The most exciting scientific find of the period was Charles Willson Peale’s exhumation in 1801 near Newburgh, New York, of the bones of the mastodon, or mammoth. Peale displayed his mammoth in his celebrated museum and in 1806 painted a marvelous picture of what was perhaps the first organized exhumation in American history. Peale’s discovery electrified the country and put the word mammoth
on everybody’s lips. A Philadelphia baker advertised the sale of mammoth bread.
In Washington a mammoth eater
ate forty-two eggs in ten minutes. And under the leadership of the Baptist preacher John Leland, the ladies of Cheshire, Massachusetts, late in 1801 sent to President Jefferson a mammoth cheese,
six feet in diameter and nearly two feet thick and weighing 1,230 pounds.
Otis, James Jr.
Boston, MA — Established in 1660, it contains some 1,600 graves including Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and James Otis, Jr.
Boston, MA — Built in 1713, the Old State House was the seat of Massachusetts government in the 18th century. It is the oldest surviving public building in Boston and one of the most important public buildings still standing from the original 13 colonies.
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009)