Boston Athenæum

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The Boston Athenaeum building today, as designed by Edward Clarke Cabot with additions by Henry Forbes Bigelow.

Boston Athenæum is an independent library and museum in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The institution was founded in 1807 by the Anthology Club. Edward Clark Cabot designed the present building, which opened in 1849 and was modelled on the Athenæum and Lyceum in Liverpool, United Kingdom.^[1]

The Athenæum combines the functions of a library with those of an art gallery and museum. It is home to more than 700,000 books including original works by George Washington, approximately one-half of Washington's personal library from Mount Vernon, as well as the bibles that King James sent to the colonists to try and turn them to religion instead of revolution.^[2]

Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of many authors to frequent the Athenæum, "had a special relationship with this book-filled building. A relationship with the ghost of a man who, to this day, still calls for the elevator to come to the third floor to get him. The Boston Athenaeum is said to be haunted by the scholarly Rev. Harris, who was seen there by Nathaniel Hawthorne."^[3]

[edit] References and further reading

Josiah Quincy III, The History of the Boston Athenæum, with Biographical Notices of its Deceased Founders. Cambridge, MA., Metcalf and Company, 1851.
The Athenæum Centenary, The Influence and History of the Boston Athenæum from 1807 to 1907 with a Record of its Officers and Benefactors and a Complete List of Proprietors. Boston, The Boston Athenæum, 1907.
Robert F. Perkins, Jr. & William J. Gavin III, editors, The Boston Athenæum Art Exhibition Index, 1827-1874. Boston, MA, The Boston Athenæum, 1980.