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OBITUARY NOTICES. 
Titian Ramsay Peale, explorer, naturalist, and artist, 
born in Philosophical Hall, in Philadelphia, in the year 
1800, was the youngest son of Charles Willson Peale and his 
second wife, Elizabeth de Peyster. He was named Titian 
after the celebrated artist, four of his brothers having been 
named Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Van Dyke. The 
name Ramsay was given him for Colonel Nathaniel Ramsay, 
of the Maryland Continental Line, the intimate friend of his 
father and husband of the latter’s favorite sister. Colonel 
Ramsay was one of the two officers ordered by Washington 
at the battle of Monmouth to hold the British in check while 
he reformed his lines. Colonel Ramsay did so, and was 
wounded and taken prisoner. On his father’s side, the 
grandfather of Titian Peale, Charles Peale, of Rutlandshire, 
England, had been a student at Cambridge, England, and 
came to Maryland about 1726, where he taught the free 
school in Queen Anne county, at Chestertown, in that pro¬ 
vince, until his death, in 1750. His great-grandfather, Rev. 
Charles Peale, and great-great-grandfather, Rev. Thomas 
Peale, were both graduated from St. John’s College, Cam¬ 
bridge. His mother was a daughter of William de Peyster, 
of New York, a lineal descendant of Johannes de Peyster, 
who came to New Amsterdam about 1645 and filled various 
public offices there between 1655 and 1677. His father, 
Charles Willson Peale, is best known to us today from the 
fact of his having painted the earliest known portrait of 
Washington, and later, others, the result of fourteen personal 
sittings by Washington. However, he was not only an 
artist, but a patriot as well, having been in service during the 
Revolution from the time of the battle of Trenton until the 
army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. He was 
also the founder of the Philadelphia Museum, which, begin¬ 
ning in 1784 with a collection of portraits of men celebrated 
during the Revolution, gradually grew into a museum of 
natural history and ethnology, known as Peale’s Museum. 
After the death of C. W. Peale it was incorporated as the 
Philadelphia Museum Company, and continued in existence 
