Boton Museum advertisement by Moses Kimball

Moses Kimball (October 24, 1809 – February 21, 1895) was a US politician and showman. Kimball was a close associate of P. T. Barnum, 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, Massachusetts Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A resid ...

. Kimball was born in Ipswich to David and Nancy (Stacy) Kimball, and raised in

Rockport, Massachusetts Rockport is a seaside town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,992 in 2020. Rockport is located approximately northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula. Rockport borders Gloucester to its west, and ...

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). In 1840, Kimball travelled just twenty miles northwest to the new mill city,

Lowell, MA Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as o ...

and founded the Lowell Museum. Then in 1841, Moses opened the Boston Museum. 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 The Boston Society of Natural History (1830–1948) 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 s ...

), several remains of Greek sculpture (now in the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

), and several historical portraits by

John Singleton Copley John Singleton Copley (July 3, 1738 – September 9, 1815) was an Anglo-American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He was probably born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Anglo-Irish. Afte ...

. The Museum was immediately successful. In the late spring of 1842, Kimball traveled to New York City to meet his rival, P. T. Barnum, in person. He brought with him a large oblong box containing a most unusual curiosity: an embalmed mermaid purchased at great price near

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

by a Boston sea captain in 1817. If it wasn't a real mermaid, it was a remarkable fraud: the head of a

baboon Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ...

and the upper half of an

orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genu ...

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" and began to "puff" her to the skies. Boston Museum 1851

By 1843, Kimball and P. T. Barnum were on the best of terms, and trading objects from their collections frequently. That same year they bought

Charles Willson Peale Charles Willson Peale (April 15, 1741 – February 22, 1827) was an American Painting, painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his portrait paintings of leading figures of the American Revolu ...

's Museum in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

for $7,000 when it went out of business, and Barnum wrote to Kimball about the death of a prized live

That same year, Kimball added a theater to his museum, although he called it a "lecture-room" in deference to the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

feeling in Boston. There he staged his own adaptations of ''

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 two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...

'' 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 Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the U.S. Secretary of State under Presidents William Henry Harrison ...

, in which he urged the revision of the US

naturalization Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

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, also known as laryngotracheobronchitis, is a type of respiratory infection that is usually caused by a virus. The infection leads to swelling inside the trachea, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classic symptoms ...

. 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 Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...

. In 1858 he garnered 4,449 votes while losing to Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr. In 1860 Kimball ran as the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa * Republican Party (Liberia) *Republican Party ...

candidate, for Mayor of the city of Boston losing to

Joseph Wightman Joseph Milner Wightman (October 19, 1812 – January 25, 1885) was an American politician who, from 1861 to 1863, served as the seventeenth Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts. Early years Wightman was born the son of an immigrant tailor at Elli ...

. On that day, December 13, 1860, Kimball received 5,674 votes to Wightman's 8,834 votes. In 1868 he once again ran for Mayor, losing to Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleff, Sr. (Kimball received 9,156 votes to Shurtleff'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

, 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's sculpture '' Emancipation Group''. Sited in Park Square it depicts an emancipated slave rising at the feet of

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 throu ...

(Ball was a former employee of Kimball's.) In his will he left $5,000 for the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

Death

Moses Kimball died in 1895, aged 85. In 1903 the famous Boston Museum was swept away.

References

Bibliography

* ''A Manual for the Use of the General Court'' by Stephen Nye Gifford (1864) p. 204. * ''A Manual for the Use of the General Court'' by Stephen Nye Gifford (1876) p. 332. *''Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court'' by the Secretary of the Commonwealth (1867) p. 859. *

Laura Keene Laura Keene (20 July 1826 – 4 November 1873) was a British stage actress and theatre manager. In her twenty-year career, she became known as the first powerful female manager in New York. She is most famous for being the lead actress in ...

v. Moses Kimball. Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Nov. 1860
Google books
*''Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society v. 9'' (1890–97), Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1908, p. 240. * ''The New England Historical and Genealogical Register'' Vol XLIV. By Henry Fritz-Gilbert Waters (1895). * ''Proceedings of the New England Historic Genealogical Society at the Annual Meeting, 7 February 1923'' By New England Historic Genealogical Society (1923). {{DEFAULTSORT:Kimball, Moses 1809 births 1895 deaths American entertainment industry businesspeople 19th-century American people People from Ipswich, Massachusetts Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 19th century in Boston Boston Board of Aldermen members Boston City Council members Massachusetts Whigs 19th-century American politicians Massachusetts Republicans People from Rockport, Massachusetts 19th-century American businesspeople

Biography

Political life

Later years

Death

See also

References

Bibliography