PE ALE'S MUSEUM . 221 



PEALE'S MUSEUM 



By HAKOLD SELLERS COLTON, Ph.D. 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



AN almost neglected chapter in the history of the natural sciences 

 in this country is that dealing with Peale's Museum. 1 Of the 

 accounts of the museum that have appeared from time to time, one 

 alone is worthy of consideration, being written from a scientific point 

 of view. The work referred to is by Mr. Witmer Stone 2 and considers 

 the ornithological collections alone. 



Through the great kindness of Mr. Horace Wells Sellers, access has 

 been had to the diaries, letter books and unpublished autobiography of 

 Charles Willson Peale. "With the material thus furnished by Mr. 

 Sellers, to whom the writer is deeply indebted, and much other mate- 

 rial from the Pennsylvania Historical Society and the Philadelphia 

 Library, very little of which has been referred to by biographers, many 

 clouds enveloping the history of Peale's Museum have been cleared 

 away. As this history is so intimately connected with the life of the 

 founder, a better beginning can not be made than by reviewing briefly 

 his career. 



His life was a long one — eighty-six years. It divides itself very 

 naturally into four periods — of about equal length — twenty to twenty- 

 four years: the period of youth, the period of the prime of life, the 

 period of middle age, and the period of old age. The first period 

 begins with his birth in Queen Anne County, Maryland, April 15, 1741. 



His progenitors were English. In the paternal line, they were for 

 several generations rectors of the parish of Edith Weston in Eutland- 

 shire. Charles Peale, his father, although educated in turn for the 

 church at Cambridge, did not take a degree, but came to this country 

 and became headmaster of the Kent County Free School in Maryland. 

 Although the school was popular and patronized by the best families 

 of Kent County, yet he, at times, had great difficulty in making both 

 ends meet; and died when his eldest son Charles Willson Peale was 

 nine years old. His widow, being left with very little to provide for 

 a large family, removed to Annapolis, and, by dressmaking, maintained 

 herself and her children. 



1 The official name was " The Philadelphia Museum," but must not be 

 confused with the now existing " Philadelphia Museum," which was founded 

 forty-five years after the former ceased to exist. 



2 Awk, April, 1899, Vol. XVI., pp. 166-177. 



