HORNADAY TIME-CAPSULE REVEALED
(Excerpted and edited from the book, without Endnotes)
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In 1957, in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, planning was underway for a brand new Hall of Mammals. Dated specimen groups of the past century were being taken down as part of a grand renovation. One such exhibit was William Hornaday's well-known "Group of Bisons, or American Buffaloes" -- a mounted group of six full-bodied bison, collected in 1886 by then-Chief Taxidermist Hornaday in remote backcountry of Montana Territory. The 'family' grouping was undergoing careful dismantlement, when, from under the feet of the display's great bull, rose a voice from the grave: "I beg you to protect these specimens from deterioration and destruction," read the boldly-worded message. Hornaday himself -- by then 20 years dead -- had penned the note some 70 years earlier and concealed it in a battered metal box beneath the floor of his display.
"We were awed," said Curator of Mammals Henry W. Setzer, "to find that Hornaday had the foresight to charge his successors with the care of those specimens. He realized that perhaps they were the last wild bison that would ever be taken." Setzer himself had opened the box, along with the museum's director, Dr. A. Remington Kellogg. Together the men were moved to action by Hornaday's plaint. As Setzer later reported: "Kellogg was rather insistent that there would be...shall we say...eternal care. The Smithsonian would never have let the Bison Group go, willy-nilly." But, let it go they did; for the next 30 years, despite early efforts for their care, the specimens from Hornaday's showcase were scattered, lost, and nearly forgotten. It would be yet another 25 years until the full story of their re-discovery and return to public view would finally be told. In that long interim, America's national symbol of the wild bison hung, forlorn and forgotten, in a sort of neverland -- eerily suspended between death and life, lacking the power to motivate or transform. Not so, however, for Hornaday's hidden message! While the specimens themselves languished, Hornaday's heartfelt plea for their eternal safekeeping found empty expression in books and periodicals of all kinds (below). It was these hollow ministrations, in fact, which compelled the author's search for the lost bison specimens, and led to the eventual publication of Reflecting the Sublime, the unlikely story of their ultimate rescue. |
The Washington Post and Times Herald, July 23, 1957
Smithsonian page: "W.T. Hornaday Note About Bison Specimens"
https://www.si.edu/object/siris_sic_14832 |
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rising from the year 1957, references to William Hornaday's cryptic message continue to appear. Following, is a listing of full or partial quotations the author has found, and there may well be more:
William Hornaday's Hidden Message*
1957. Paul Samson, "Dead Curator Calls Upon Live Ones to Preserve Bison Family He Slew" (Washington Post and Times Herald, July 23).
1960. Leonard Carmichael, “The Smithsonian, Magnet on the Mall” (National Geographic Magazine 117, June):820.
1966. John Ripley Forbes, In the Steps of the Great American Zoologist, William Temple Hornaday (New York, NY: M. Evans Co., Inc.):107-108.
1974. William Bridges, Gathering of Animals: An Unconventional History of the New York Zoological Society (New York, NY: Harper and Row):22.
1974. David A. Dary, The Buffalo Book (Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press):200.
1975. James Andrew Dolph, Bringing Wildlife to Millions: William Temple Hornaday the Early Years: 1854-1896 (doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts):501-502.
1985. Ellis L. Yochelson, The National Museum of Natural History: 75 Years in the Natural History Building, Mary Jarrett, Editor (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution):92.
1990. Bill Sharp and Peggy Sullivan, The Dashing Kansan: The Amazing Adventures of a Nineteenth-Century Naturalist and Explorer (Kansas City, KA: Harrow Books):188-189.
1991. Douglas Coffman, “William Hornaday’s Bitter Mission: The Mysterious Journey of Montana’s Last Wild Bison” (Montana Magazine 105, January/February, Helena, MT, American and Geographic Publishing Co.):63
1993. Karen Elizabeth Wonders, Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History (doctoral thesis, Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell):121.
1995. James Conway, The Smithsonian: 150 Years of Adventure, Discovery, and Wonder (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution):298.
1999. Hanna Rose Shell, The Soul in the Skin: William Temple Hornaday and the Construction of the Buffalo Group (undergraduate thesis, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts):72-73.
