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| Smithsonian in 1857. |
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| James Smithson |
Washington
Letter.
Correspondence
of THE NEWS.
The stranger who visits the picturesque structure
of red free stone, familiarly known as the "Smithsonian," standing in
a beautiful park of fifty-two acres, is not expected to understand all of its
strange history, its aims and objects. Few Washingtonians even have any
conceptions outlying the idea that it is a grand mausoleum of dead bugs and
beetles pierced with pins, stuffed birds, animals, and real dead mummies.
The
masses are really in heathenish ignorance and a little missionary intelligence may
be a healthful light let into this intellectual darkness. This institution owes
its existence to a strange Englishman named Smithson, who was eleven years old
at the time of the declaration of independence, was living during the war of
1812, had never set foot on American soil, and had no friends in America. That
this shy Englishman, describing himself in his will as "the son of Hugh,
first duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of
Audley and niece of Charles the Proud, duke of Somerset," should at his
death in Genoa in 1829 make provision for this massive structure is a novel
full of romance.
On examining
his will it was found his large fortune was left to his nephew, Henry James
Hungerford, during his lifetime, and to his children after him; and in case he
died childless, then the property was willed to the United States to found at
Washington "an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among
men."
This English
nephew had no hankering for children and did not wish to send any mortal out
into this cold world burdened with the care of $500,000. He died unmarried and
childless in 1835. The Congress of the United States with great reluctance set
about asserting the right of our government to the money, and Richard Rush was
sent out to England as U. S. agent, and nothing but his bull-dog tenacity ever wrested
the money from the clutches of the English chancery court into whose greedy maw
it had fallen. Two years of amicable litigation over, he lost no time in
getting out of the reach of greedy claimants who began to appear.
Fortunately
Rush got to sea with his eleven boxes of British gold, and the two notable
claimants found they had been outwitted. Had they appeared a few days earlier
the court of chancery and the lawyers would have gobbled every dollar, and the
Smithsonian would never have been erected.
Meantime
it dawned upon our wise men that they had an elephant upon their hands, and while
discussing what should be done with the funds the government loaned the money
to the state of Arkansas, whose officers squandered it. The bonds given as
security were repudiated and the whole loan was lost. There was much discussion
as to what should be done under the circumstances, and in 1846 an act was
passed by Congress establishing the institution.
The
corner-stone was laid in 1847 and the structure was completed in 1856. The
original bequest with interest in 1867 had reached the sum of $714,000. The building
was built of Seneca freestone from a quarry on the Potomac twenty-three miles
from Washington, is 447 feet in length, with an extreme width of 160 feet. Its
architecture is Norman, belonging chronologically to the twelfth century, and
it is the first non-ecclesiastical structure of the kind built in the United
States. The building costing $450,000 was built out of the accrued interest,
and the sum of $650,000 was deposited in the Treasury the interest
of which pays the running expenses of the institution.
Great
credit is due to the late Professor Henry, who gave himself assiduously to the
interests of the institution. This distinguished physicist won a high rank
among the scientists of the world in the realm of electro-magnetism, and made
it possible to apply its principles to the telegraph which now begirts the
world. The life-size statue recently unveiled in the Smithsonian grounds is but
a feeble expression of the grateful regard of the public for this distinguished
scholar and scientist.
The
work now being done under the direction of the Smithsonian is increasing
knowledge among men, not only in this country but throughout the civilized
world. Fish culture as prosecuted by the U. S. fish commission is stimulating
fish culture in every country in the world, while the National Museum has
reproduced here at the capital the exhibits of the Centennial to be admired by
a daily throng of visitors at all seasons of the year.
Smithsonian: http://paleobiology.si.edu/history/Rye.html
Smithsonian Institution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution
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