Barnum's American Museum

According to Winfred E. Howe's, A History of the Metropolitan Museum of Art  (New York: Gilliss Press, 1913-46), by 1841 P.T. Barnum had purchased the museum owned by John Scudder and turned it into his own American Museum. He later bought the struggling museum of Rubens Peale and combined their collections. Both of these museums had mummies, and it is very probable that the first mummies Barnum exhibited were those two mummies.

A contemporrary illustration of a mummy supposedly in Barnum's museum before the fire. This drawing does not match either of the mummies from either Scudder's museum (Turner's mummy, which had a hand unwrapped) or Peale's New York Museum, which had one of the "Blockhead mummies."

The pages from the 1860 Catalogue or guide book of Barnum's American Museum, New York show two different mummies--one in a case in the Sixth Saloon, and one next to the description of the mummy in the case. The two illustrations are different, and so it cannot be said with certainty that either of them is a true depiction of what Barnum actually had.

As can be seen, mummy exhibitions were often accompanied by other curiosities.

On July 13, 1865, the Museum and most of its inanimate contents burned to the ground. Several newspapers which reported the incident mourned the loss of the museum's mummies. The museum was rebuilt but whether or not it had mummies after the fire is unclear.