CHARLES WILLSON PEALE. 
citizens and strangers contributed to enlarge his collection, 
and, in a few years, his picture gallery, at the corner of 
Lombard and Third streets, after several enlargements, was 
found to be too small for his Museum. It was then remov- 
ed to the Philosophical Hall, and there was greatly aug- 
mented, especially with the skeleton of the Mammoth,* 
which was discovered in Ulster county, N. York State, and 
disinterred at great expense and labour. Thus, a few 
bones of the Mammoth accidentally suggested the idea of a 
Museum, which, subsequently furnished its founder with 
the means of procuring and displaying to the world the 
first skeleton of that antedeluvian wonder, since classified 
* In the spring of 1801, receiving information from a scientific correspon- 
dent in the State of New York, that in the autumn of 1799 many bones of 
the Mammoth had been found in digging a marle-pit in the vicinity of New- 
burgh, which is situated on the river Hudson, sixty-seven miles from the 
city of New York, my father, Charles Willson Peale, immediately proceed- 
ed to the spot, and through the politeness of Dr. Graham, whose residence on 
the banks of the Wall-kill enabled him to be present when most of the bones 
were dug up, received every information with respect to what had been 
done, and the most probable means of future success. The bones that had 
been found were then in the possession of the farmer who discovered them, 
heaped on the floor of his garret or granary, where they were occasionally 
visited by the curious. These my father was fortunate to make a pur- 
chase oft together with the right of digging for the remainder, and, imme- 
diately packing them up, sent them on to Philadelphia. They consisted of 
all the neck, most of the vertebras of the back, and some of the tail ; most of 
the ribs, in greater part broken.; both scapulae ; both humeri, with the radii 
and ulnae ; one femur; a tibia of one leg, and a fibula of the other ; some 
large fragments of the head ; many of the fore and hind feet bones ; the pel- 
vis, somewhat broken ; and a large fragment, five feet long, of one tusk, 
about mid-way. He therefore was in want of some of the back and tail 
bones, some of the ribs, the under jaw, one whole tusk and part of the other, 
the breast bone, one thigh, and a tibia and fibula, and many of the feet 
bones. But as the farmer’s fields were then in grain, the enterprise of fur- 
ther investigation was postponed for a short time. 
The whole of this part of the country abounding with morasses, solid 
enough for cattle to walk over, containing peat, or turf, and shell-marle, it is 
the custom of the farmers to assist each other, in order to acquire a quantity 
of the marie for manure. Pits are dug generally twelve feet long and five 
feet wide at the top, lessening to three feet at the bottom. The peat or turf 
is thrown on lands not immediately in use ; and the marie, after mellowing 
through the winter, is in the spring scattered over the cultivated fields — the 
most luxuriant crops are the consequence. It was in digging one of these, 
on the farm of John Masten, that one of the men, thrusting his spade deeper 
than usual, struck what he supposed to be a log of wood, but on cutting it to 
ascertain the kind, to his astonishment, he found it was a bone: it was quick- 
ly cleared from the surrounding earth, and proved to be that of the thigh, 
three feet nine inches in length, and eighteen inches in circumference, in the 
smallest part The search was continued, and the same evening several 
other bones were discovered. The fame of it soon spread through the neigh- 
bourhood, and excited a general interest in the pursuit : all were eager, at 
the expense of some exertions, to gratify their curiosity in seeing the ruins 
of an animal so gigantic, of whose bones very few among them had ever 
heard, and over which they had so often unconsciously trod. For the two 
succeeding days upwards of an hundred men were actively engaged, en- 
couraged by several gentlemen, chiefly physicians of the neighbourhood, 
and success the most sanguine attended their labours : but, unfortunately, 
the habits of the men requiring the use of spirits, it was afforded them in too 
under the name of Mastadon; which, in its turn contributed 
to give character and value to a Museum that now ranks on 
an equality with the most celebrated of Europe, founded 
and supported as they are, by the wealth of powerful gov- 
ernments. 
Hitherto no person in America had presented the sub- 
ject of Natural History in the attractive shape of lectures. 
With the view of combining the result of his own observa- 
tions and discoveries, with the facts and observations that 
were to be found scattered in various European works, Mr. 
Peale delivered at the Museum a course of lectures at once 
popular and scientific, which were attended by the most 
great profusion, and they quickly became so impatient and unruly, that they 
had nearly destroyed the skeleton; and, in one or two instances, using oxen 
and chains to drag them from the clay and marie, the head, hips, and tusks 
were much broken ; some parts being drawn out, and others left behind. So 
great a quantity of water, from copious springs, bursting from the bottom, rose 
upon the men, that it required several score of hands to lade it out, with all the 
milk-pails, buckets, and bowls, they could collect in the neighbourhood. All 
their ingenuity was exerted to conquer difficulties that every hour increased 
upon their hands ; they even made and sunk a large coffer-dam, and within 
it found many valuable small bones. The fourth day so much water had 
risen in the pit, that they had not courage to attack it again. In this state 
we found it in 1801. 
It was a cnrious circumstance attending the purchase of these bones, 
that tire sum which was paid for them Was little more than one-third of what 
had been offered to the farmer for them by another, and refused, not long be- 
fore. This anecdote may not be uninteresting to the moralist, and I shall 
explain it. The farmer of German extraction — and like many others in 
America, speaking the language of his fathers better than that of his coun- 
try — was born on his farm ; he was brought up to it as a business, and it 
continued to be his pleasure in old age ; not because it was likely to free him 
from labour, but because profit, and the prospect of profit, cheered him in it, 
until the end was forgotten in the means. Intent upon manuring his lands 
to increase its production, (always laudable), he felt no interest in the fossil- 
shells contained in his morass ; and had it not been for the men who dug 
with him, and those whose casual attention was arrested, or who were drawn 
by report to the spot, for him the bones might have rotted in the hole in which 
he discovered them ; this he confessed to me would have been his conduct, 
certain that after the surprise of the moment they were good for nothing but 
to rot as manure. But the learned physician, the reverend divine, to whom 
he had been accustomed to look upwards, gave importance to the objects 
which excited the vulgar stare of his more inquisitive neighbours : he there- 
fore joined his exertions to theirs, to recover as many of the bones as possible. 
With him, hope was every thing ; with the men curiosity did much, but rum 
did more, and some little was owing to certain prospects which they had of 
sharing in the future possible profit. It is possible he might have encouraged 
this idea; his fear of it, however, seems to have given him some uneasiness; 
for when he was offered a small sum for the bones, it appeared too little to di- 
vide ; and when a larger sum, he fain would have engrossed the whole of it, 
or persuade himself that the real value might be something greater. Igno- 
rant of what had been offered him, my father’s application was in a critical 
moment, and the farmer accepted his price, on condition that he should re- 
ceive a new gun for his son, and new gowns for his wife and daughters, with 
some other articles of the same class. The farmer was glad they were out 
of his granary, and that they were in a few days to be two hundred miles dis- 
tant ; and my father was no less pleased with the consciousness, and on 
which every one complimented him, that they were in the hands of one who 
would spare no exertions to make the best use of them. The neighbours, 
