, in St. Louis, January 6, 1901. 



March 10, 1856, The Academy of Science of St. Louis was organized; a 

 constitution and by-laws were adopted, and oflScers elected. The name of 

 Charles P. Chouteau appears in the minutes as a member of the Board of 

 Council; it is the only name carried on the roll of active members at the 

 beginning of the new century. Of the fifteen founders who took part in the 

 meeting for organization, but one now remains affiliated as a corresponding 

 member; two others are still living in St. Louis. 



The establishment of a museum by the Academy dates from its second 

 meeting, April 21, 1856; at this meeting *' Mr Charles P. Chouteau stated 

 that he would place the collection of fossil remains, obtained by Dr. Hayden 

 from the Mauvaises Terres and other parts of Nebraska, now in his posses- 

 sion, in the Museum of the Academy. . . . His own interest in the 

 collection, amounting to about one -fourth of the whole, he presented as a 

 donation." A second one- fourth interest in this very important collection, 

 <* of Mammalian and Chelonian remains from the Eocene Tertiary, together 

 with a large suite of elegantly preserved fossils from the Cretaceous For- 

 mation of Nebraska," was acquired a year later by subscription; the other 

 half having become the property of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia. The museum was rapidly increased by a great number of 

 valuable donations, and occasionally by purchases, noted in the minutes of 

 successive meetings down to the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861 Promi- 

 nent among the donors appears, again and again, the name of Charles P. 

 Chouteau, whose continuing interest is shown both by his very numerous 

 gifts of important specimens and by his repeated acts of enlighteoed liber- 

 ality in providing for a collector or other representative of the Academy to 

 accompany him, as his guest, on the annual steamboat expeditions of the 

 American Fur Company to the Upper Missouri Frequent notices in the 

 Journal of Proceedings testify to the extent and the value of the additions 

 made to the Museum from these trips. By the destruction of the collections 

 of the Academy, by fire, in May, 1869, the visible evit)enceof the munificence 

 of Mr. Chouteau and other early benefactors has been obliterated; the mag- 

 nitude of the loss may be inferred, rather than estimated, from the too brief 

 notices contained in the minutes as published in the first and second volumes 

 of the Transactions. The fragment of a lar«e meteorite from Nebraska, 

 presented May 17, 1858 (vide Transactions, Vol. 1, pp. 711-12, Plate XXf), 

 alone remains of the many and priceless gifts of Charles P. Chouteau to the 

 A6ademy. 



At the Annual Meeting, January 12, 1857, Charles P. Chouteau was elected 

 to the office of Second Vice President; in an act of the General Assembly 

 of the State of Missouri, approved January 17, 1857, his name appears as a 

 Charter Member, in conjuction with f^^org*^ Eoijelmann, fHiram A. Prout, 

 Nathaniel Holmes, fBenjarain F. Shumard, fCharles W. Stevens, -j-James 

 B. Eads, fMoses M. Paileo, fAdolphus Wislizunus, fCuarles A. Pope, and 

 William M. McPheeters. 



