In 1801, APS Member Charles Willson Peale and his sons made their most important contribution to science when they excavated mastodon bones in upstate New York. The mastodon was first displayed in Peale's Philadelphia Museum, located in the APS's Philosophical Hall, today the site of the APS Museum. Thousands of people from all over the globe came to see the "antique wonder of North America."

This image of Peale's mastodon was in a 1821 French travel book by Édouard de Montulé. Translation of the French inscription: "Skeleton of a Young Mastodon. Drawn in the Philadelphia Museum.