Welcome to the
Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection
If you were a guest at Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, you could see things that revealed the intellectual range of this remarkable Founding Father. The house, designed by Jefferson himself, was perhaps the most beautiful building in the new republic and inside it was the nation's greatest library. Throughout the building's public spaces you would see images and statues of major politicians and philosophers. And in the entry hall —more a museum than anything else— you could examine a variety of natural history and ethnographic specimens, including some from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Among these displays were fossils of an impressive giant, the American mastodon.
Jefferson is rightfully renowned as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, the Third President of the United States, and a champion of Liberty. But he was also a central player in the beginnings of American paleontology. In addition, his participation occurred at a time when people were struggling with the ideas of fossils as evidence of past life, of extinction, and of an Earth far older than the Biblical account.
Some of the fruits of Jefferson's paleontology became part of the collections at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Beginning in 1849 these holdings were transferred over to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, where they are currently housed. This is the Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection.
Welcome to this online exhibit. Examine the fossils and explore the science and history surrounding this collection:
- The American Mastodon is the most important species in this collection. The identity and nature of this mysterious creature captured the interest and imagination of people in both Europe and North America.
- The Giant Claw, or Megalonyx, was the subject of the first scientific papers in American paleontology.
- Six Other Fossil animals are also part of this collection.
- Finally, there are Other Pages dealing with important naturalists, scientists and ideas from the Age of Jefferson.
