With spring just around the corner, thoughts of road trips and vacations have muddled my mind. One of my favorite vacation destination for years has been Niagara Falls. The first time I visited Niagara Falls was in 1957 on the New York side. I was 5 years old. Though the falls were a miraculous sight to see, the thing that stands out in my memory is The Niagara Falls Museum. I have been unable to find the exact location of the building in Niagara Falls, New York but I remember it was in a large older building with many steps up to the front door. There were quite a lot of historical items about Niagara Falls, many Native American artifacts, skeletal remains of a mastodon and then within a room that had an eerie atmosphere were several glass display cases. I walked up to one and gazed closely into the glass. There it was, in all its creepy glory, bony human remains with arms folded across its chest, wrapped in what looked like dirty gauze. A real live mummy! I was mesmerized. The sight was awful and yet fascinating and I think I stood there for as long as I could before my family pulled me away to the next section. The memory of that sight stayed with me for many years and perhaps contributed to my fantasies of becoming an archeologist. Which, by now, we know did not come to fruition.
Recently, I went online to try to locate a picture of the building where the museum was located in the 1950s in New York. Though I was unable to find anything about the building, what I did discover was so interesting that it prompted me to write a blog to share it.
In the 1820s, Thomas Barnett built a museum by the Horseshoe Falls in Ontario, Canada. Apparently the first museum was located at the base of the Horseshoe Falls, but then was relocated across the street from the falls. Barnett was a collector of taxidermy and this is where he displayed his collection. Barnett’s son also made several trips to Egypt where he purchased several mummies to add to the museum collection from a family who robbed a tomb filled with mummies in Luxor. Stealing and selling mummies was a lucrative business in 1800 Egypt.
In 1888, the museum had to relocate when the Niagara Parks Commission took possession of its location to develop the Queen Victoria Park. Having no other suitable venue in Canada it relocated to the American side of the Falls. I was unable to nail down the exact date when this happened but I know that it remained in New York until at least 1957, the year that my family was there. Ironically, eventually the owners of the museum had to find yet another location when the U.S. Parks Authority assumed possession of the land on which the museum was located. It then returned to the Canadian side and relocated in the building on Ferry Street in Ontario where the museum remains today. However, it is not the same museum.
In 1999, most of the Egyptian artifacts, including the mummies, were sold to the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. This is where the story gets interesting. (Finally, huh!) The museum had a team of medical experts at the Emory University examine the mummies and with the aid of CT scans, X-rays, skull measurements and radio-carbon dating tests discovered that one of the mummies, specifically the one whose arms were folded high across its chest, was the remains of Pharaoh Ramesses I, founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s 19th Dynasty. After identification, the remains were then returned to Egypt in 2003 and are now on display at the Luxor Museum. What a thrill it is to know that one of the mummies that I was so enthralled with so long ago may have been Pharaoh Ramesses I!
Does anyone else have any memories to share about visiting The Niagara Falls Museum at Niagara Falls, New York during the 1950’s? I would love to hear the stories.
;)