2000. Hanna Rose Shell, “Last of the Wild Buffalo” (Smithsonian Magazine 30, no. 11, February):26.
2004. Lowell Dingus, Hell Creek, Montana: America's Key to the Prehistoric Past (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press):109.
2004. Hanna Rose Shell, “Skin Deep: Taxidermy, Embodiment, and Extinction in W.T. Hornaday’s Buffalo Group” (Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 55, no. 5, October 18):89.
2012. Stefan Bechtel, Mr. Hornaday's War: How a Peculiar Victorian Zookeeper Waged a Lonely Crusade for Wildlife That Changed the World (Boston, MA, Beacon Press):48-49.
2013. Douglas Coffman, Reflecting the Sublime: The Rebirth of an American Icon (Fort Benton, MT: River & Plains Society):5-6.
2013. Jon Mooallem, Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America (New York, NY: The Penguin Press):315.
2013. Black Prairie, "Dear Sir--Most Sincerely, William Temple Hornaday," a soundtrack with Jon Mooallem (In Black Prairie Performs Wild Ones, Portland, OR: Captain Bluegrass Records):Track #6.
2021. Michelle Nijhuis, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company):52.
*The only physical evidence of the message remaining today is a photograph in Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, negative #44711 (ca. 1957). The original message is presumed lost.
1960. Leonard Carmichael, “The Smithsonian, Magnet on the Mall” (National Geographic Magazine 117, June):820.
1966. John Ripley Forbes, In the Steps of the Great American Zoologist, William Temple Hornaday (New York, NY: M. Evans Co., Inc.):107-108.
1974. William Bridges, Gathering of Animals: An Unconventional History of the New York Zoological Society (New York, NY: Harper and Row):22.
1974. David A. Dary, The Buffalo Book (Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press):200.
1975. James Andrew Dolph, Bringing Wildlife to Millions: William Temple Hornaday the Early Years: 1854-1896 (doctoral dissertation, University of Massachusetts):501-502.
1985. Ellis L. Yochelson, The National Museum of Natural History: 75 Years in the Natural History Building, Mary Jarrett, Editor (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution):92.
1990. Bill Sharp and Peggy Sullivan, The Dashing Kansan: The Amazing Adventures of a Nineteenth-Century Naturalist and Explorer (Kansas City, KA: Harrow Books):188-189.
1991. Douglas Coffman, “William Hornaday’s Bitter Mission: The Mysterious Journey of Montana’s Last Wild Bison” (Montana Magazine 105, January/February, Helena, MT, American and Geographic Publishing Co.):63
1993. Karen Elizabeth Wonders, Habitat Dioramas: Illusions of Wilderness in Museums of Natural History (doctoral thesis, Uppsala, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell):121.
1995. James Conway, The Smithsonian: 150 Years of Adventure, Discovery, and Wonder (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution):298.
1999. Hanna Rose Shell, The Soul in the Skin: William Temple Hornaday and the Construction of the Buffalo Group (undergraduate thesis, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts):72-73.
2000. Hanna Rose Shell, “Last of the Wild Buffalo” (Smithsonian Magazine 30, no. 11, February):26.
2004. Lowell Dingus, Hell Creek, Montana: America's Key to the Prehistoric Past (New York, NY: St. Martin's Press):109.
2004. Hanna Rose Shell, “Skin Deep: Taxidermy, Embodiment, and Extinction in W.T. Hornaday’s Buffalo Group” (Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 55, no. 5, October 18):89.
2012. Stefan Bechtel, Mr. Hornaday's War: How a Peculiar Victorian Zookeeper Waged a Lonely Crusade for Wildlife That Changed the World (Boston, MA, Beacon Press):48-49.
2013. Douglas Coffman, Reflecting the Sublime: The Rebirth of an American Icon (Fort Benton, MT: River & Plains Society):5-6.
2013. Jon Mooallem, Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America (New York, NY: The Penguin Press):315.
2013. Black Prairie, "Dear Sir--Most Sincerely, William Temple Hornaday," a soundtrack with Jon Mooallem (In Black Prairie Performs Wild Ones, Portland, OR: Captain Bluegrass Records):Track #6.
2021. Michelle Nijhuis, Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company):52.
*The only physical evidence of the message remaining today is a photograph in Archives of the Smithsonian Institution, negative #44711 (ca. 1957). The original message is presumed lost.