1900 Roemer Museum Hildesheim Cover

 

This is an old 1900 cover from Roemer Museum Hildesheim addressed to Dr Harrison G Dyar of the US National Museum, Washington DC.

 

Little did it occur to me the significance of this cover until I did a little research on the internet upon receiving it in my mailbox last week. Apparently the Roemer-und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim - as it is now known - is famous for its ancient Egypt artifact collections. The museum is the result of the union of the Roemer Museum (as on the cover), founded in 1844 (and named after one of the founders, Herrmann Roemer), and the Pelizaeus Museum, established in 1911, that had housed the private collection of Egyptian antiques of Wilhelm Pelizaeus. More information about the musuem here.

 

The Roemer-und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim

What more interesting is the person this letter was addressed to. Unless there is more than one person with the same name working at the same place having the same profession (which is very unlikely!), a simple search on Wikipedia shows that Dr. Harrison Gray Dyar, Jr. was an Honorary Custodian of Lepidoptera at the U.S. National Museum, Washington, D.C. from 1897 until his death (1929).

 



More information about Dr. Harrison Jr. here.

 

Here's another interesting fact. Dr. Harrison's father, Mr. Harrison Gray Dyar (1805–1875), was an American chemist and inventor. According to Alfred Munroe in Concord and the Telegraph, it was Mr. Dyar, not Professor Morse (remember Morse code?), who erected the first real telegraph line at the race track in Long Island in 1826 and dispatched the first message ever sent! Read more about it here.

 

Now, anybody with a cover addressed to Mr. Harrison (Sr.)?

 

Date acquired: 6 Feb. 2013

Place acquired from: Georgia, USA

 

Disclaimer: I am not a Philatelist. I'm collecting stamps and covers just as a hobby. All my writings here are done based on my own non-exhaustive research. Please do your own research and do not take the articles here as formal references. I welcome any comments or critics if any of the information here are incorrect or misguided.