The Orange County Mastodon

In 1799 unusually large bones of an animal resembling an elephant were discovered at a Montgomery, NY farm. Mary Ellen Matise, the Montgomery Town Historian, will tell the story of this discovery of mastodon bones and the efforts to dig them from the ground in her talk, “The Orange County Mastodon”. The excavation was led by artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale, known for his portraits of founding fathers. The Montgomery mastodon dig would go on to yield a near-complete specimen and Peale’s techniques would be known as the cornerstone of American paleontology. This talk is free and open to the public, and will be held in Washington’s Headquarters museum building, located at 84 Liberty St., in Newburgh.

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