Last week I scanned something really weird. It is a catalog from Ward’s Natural Science Establishment dated about 1930. This company was founded in 1862 by Henry Augustus Ward. He sold just about anything related to the sciences to museums and schools. I think that that many older museums still have something that they bought from the company.

In 1885 when P. T. Barnum’s elephant, Jumbo, was killed by a train he had Ward’s staff mount the skin and skeleton of his beloved elephant.

Henry Augustus Ward died in 1906 from being struck by an auto in Buffalo, Family members ran the company until 1927 when they donated the company to the University of Rochester. This catalog is from the time when the U. of R. owned the company. They would sell the company to a manager of the company in 1940. The company still exists as Ward’s Science.

This old catalog says that they have a new supply of gorilla skulls. Where else could you buy sheep eyes, a human skull, or a lizard preserved in a glass jar? They have mounted collections of butterflies.  You could also buy various minerals and even meteorites.

The University of Rochester has a collection of the papers of Henry Augustus Ward and another collection of company papers from  the 1950s to the 1980s.