Charles Frederick Gunther (March 6, 1837 – February 10, 1920) was a German-American wealthy

confectioner Confectionery is the art of making confections, which are food items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confectionery is divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categorie ...

, politician, and collector. He purchased many of the items now owned by the

Chicago History Museum Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the int ...

.About the Building
".

. 2008. Retrieved on July 17, 2008. He served two terms as a Chicago alderman from the city's 2nd ward.

Early years

Gunther and his family moved from

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

in 1842, then resettled in Peru, Illinois. In 1860, Gunther traveled south and landed a job with Bohlen, Wilson & Company, an ice distributor based in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

. When the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

broke out, Gunther pledged to "stick by Memphis", and helped transport

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

soldiers along the tributaries of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

. He was captured by Union troops in 1862, but was released and traveled back to Illinois. During the later years of the war, he worked as a traveling salesman for a

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

candy manufacturer, mainly selling goods throughout the southern states.Nancy Buenger. "Gunther, Charles Frederick". ''

American National Biography The ''American National Biography'' (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Le ...

Online''. April 2003. Retrieved July 17, 2008.

Candy and collections

After the Civil War, Gunther traveled to Europe to learn from the candymakers there. He started his own candy company in Chicago in 1868, specializing in caramel, which he is sometimes credited with introducing to the United States. Gunther's business was destroyed in the

1871 Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 1 ...

, but he quickly recovered and built a new factory on State Street. With wealthy customers like socialite

Bertha Palmer Bertha Matilde Palmer (; May 22, 1849 – May 5, 1918) was an American businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist. Early life Born as Bertha Matilde Honoré in Louisville, Kentucky, her father was businessman Henry Hamilton Honoré. Known wi ...

, Gunther amassed a fortune, and began purchasing historical artifacts to display in his factory. Many of these were artifacts from the Civil War, but there were also more unusual items in his collection, such as

shrunken head A shrunken head is a severed and specially prepared human head that is used for trophy, ritual, or trade purposes. Headhunting has occurred in many regions of the world, but the practice of headshrinking has only been documented in the northwes ...

s. Gunther even claimed to own the skin of the

serpent Serpent or The Serpent may refer to: * Snake, a carnivorous reptile of the suborder Serpentes Mythology and religion * Sea serpent, a monstrous ocean creature * Serpent (symbolism), the snake in religious rites and mythological contexts * Serp ...

from the Garden of Eden and the

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

of Moses' foster mother,

Bithiah The Pharaoh's daughter ( he, בַּת־פַּרְעֹה, lit=daughter of Pharaoh) in the story of the finding of Moses in the biblical Book of Exodus is an important, albeit minor, figure in Abrahamic religions. Though some variations of her stor ...

(both assumed to be fakes).The Bloody Evidence
". chicagohistory.org. Retrieved on July 17, 2008. One of Gunther's most important authentic items was

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

's deathbed, which he purchased in 1877.Ted Knutson. "Believe it or not, museum collections tell a story". ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

''. July 27, 1984. LF16. Gunther's collection continued to grow, and he eventually turned his sights to the

Libby Prison Libby Prison was a Confederate prison at Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War. In 1862 it was designated to hold officer prisoners from the Union Army. It gained an infamous reputation for the overcrowded and harsh conditions. Priso ...

, a former Confederate prison in Richmond, Virginia. Gunther purchased the structure and had it dismantled and shipped to Chicago, where it was reassembled and converted into a museum to house Gunther's artifacts. It opened to the public in 1889 and hosted thousands of visitors within its first few months of existence. The infirmary of the prison was converted into the Lincoln Room, in which Gunther displayed Lincoln's deathbed, along with other artifacts associated with Lincoln's assassination. Gunther later tried to purchase an Egyptian

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted by America's Founding Fathers. The structure forms the centerpi ...

so he could bring them to Chicago, but he was unsuccessful. During the 1890s, Gunther became involved with Chicago's growing convention industry. When the original

Chicago Coliseum Chicago Coliseum was the name applied to three large indoor arenas in Chicago, Illinois, which stood successively from the 1860s to 1982; they served as venues for sports events, large (national-class) conventions and as exhibition halls. The f ...

burned down in 1897, Gunther decided to build a new Coliseum on the site of the Libby Prison, since attendance at the museum was beginning to wane. The prison building was disassembled, and parts of it were donated to the

Chicago Historical Society Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the int ...

. Gunther offered the rest of his collection to the city, with the hope that the city would build a museum for it in Garfield Park, but Illinois law prevented such a building from being constructed on parkland.

Political career

Gunther served two terms (1896–1900) as a Chicago alderman and one term (1901–1903) as

City Treasurer of Chicago The City Treasurer of Chicago is an elected official of the City of Chicago. Current Occupant The current City Treasurer of Chicago is Democrat Melissa Conyears. Conyears was elected by Chicago citizens on April 2, 2019, and took the oath of ...

. He was briefly a

Gold Democrat The National Democratic Party, also known as Gold Democrats, was a short-lived political party of Bourbon Democrats who opposed the regular party nominee William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. The party was then a "liberal" p ...

and supported John McAuley Palmer for president in 1896. In 1908, Gunther sought the (regular)

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

's nomination as an Illinois gubernatorial candidate, but lost to Adlai E. Stevenson I.

Collection today

After Gunther's death at his home in Chicago on February 10, 1920, the Chicago Historical Society paid $150,000 for the bulk of Gunther's collection, which by that point also included the table on which Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House.Andrew Ferguson. ''Land of Lincoln''. New York: Grove Press, 79. Shortly afterwards, the society began building a $1 million museum to display its expanded collection. The building opened in 1932 at Clark Street and North Avenue, and is currently known as the

. One of the smaller objects within the large estate collection turned out to be an alleged "skin of the

" from the Garden of Eden, suitably framed. Though the skin may be that of a real

anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized. Description Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used ...

python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

, the museum staff assumes it did not come from the Garden of Eden, since the

hieroglyphic Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

markings in its frame are merely gibberish.William Mullen. "Finding true history amid the false". ''

''. July 5, 2007. 4.

Early years

Candy and collections

Political career

Collection today

Notes

Further reading