Albert S. Bickmore
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Albert Smith Bickmore (March 1, 1839 – August 12, 1914) was an American naturalist and originator of the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
in New York City, becoming one of its founders.


Childhood

Bickmore was born in the town of
St. George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...
near Martinsville harbor,
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
, on March 1, 1839. He attributed his childhood living on the beach and near a forest to his love of nature and vocation as a naturalist. As a child, he collected shells and sea urchins, learned the names of the local flora and fauna, and skated on a nearby pond on winter evenings. According to Bickmore, the church and the school were the centers of the community of St. George. Books were scarce, however, and in his earliest childhood, he remembered being permitted to hold in his hands "Goldsmith's Natural History, Abridged," which he treasured like a sacred relic. He loved to look at its crude illustrations of animals and to memorize them. At age 8, he spent a year traveling in France with his parents and sister.


Education

He later attended prep school in
New London, New Hampshire New London is a New England town, town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 4,400 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The town is the home of Colby–Sawyer College, site ...
, then went on to
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...
, where his favorite subjects were chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. His love of natural history was noted by the Dartmouth faculty, who gave him a letter of introduction to study under the well-known Harvard professor
Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he recei ...
. After graduating with the class of 1860, he went on to become one of Agassiz's handful of special students. He also worked in Agassiz's Museum of Comparative Zoology, which helped him pay his way through a four-year course of study. It was during this time that Bickmore began to visualize founding a
Museum of Natural History A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...
in New York City, as the European museums of natural history were in political and monetary capitals, and New York was a logical American parallel city. When the Prince of Wales (the future
Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second child ...
) visited
Cambridge, MA Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118, ...
in 1861,
Henry Acland Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, 1st Baronet, (23 August 181516 October 1900) was an English physician and educator. Life Henry Acland was born in Killerton, Exeter, the fourth son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, Sir Thomas Acland a ...
of the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
joined him. Bickmore was privileged to discuss his plans for a museum with Dr. Acland, whose encouragement strengthened his determination to found such a museum. Others had previously failed to generate the necessary funds to establish a museum.


Civil War military service

In late 1862, Bickmore joined the 44th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers under Col. Francis L. Lee. The Regiment was sent to
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, in October 1862 to serve under Major General
John G. Foster John Gray Foster (May 27, 1823 – September 2, 1874) was an American soldier. A career military officer in the United States Army and a Union general during the American Civil War, he served in North and South Carolina during the war. A recons ...
. They encountered the Confederate Army at Whitehall in December 1862, sustaining heavy casualties, but Bickmore remained unharmed. Bickmore then requested to keep the meteorological record at a hospital near Cape Lookout. He then traveled home to resume his studies at Harvard.


Book written

Albert S. Bickmore wrote a book titled: "Travels in the East Indian Archipelago," published in 1868. The preface begins by saying, "The object of my voyage to Amboina was simply to re-collect the shells figured in Rumphius's 'Rari-teit Kamer,' and the idea of writing a volume of travels was not seriously entertained until I arrived at Batavia, and, instead of being forbidden by the Dutch Government to proceed to the Spice Islands, as some of my warmest friends feared, I was honored by His Excellency, the Governor-General of 'the Netherlands India,'..." His expedition in the East Indian Archipelago covered April 1865 to May 1866. He arrived at Batavia on 30 April 1865 on the ''Memnon'' a Sear's clipper ship, Captain Freeman, out of
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.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bickmore, Albert S 1839 births 1914 deaths American naturalists Dartmouth College alumni Harvard University people Museum founders People from St. George, Maine People associated with the American Museum of Natural History 19th-century American philanthropists People of Maine in the American Civil War