The Art of Collecting

1772

Tutor David McClure writes President Eleazar Wheelock, "I have collected a few curious Elephant's Bones about six hundred miles down the Ohio, for the young Museum of Dartmouth." Two centuries later Dartmouth uses this communique to boost its claim of having America's oldest museum in continuous existence.

1853

Because some Williams alumni shipped their alma mater antiquities from Persia, Dartmouth's librarian feels compelled to ask Dartmouth alumni living in the region to ship him antiquities for Dartmouth's collection if it can be done "without too much trouble." They respond. Dartmouth, however, lacks a place to display the priceless Assyrian Reliefs until the Hood Museum opens more than a century later.

1872

The U.S. Patent Office selects Dartmouth as the repository for a collection of more than 700 rejected models.

1928

The centerpiece of Baker Library's Treasure Room is the showcase for Audubon's Birds of NorthAmerica. Dartmouth's collection, once owned by Daniel Webster, contains only three volumes of the complete four-volume set. The publisher refused shipment of the final volume because of non-payment.

1939

The walls of Webster Hall are adorned with the world's finest collection of Webster portraits.

1974

The College turns over its 60,000-piece natural-history collection to Hanover's fledgling Montshire Museum. Objects that fail to fit the museum's emphasis on New England are auctioned off. Among the treasures going under the gavel are a dinosaur track slab, a square-lipped rhino, a grizzly bear, and a seven-foot-tall ostrich.

1985

The Hood Museum has 40,000 pieces in its collection.

1989

Tabard, a College "alter-native-living" house, turns a collection of decaying food into a multi-media presentation incorporating motors and Christmas lights. The collection goes "veggie" after the house dog eats an exhibit known as "The Mother of All Chops."

Odd collections thrive inthe halls of academia.