Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
August 9, 1808
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, p. 33
Additional Source Text:
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 8 Oct 1808 reads: "from the farm of Col. Nathaniel Ramsey, Chesapeake bay."
Notes:
This specimen may have been a banded iron.
Carpenter Point is at the junction of the North East and Susquehanna Rivers in Cecil County, Md.
Nathaniel Ramsay (1741-1817) was married to Peale's sister Margaret Jane Peale. He was a lawyer and soldier from Cecil County and Baltimore, Maryland. Ramsey fought in the Revolutionary War and was a member of the Confederation Congress. He is reported to have given Peale the idea of the museum by observing mastodon bones in Peale's studio about 1783 and suggesting that a museum of such objects would attract a greater audience than Peale's portraits.
