The Megatherium Club was founded by William Stimpson

William Stimpson

William Stimpson was a noted American scientist.- Biography :Stimpson was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Herbert Hathorne Stimpson and Mary Ann Devereau Brewer. The Stimpsons were of the old colonial and Revolutionary stock of Massachusetts, the earliest known member of the family being James...

. It was a group of Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

-based scientists who were attracted to that city by the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

's rapidly growing collection, from 1857 to 1866.

Many of the members had no formal education, but came by their expertise through extensive direct observation. They spent their weekdays in the rigorous and exacting work of describing and classifying species. But their nights were spent in revelry. They particularly enjoyed partaking in ale

Ale

Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...

, oyster

Oyster

The word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....

s, eggnog

Eggnog

Eggnog, or egg nog, is a sweetened dairy-based beverage traditionally made with milk and/or cream, sugar, beaten eggs , and liquor...

, and whatever other fineries their meager budgets could afford. On Sundays, however, they recuperated from the week's stresses and excesses with long nature hike

Hiking

Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...

s.

The club was named for the Megatherium

Megatherium

Megatherium was a genus of elephant-sized ground sloths endemic to Central America and South America that lived from the Pliocene through Pleistocene existing approximately...

, an extinct species of giant sloth. Members greeted one another with its imagined call of "How, How!"

The leading spirit of the club was marine biologist William Stimpson

William Stimpson

William Stimpson was a noted American scientist.- Biography :Stimpson was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Herbert Hathorne Stimpson and Mary Ann Devereau Brewer. The Stimpsons were of the old colonial and Revolutionary stock of Massachusetts, the earliest known member of the family being James...

, who hosted its earliest meetings in his home. Members dubbed the place "The Stimpsonian." By 1863, though, Stimpson and others had taken up residence in the castle of the actual Smithsonian.

Club members were encouraged by Spencer Fullerton Baird

Spencer Fullerton Baird

Spencer Fullerton Baird was an American ornithologist, ichthyologist and herpetologist. Starting in 1850 he was assistant-secretary and later secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C...

, the institution's assistant secretary. And they attracted a variety of learned speakers to their meetings, including Louis Agassiz

Louis Agassiz

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz was a Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, geologist and a prominent innovator in the study of the Earth's natural history. He grew up in Switzerland and became a professor of natural history at University of Neuchâtel...

, John Torrey, and John Cassin

John Cassin

John Cassin was an American ornithologist.He is considered to be one of the giants of American ornithology, and was America's first taxonomist, describing 198 birds not previously mentioned by Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon...

. But they were eventually thrown-out of their castle suites by the institution's secretary, Joseph Henry

Joseph Henry

Joseph Henry was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as a founding member of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution. During his lifetime, he was highly regarded...

, who disapproved of the way members held sack race

Sack race

The sack race or gunny sack race is a competitive game in which participants place both of their legs inside a sack or pillow case that reaches their waist or neck and jump forward from a starting point toward a finish line. The first person to cross the finish line is the winner of the race.Sack...

s in the Great Hall and periodically serenaded

Serenade

In music, a serenade is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someone's honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music.The word Serenade is derived from the Italian word sereno, which means calm....

 his daughters.

Membership was transitory as individuals undertook independent studies abroad, sometimes for years at a time. Formal meetings ceased about the year 1866 when Stimpson moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 to oversee that city's Academy of Science.

Several other "Megatherium Clubs" exist; one formed of overseas Smithsonian researchers, yet another only in fiction, supposedly located in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Members

• Henry Bryant
  Henry Bryant
  Henry Bryant was an American physician and naturalist. He was the grandfather of Henry Bryant Bigelow.-Biography:Bryant was born in Boston, and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1843...
  
  
• James E. Cooper
• Edward Drinker Cope
  Edward Drinker Cope
  Edward Drinker Cope was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen...
  
  
• Theodore Gill
  Theodore Gill
  Theodore Nicholas Gill was an American ichthyologist, mammalogist, malacologist and librarian.Born and educated in New York City under private tutors, Gill early showed interest in natural history. He was associated with J...
  
  
• Ferdinand Hayden
• Robert Kennicott
  Robert Kennicott
  Robert Kennicott was an American naturalist.-Biography:Kennicott was born in New Orleans and grew up in "West Northfield" , Illinois, a town in the prairie north of the then nascent city of Chicago....
  
  
• Fielding Bradford Meek
  Fielding Bradford Meek
  Fielding Bradford Meek was an American geologist and paleontologist.The son of a lawyer, he was born in Madison, Indiana. In early life he was in business as a merchant, but his leisure hours were devoted to collecting fossils and studying the rocks of the neighborhood of Madison...
  
  
• John Strong Newberry
  John Strong Newberry
  John Strong Newberry was a American geologist, physician, explorer, author, and a member of the Megatherium Club at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C....
  
  
• Henry Ulke
  Henry Ulke
  Henry Ulke was an American photographer and portrait painter.-Biography:Henry Ulke was born in Frankenstein, Prussia, and studied painting in Breslau, and also in Berlin under Wach...
  
  
• Lawrence Humphrey Evers