This is How They Used to Promote Natural History Museums

Charles Wilson Peale - The Artist in His Museum 1822.

The following is a transcription of a flyer, printed in the early 19th century. The skeleton of a mastodon was unearthed and preserved in the private museum of Charles Wilson Peale, a painter who is most famous for his portraits of George Washington.

(An interesting side note - Peale was a dentist as well. He crafted a dental prosthesis for Washington, for the express purpose of keeping his mouth in an attractive position during the long sitting times for the portraits. Washington supposedly preferred Peale's denture over many others which he had tried. One of the reason Washington looks so frowny in most other portraits is that his cheeks were sunken in from having lost so many teeth, and his dentures weren't great.)

TEN THOUSAND MOONS AGO, when nought but gloomy forests covered this land of the sleeping Sun, long before the pale men, with thunder and fire at their command, rushed on the wings of the wind to run this garden of nature...when nought but the untamed wanderers of the woods, and men as unrestrained as they, were lords of the soil...a race of animals were in being, huge as the frowning Precipice, cruel as the bloody Panther, swift as the descending Eagle, and terrible as the Angel of Night. The Pines crashed beneath their feet; and the Lake shrunk when they slaked their thirst; the forceful Javelin in vain was hurled, and the barbed arrow fell harmless from their side. Forests were laid waste at a meal, the groans of expiring Animals were every where heard; and whole Villages inhabited by men, were destroyed in a moment. The cry of universal distress extended even to the region of Peace in the West, and the Good Spirit interposed to save the unhappy. The forked Lightening gleamed all around, and the loudest Thunder rocked the Globe. The Bolts of Heaven were hurled upon the cruel Destroyers, and the mountains echoed with the bellowing of death. All were killed except one male, the fiercest of the race, and him even the artillery of the skies assailed in vain. He ascended the bluest summit which shades the source of the Monogahela, and roaring aloud, bid defiance to every vengeance. The red Lightening scorched the lofty firs, and rived the knotty oaks, but only glanced upon the enraged Monster. At length, maddened with fury, he leaped over the waves of the west at a bound, and this moment reigns the uncontrolled Monarch of the Wilderness in despite of even Omnipotence itself.