Cabinets of Curiosities

Cabinets of curiosities were the European precursors of modern museums. These cabinets (sometimes referred to by the German name Wunderkammer, or chamber of wonders) displayed collections of the marvelous, the strange, the wonderful: objects of nature and of human manufacture. Early collectors (primarily wealthy merchants and royalty) highlighted their political and social connections by displaying objects assembled from around the world. 

Henry’s spirit of collecting was inspired by these European Renaissance chambers. While he did collect many antiques, he was also interested in natural history, purchasing a set of walrus tusks and soliciting donations of shells, minerals, coral, and meteorites (fourth row). Like many others of his time, he was also excited about “oddities,” as seen in this ordinary-looking fork whose label (in Henry’s handwriting) indicates it was found “in the hind quarter of a cow.” This exhibit also offers a glimpse of Henry’s original display practices: a rectangular case on the third row shows a variety of objects sewn onto cotton backing with Henry’s hand-written labels identifying their eclectic origins: a cross and rosary carved by an Addison County prisoner, a stone from Plymouth, Massachusetts, a fragment of the ship USS Congress sunk in Lake Champlain in 1776, melted glass fragments from the Boston Fire of 1872. 

Cabinets of curiosities also featured wonders of human manufacture and technology from around the globe. The third row features a variety of pipes and smoking implements: Chinese and Turkish pipes, as well as a cigar holder fashioned from a chicken bone. These are contrasted with a nearby “pitch pipe” disguised as a book, used to help singers find the right starting note. The second shelf includes a very different kind of object related to inhalation and exhalation: the cutting-edge technology of a glass inhaler used for the application of anesthesia in a surgery performed in this very house, only five years after William Morton’s first successful public demonstration of the surgical innovation.

Some of the objects cause us to marvel at their construction. The bottle whimseys on the second row feature wood-working tools that might hint at the origins of their manufacture: sawhorses, axes, saws, a measuring stick, and a sawbuck miraculously fit within glass bottles whose apertures are smaller than the wood constructions within. The necklace and watch fob on the fourth shelf disguise their materials to modern audiences, but they have been painstakingly crafted from human hair.

In addition to his collecting prowess, Henry Sheldon was also an inventive creator himself. His “Memorial Chair” and “Memorial Casket” are on view upstairs, but this case also features a silver goblet on the second row as evidence of Henry’s own ingenuity: he has customized a silver goblet (from Gorham Manufacturing Company) with coins from his collection, meant to represent mystic spans of time and space in their combination of ancient and modern, near (U.S. coinage from the year of its manufacture, 1879) and far (Africa and Asia).

Henry’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Top row: 

Walrus jaw and walrus skull (Clupea harengus), date unknown. Gift of Stephen Clodgo, from the Dog Team Tavern. 

Second row, left to right:

Maker unknown, Commemorative goblet, ca. 1896. “August 15, 1896, the 75th birthday of Henry L. Sheldon / The 100th Anniversary of the Sheldons in Middlebury.”

Bottle whimseys, listed as “States Prison Sawhorse in bottle” in Henry Sheldon’s “List of Purchases,” 1883. 

Gorham Manufacturing Co. and Henry L. Sheldon, Silver commemorative goblet with coins, ca. 1879. Inscribed “Henry L. to Susan G. Sheldon, Wedding gift, 1879.”

Small turtle shell, 19th century. “My father John H Johnson [1814-1911] wore this turtle shell on his tie for 35 years, so we have kept it in his memory. – Nell Lowell, Sept. 13th, 1934.” Gift of Olive (Lowell) Carr.

Lamp (likely Turkish), n.d. Gift of James L. Barton.  

Anesthesia inhaler, ca. 1851. Glass, metal, sponge. “Vapor of Sulphuric Ether was first used in town with this retort by Nathaniel Harris Dentist Dec. 22 1851.” Witnesses listed on verso: Edward Tudor MD, Jon A Allen MD, Zacheus Bass MD, W.P. Russel MD, S.P. Lathrop MD, Chas L. Allen MD, J Adams Allen MD, J.G. Wellington, Sidney Moodey, Dugald Stewart, S. Stoddard, E.D. Munger, C.E. Turrill, Harvey Bell, Edw. Wainwright, Henry L. Sheldon 

Third row, left to right:

Henry Sheldon, Display case of relics, ca. 1886-1900: stone from “Watch Tower, Plymouth, 1882; wooden cross and rosary “Made by prisoner in the Addison County Jail, 1886”;  “1620- Old stone- Plymouth Mass- 1882”; “Minei [sic] ball for musket”; “Quincy Granite- Bunker Hill monument of like stone”; “Musket Ball: Shape used in the Revolution”; “Part of Benedict Arnold’s flagship ‘Congress’ sunk in Basin Harbor”; “Conductor Blodget’s coat button—on the Rutland RR while leased—His pencil”; glass “from a Boston fire”; “Found with the Indian pottery – Do not know.” 

Maker unknown, “Tuning pipe, form of a book that gives several notes by drawing out one end, once Ebenezer Weeks,” ca. 1780. Inscription in interior reads: “Tuning pipe of Ebenezer Weeks of Salisbury Vt. Died 1812. Used in 1783.” Gift of John S. Barker, 27 July 1882.

Top to bottom: “Turkish pipe, purchased at [Philadelphia] Centennial” of 1876; “Chinese Pipe from Chinatown, San Francisco, Presented to Museum by Cushing Hill, 1898”; cigar holder, ca. 1850-1945, with tag: “This cigar holder is a bone from a crippled chicken leg which my Father used as a cigar holder.” Gift of Lena Gomer. 

Maker unknown, Carved shelf fungus depicting abolitionist John Brown’s house in North Elba, ca. 1860-1891. Gift of Harrison White, June 1891.

Fourth row, left to right:

 “Chinese Coin of the Sung Dynasty 970 to 1127 AD, Coin dated to 1078 AD.” Possible gift of Chanler W. Root, 1889.

Maker unknown, Tin boot, 1867. 

Dugald and Sophia (Allen) Stewart, Invitation to tin wedding anniversary party, 1867.

Maker unknown. HLS Label: “This fork was inbedded [sic] in the hind quarter of a cow, inside.” 

Maker unknown. Hairwork necklace with cross, ca. 1850-1890.

Maker unknown. Hairwork watch fob with charm in the shape of a book, ca 1850-1890. Gift of Mrs. Frances A. Waite, 1968.
 “2 meteoric stones found N. East of Leicester Junction, 2 rods apart about 1860.” Likely given by Fred Vassau or Elmer L. Parkhurst, Bristol, 1895.

Bottom row:

Albert D. Mead (taxidermist), Housecat of Mrs. Northrup, ca. 1887.