Having grown up outdoors in the meadows and woods of Virginia, she felt right at home with this stuffed menagerie, set in recreations of their natural habitats. "I had heard that he had done wonders..." Meagan murmured, her face flushed with pleasure, "but I never dreamed..." The entire seventy-foot museum had been built onto the back of Charles Wilson Peale's home, located on Lombard Street, directly south of Mansion House. Meagan learned that it had begun as a picture gallery to display his famous portraits of Washington and the other notables he had known during the war. Apparently, it did not take long for Peale's interest in nature to intrude; the first additions were sketches of mammoth bones found in a New York swamp. His notorious enthusiasm was soon at a fever pitch. He began badgering friends and acquaintances from far and wide for items like alligator skins, wild ducks, and silk grass... even approaching Benjamin Franklin for the body of his dead French Angora cat. Much experimenting had to be done before a suitable technique was arrived at for preserving and stuffing the carcasses; but the results were amazing.
