Boston Museum (theatre)

[3] Early live shows presented, for instance, "the musical olio, consisting of solos on glass bells, and birch-bark whistling.

It comprises no less than seven different museums, to which has been added the present year, besides the constant daily accumulation of articles, one half of the celebrated Peale's Philadelphia Museum, swelling the already immense collection to upwards of half a million articles, the greatest amount of objects of interest to be found together at any one place in America; and an entirely new hall of wax statuary.... and the immense collection of birds, beasts, fish, insects and reptiles;... paintings, engravings and statuary; ... Egyptian mummies, ... family of Peruvian mummies; the duck-billed platypus;... the curious half-fish, half-human Fejee Mermaid;... elephants and ourang-outangs..."[5]The Museum held a recruiting office for Company D. of the 22nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in 1861 at the start of the Civil War.

Hammatt Billings designed the original museum building, located at 18 Tremont Street;[6] In 1846 Hammatt and J. E. Billings also designed the museum's next building, at 28 Tremont Street,[7][8] located next door to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and close to the King's Chapel Burying Ground.

[10][The building] is arranged in two main portions with an area between for light and air, one communicating with the other at either end by a wide passage.

The galleries... are supported by twenty stately columns rising from the floor.... A spacious staircase and passage-way leads to the Exhibition Hall in the rear building... capable of accommodating nearly two thousand persons.