30 Arnoldia 78/5-6 « October 2021 
Jesup’s initial hopes that the collection would 
be ready for public viewing by the autumn of 
1882 were not realized, but both he and Sargent 
agreed that the collection’s “value and perma- 
nence,” from a scientific standpoint, and its 
“beauty and usefulness” to the public would be 
favored by postponing until all the specimens 
were fully seasoned, prepared, and labeled.*” 
The exhibit space dedicated to the Jesup Col- 
lection was intended to be on the third floor of 
the Arsenal, an area the museum regarded as 
“dangerous” even when exhibits had been open 
to the public there a decade earlier.*? Almost 
immediately, there were concerns about the 
combined weight of the specimens.** When the 
walls of the building were observed to have to 
spread slightly by October 1882, the Depart- 
ment of Public Parks architect, Calvert Vaux, 
insisted that the excess weight be removed to 
comply with his specifications: not to exceed 
thirty-eight and a half tons, evenly distributed 
in the halls and the octagonal alcoves at each 
corner.*° At that time, there were 388 logs on- 
site and in preparation, with 60 more expected 
to “complete” the collection.*° This circum- 
stance hinted at another persistent theme that 
would follow the collection through time: 
housing it would always present substantial, 
even prohibitive infrastructural challenges. 
Soon, the allotted hall at the Arsenal became 
a workshop and storeroom for the log speci- 
mens rather than their exhibit space. By the 
spring of 1883, construction at the museum’s 
new building included the installation of “a 
large glass case, in two sections, extending 
along the middle of the Lower Hall,” meant 
to accommodate the log collection but neces- 
sarily displacing an exhibit of shells to another 
floor.’ By that autumn, there were two large 
cases, each 135 feet long, with six additional 
cases along the side.** The initial delay of six 
months had extended to a full year, and even 
then, opening by the following year was in 
doubt. In February 1884, Sargent estimated that 
just 105 specimens were “finished and ready”,°° 
in April, he wrote to Jesup and Bickmore to sug- 
gest delaying until the spring of 1885, when he 
thought that as many as 350 specimens would 
be fully prepared for exhibition.*° 
A Credit to the City 
With a date finally fixed for the exhibit’s open- 
ing, Bickmore promoted it as “the first effort yet 
made in this country to gather the native woods 
together in one collection on a scale commen- 
surate with the extent of the new continent 
and the importance of its forests.”*! Sargent 
had been at work on a condensed version of his 
census report, enumerating 412 species as The 
Woods of the United States, which would serve 
as a guidebook to the collection.*? In April, he 
reassured Jesup, “The geographical labels will 
be finished this week. They have cost me an 
immense amount of labor & bother, but I think 
they will be a great success, and are certainly 
the best things of the kind ever attempted. I 
shall be in N.Y. next week, long enough to see 
that everything is properly arranged.”* In his 
annual report to the trustees of the museum, 
Jesup hoped that the collection “will prove 
another popular attraction to the museum, and 
be the means of largely increasing the knowl- 
edge and information of the people on the sub- 
ject of our forests, now demanding so large a 
share of public attention.”“* 
The exhibit opened to visitors on May 18, 
1885, to popular acclaim. In addition to 350 
logs with their labels, the new exhibit featured 
about eighty watercolor illustrations of the 
foliage, flowers, and fruit of tree species, pre- 
pared by Mary Robeson Sargent (Sargent’s wife) 
at Jesup’s request. These, in particular, met 
with high praise: “The artist has been true to 
nature, without loss of refined and purely artis- 
tic method, a combination almost unknown 
in what is called a scientific treatment of nat- 
ural objects. The result is delightful ... many 
persons will appreciate for the first time the 
beauty and grace possessed by the flowers and 
fruits of many of our common forest trees.’ 
For the benefit of individuals wishing to study 
the woods from a botanical perspective, a cor- 
responding herbarium had been prepared by 
Charles Faxon, the assistant director and her- 
barium curator at the Arnold Arboretum, and 
shipped to the museum that spring. 
The Jesup Collection was soon described in 
the press as “a credit to the city, and a lasting 
testimonial to the wisdom and public spirit of 
Facing page: The press lauded the opening of the Jesup Collection in 1885. 
This engraving by C. Graham appeared in Harper’s Weekly shortly after the exhibition opening. 
COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR 
