Moses Kimball
Encyclopedia
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
, and public-spirited citizen of Boston, Massachusetts.
Biography
Kimball was descended from Richard and Ursula Kimball, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1634 and were among the founders of the town of Ipswich, MassachusettsIpswich, Massachusetts
Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,987 at the 2000 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island...
. Kimball was born in Ipswich to David and Nancy (Stacy) Kimball, and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts
Rockport, Massachusetts
Rockport is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,952 at the 2010 census. Rockport is located approximately 25 miles northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula...
but moved to Boston at 15 to seek his fortune. He was ruined first in the "Eastern Land" speculation, and then again in 1833 in his purchase of the New England Galaxy, one of the earliest weekly newspapers of Boston, which was sold after a few months at a serious loss. Kimball married Frances L. A. Hathaway on June 25, 1834, and in 1836 started the New England Printing Company but it collapsed in 1837.
In 1838 Kimball purchased most of the New England Museum, added to it, made arrangements for a lease of the building on Tremont and Bromfield streets (later the site of the Horticultural Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
Horticultural Hall, Boston, Massachusetts
Horticultural Hall, at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, was built in 1901. It sits across the street from Symphony Hall. Since 1992, it has been owned by the Christian Science Church...
).
In 1840, Kimball travelled just twenty miles northwest to the new mill city, Lowell, MA and founded the Lowell Museum
Lowell Museum
The "Lowell Museum", located in Lowell, Massachusetts, was founded by Moses Kimball in 1840, as an art exhibit hall and entertainment venue.-History:...
.
Then in 1841, Moses opened the Boston Museum
Boston Museum (theatre)
The Boston Museum , also called the Boston Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, was a theatre, wax museum, natural history museum, zoo, and art museum in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts...
. The museum, rebuilt in 1846 and 1880, displayed a large number of stuffed birds and animals (later owned by the Boston Society of Natural History
Boston Society of Natural History
The Boston Society of Natural History in Boston, Massachusetts, was an organization dedicated to the study and promotion of natural history. It published a scholarly journal and established a museum. In its first few decades, the society occupied several successive locations in Boston's Financial...
), several remains of Greek sculpture (now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
), and several historical portraits by John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley
John Singleton Copley was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects...
. The Museum was immediately successful.
In the late spring of 1842, Kimball traveled to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to meet his rival, P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
, in person. He brought with him a large oblong box containing a most unusual curiosity: an embalmed mermaid purchased at great price near Calcutta by a Boston sea captain in 1817. If it wasn't a real mermaid, it was a remarkable fraud: the head of a baboon
Baboon
Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...
and the upper half of an orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...
was attached to the lower half of a large fish.
On June 18, Barnum and Kimball entered into a written agreement to exploit this "curiosity supposed to be a mermaid." Kimball would remain the creature's sole owner and Barnum would lease it for $12.50 a week. Barnum christened his artifact "The Fejee Mermaid
Fiji mermaid
The Fiji mermaid was an object comprising the torso and head of a juvenile monkey sewn to the back half of a fish, covered in papier-mâché...
" and began to "puff" her to the skies.
Charles Willson Peale
Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution, as well as establishing one of the first museums....
's Museum in Philadelphia for $7,000 when it went out of business, and Barnum wrote to Kimball about the death of a prized live orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...
:
- I am grieved vexed and disappointed [?] hear of the sickness and death (for I know she will die) of the Ourang Outang. D--n the luck -- I have puffed he[r] high and dry -- got a large transparency and a flag 10 [?] 16 feet painted for her -- besides newspaper cut [?] and now curse her -- she must up foot and die. (P. T. Barnum to Moses Kimball, September 1, 1843, Boston Athenaeum.)
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
feeling in Boston. There he staged his own adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
among other productions.
Political life
As Kimball's fortune grew, he became an active public citizen. His first appearance in political life was in 1844, as a consequence of a speech by Daniel WebsterDaniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
, in which he urged the revision of the US naturalization
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
laws in reaction to the Irish vote. As early as 1850, he offered a prize for the best essay on the treatment and prevention of croup
Croup
Croup is a respiratory condition that is usually triggered by an acute viral infection of the upper airway. The infection leads to swelling inside the throat, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classical symptoms of a "barking" cough, stridor, and hoarseness...
.
In 1849 and 1850 Kimball was elected as a member of the Common Council for Ward 10, he served as a city counciler in 1850 and 1851. In 1851 he was elected to the City Board of Aldermen serving as a member of the Board of Aldermen in 1852.
While never elected to the office, Kimball ran three times for Mayor of the City of Boston.
In 1858 he garnered 4,449 votes while losing to Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr.
Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr. (politician)
Frederic Walker Lincoln, Jr. was an American manufacturer and politician, serving as the sixteenth and eighteenth mayor of Boston, Massachusetts from 1858–1860 and 1863–1867, respectively.-Notes:...
In 1860 Kimball ran as the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidate, for Mayor of the city of Boston losing to Joseph Wightman
Joseph Wightman
Joseph Milner Wightman was an American politician who, from 1861 to 1863, served as the seventeenth Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts.-Early years:...
. On day, December 13, 1860, Kimball received 5,674 votes to Joseph Wightman
Wightman
Wightman is a surname, and may refer to:*Arthur Wightman, American theoretical physicist *Edward Wightman, English Baptist, last person to be burnt for heresy in England....
's 8,834 votes. In 1868 he once again ran for Mayor, losing to Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff, Sr.
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff
Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff, Sr. was an American politician, serving as the twentieth mayor of Boston, Massachusetts from January 6, 1868 to January 2, 1871....
(Kimball received 9,156 votes to Shurtleff
Nathaniel B. Shurtleff
Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff, Sr. was an American politician, serving as the twentieth mayor of Boston, Massachusetts from January 6, 1868 to January 2, 1871....
's 11,005 votes.)
Later years
Twenty years later, he established a prize for the best exhibit of shade trees set out in the streets of Rockport, MassachusettsRockport, Massachusetts
Rockport is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,952 at the 2010 census. Rockport is located approximately 25 miles northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula...
, and for the best loaf of bread exhibited at the annual fair. Kimball made three journeys to Europe, in 1867, 1872 and 1877 to 1878. In 1879 Kimball donated to Boston a copy of Thomas Ball
Thomas Ball
Thomas Ball may refer to:*Thomas Ball , English divine* Thomas Ball , American sculptor* Thomas Ball , represented the Mongonui electorate...
's sculpture Emancipation Group. Sited in Park Square it depicts an emancipated slave rising at the feet of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
(Ball was a former employee of Kimball's.) In his will he left $5,000 for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
.