Date: Fri 01-Aug-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

State-House-Steward-Museum

Full Text:

America's Oldest Museum Re-Opens

(with photo)

HARTFORD - Congregational minister and portrait painter Joseph Steward opened

his Hartford Museum in the Hartford State House (now The Old State House), at

800 Main Street in the state capital, on June 5, 1797. At the time, the museum

featured his paintings, and to further draw the public, a collection of

"natural and artificial curiosities," as Mr Steward termed them.

Last month, Steward's museum held a grand public reopening at its original

site, the recently refurbished "new" Old State House. It featured many of the

objects and exhibits that were in the original Hartford Museum, including

several of Steward's paintings and his special exhibits of curiosities.

With the reopening on its 200th birthday, Steward's Hartford Museum became the

oldest museum in the country. It is the country's oldest, but not the first,

museum. That distinction goes to one set up by Charles Wilson Peale in

Philadelphia's Independence Hall, which operated from 1793 to 1854.

Steward's Hartford Museum was closely patterned after Peale's Cabinet of

Curiosities, which was intended to instruct and entertain visitors.

From diaries of the day and advertisements in local newspapers, the inventory

of the holdings of The Hartford Museum have been carefully researched and

reassembled. The Connecticut Historical Society loaned a number of the pieces

currently on view.

"Many of the paintings by Mr Steward that are in the museum are documented to

have been in the museum 200 years ago," said Wilson H. Faude, executive

director of the Old State House. "Also, the Science Center of Connecticut ...

[loaned] various shells and animals, including a Bengal tiger, `the largest

ever seen,' according to Steward."

Several individuals and businesses donated items to restore the original

collection, including several fish, the horn of a unicorn, the head of a Cape

buffalo, a mummified hand, various minerals, even a two-headed calf. A

replacement for Steward's original 8«-foot alligator was provided by the State

of Florida and hangs upside down from the ceiling, exactly as one did 200

years ago.

Old State House interpreter John Trainor, who portrays Joseph Steward in The

Hartford Museum, said, "It is especially exciting for schoolchildren to be

able to feel the buffalo bones, touch a Triceratops dinosaur horn that is 70

million years old, or see a perfectly formed two-headed calf. The early

museums were places where people could not only look, but touch, and use all

of their senses to learn and be entertained."

Some important connections with America's cultural history have been restored

with the opening of Steward's Hartford Museum, which its creator also called

The Hartford Gallery of Fine Arts. Both Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum, the

oldest public art museum in the country, and the Connecticut Historical

Society trace their roots to Steward's museum.

According to Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, curator of American paintings at the

Atheneum, "Daniel Wadsworth, like his father before him, was a supporter of

The Hartford Gallery of Fine Arts. Steward operated the gallery until his

death in 1822, after which the museum continued `under an association of

gentleman' that likely included Wadsworth, finally closing in 1840.

"Less than a year later, concerned by the closing of this important cultural

resource, Wadsworth announced plans to build `a Gallery of Fine Arts,'" the

curator continued. "When the Wadsworth Atheneum opened in 1844, it contained,

in separate wings, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Young Men's

Institute (now the Hartford Public Library), and the Natural History Society."

Thompson Harlow, director of the Connecticut Historical Society from 1940 to

1980, once wrote, "Although chartered in May of 1825, the Society can trace

its roots to Steward's Hartford Museum. Around 1840, a number of paintings

from Steward's Hartford Museum were acquired by the Society. The Hartford

Museum was an early effort in our state to collect and show works of art and

other `curiosities.'"

The restored Hartford Museum is now a permanent exhibit of the Old State

House. The State House, at 800 Main Street in Hartford, is open Monday through

Friday, 10 am to 4 pm; and Saturday, 11 am to 4 pm. It can be contacted by

calling 860/522-6766.