Account of the Skeleton of the Mammoth

An artist rather than a paleontologist, Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860) nevertheless did a great deal to popularize the field. He was the son of American painter Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827); father and son are both well known for their portraits of George Washington. Charles Willson also founded the first natural history museum in America which until 1801 largely contained stuffed specimens, but was that year the first museum in the world to display the bones of a “mammoth” (later identified as a mastodon). It was also the second mounted fossil skeleton in history. Although Rembrandt and his father would later excavate further mastodon fossils themselves, Charles Willson acquired the skeleton in question from a farmer in New York. An undated newspaper article pasted into the back of the book describes the farmer’s discovery of the skeleton.