Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
December 6, 1821
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 117
Additional Source Text:
The donor is described as "of St. Petersburg."
Notes:
The Waterloo Elm was the Duke of Wellington's command post for much of the Battle of Waterloo, fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition (one of them consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The tree was killed by souvenir hunters after the battle. It was felled in 1818 and made into furniture, including a chair, made by Thomas Chippendale, the younger, that was presented to George IV and remains in the British Royal Collection.
Philadelphian Willilam D. Lewis lived in Russia from 1814 to 1819 representing the interests of his brother's mercantile firm. See Norman E. Saul, "America's First Student of Russian: William David Lewis of Philadelphia," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 96, no. 4 (Oct. 1972): 469-479.
