Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Charles Wilson Peale
‘The ingenious Captain Peale” sired a dynasty of painters and started America’s first great museum.
As Anne Keigher, an architect deeply involved with the London house Benjamin Franklin called home for almost 16 years, shows me around it, she points out a supporting pillar in the basement. “This original pier needed new concrete footing poured beneath it, so we were digging down to shore it up,” she says. “That’s when we discovered the bones.”
So read a welcoming sign over the door of Charles Willson Peale’s great ill-fated museum
In the summer of 1786, an advertisement heralding the appearance of a revolutionary new institution appeared in the Pennsylvania Packet: “ MR.
Peale’s Greatest Triumph
During the spring of 1801 Charles Willson Peale learned of a remarkable discovery—the huge bones of an “animal of uncommon magnitude” had been found in Orange and Ulster counties north of New York City.
The Last Stand of King Grizzly
Bears and people have been at war for a long time-possibly longer than two predatory mammals should be, with any hope of mutual survival. In the beginning, the bears won almost every time, though not as often as the great cats did.
Time is taking its toll of the romantic covered bridge, where once you could exchange gossip, argue politics, or court your lady fair.
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