White Sheep diorama at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. From: Morry
If you have ever been drawn to a diorama, stared at a skeleton, or fawned over a fossil in any natural history museum in America, chances are you have witnessed the work or the influence of former Rochester resident, Henry A. Ward.
Henry Augustus Ward was born in the Flower City in 1834, and from a very young age demonstrated a fascination with the natural world. When he was just 13 years old, his parents sent him to live on the farm of a nearby naturalist, to study and build upon his growing collection of fossils and other geological specimens.
Ward furthered his learning while serving as an assistant to noted Harvard scientist, Louis Agassiz. His time in Cambridge was brief, however, as he accepted an offer in 1854 from General James Wadsworth of Geneseo to attend the School of Mines in Paris with Wadsworth’s son, Charles.
The pair took advantage of their new location and embarked on extensive voyages throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Africa, where Ward contracted Yellow Fever and nearly died. The robust young man nevertheless survived and brought a sizable collection of geological discoveries with him back to Paris.
Portrait of Henry Augustus Ward ca. 1850-1860. From: the Local History & Genealogy Division of the Rochester Public Library.
Ward stayed in the City of Lights for about six years, financing his education by selling fossils he found in his daily travels to interested parties in London. The overseas experience deepened Ward’s love of the natural sciences and reinforced to him the value and commercial potential of such collections.
He returned to Rochester in 1860 with several crates filled to the brim with scientific specimens. Ward initially displayed his collection on the second story of the Rochester Savings Bank (which was then headed by his uncle, Levi Ward), before selling it in 1862 to the University of Rochester, where he was briefly employed as a professor.
At once a workshop and a museum, the early incarnation of Ward’s Natural Science Establishment represented the most complete collection of fossils, minerals, skeletons, and taxidermied animals in the country. Of particular interest was Ward’s stuffed gorilla, the first one ever seen in the United States.
Unfortunately, just seven years after the unparalleled collection took root on the university’s Prince Street campus, a devastating fire destroyed Ward’s building and most everything in it.
As the Rochester Union & Advertiser grimly reported, “the loss to science caused by the fire cannot be estimated.”
Ward’s museum on College Ave ca. 1884. From: Ward’s Natural Science Establishment Inc.-Its History, Reorganization, and Plans for the Future (1931).
Ward remained undeterred, viewing the loss as an opportunity for further specimen-collecting voyages. (He would circumnavigate the globe several times over the course of his life). He gradually built up his collection again, this time independent of the university in a nearby building on College Avenue, the entrance of which was guarded by two massive whalebones.
Ward’s whalebone arch. From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester N.Y.
Therein, Ward not only showcased his special items, but, along with his staff, prepared and processed orders of anatomical models, skeletons, stuffed animals, stones, and fossils for museums and educational institutions across the country.
A circa 1870 poster advertising the woolly mammoth on display at Ward’s Natural Science Establishment. From: the Collection of the Local History & Genealogy Division, Rochester Public Library.
An order of hand, arm, and shoulder bones featured in Ward’s Catalog of Human Skeletons, Anatomical Models, Anthropology, Ethnology (1913).
Ward’s work drew attention from several high profile clients, including Buffalo Bill Cody, who charged Ward with stuffing a series of his Wild West conquests; P.T. Barnum, who entrusted Ward and his staff to mount the skin and skeleton of his beloved elephant Jumbo, after the animal was tragically killed in a railroad accident; and department store magnate, Marshall Field, who employed the entire natural history display that Ward had developed for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 as the starting block for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Ward’s taxidermy department ca. 1883. From: Ward’s Natural Science Establishment Inc.-Its History, Reorganization, and Plans for the Future (1931).
Many of those who trained at Ward’s Natural Science Establishment went on to high profile positions themselves, becoming directors, curators, and taxidermists at major institutions like the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo, and the New York Aquarium.
A mastodon’s rib cage in the process of being reconstructed at Ward’s in 1922. From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, N.Y.
Henry Ward’s protegees spread his influence throughout the country long after the naturalist himself passed away in 1906. His sons carried on the family firm before donating it to the University of Rochester in 1930.
The current incarnation of the business, Ward’s Science, supplies a dizzying array of scientific kits, models, and devices to classrooms and museums for the enjoyment and education of students of all ages.
-Emily Morry
Local History ROCs! 
This is awesome, Emily. I hadn’t known he spent that much time overseas. Great story!
I remember my grandmother gave me a labeled box of rocks in the 1960s from Ward’s Scientific.
As kids we rockhounds used to dig through their junk pile for “treasures.”Where was this location?