Albany Charters the American Museum of Natural History

On April 6, 1869, Governor John T. Hoffman signed the legislation that created the American Museum of Natural History, with the merchant John David Wolfe installed as its first president. The idea traced back to 1861, when the naturalist Albert S. Bickmore first dreamed up a great natural history museum for New York. That December, eighteen prominent New Yorkers petitioned the Central Park Commission to house it inside the park itself. Bickmore's fundraising connected him to William E. Dodge Jr., who could not bankroll the project himself but introduced him to Theodore Roosevelt Sr., father of the future president. The museum had a charter and trustees years before it had a real home: it did not open to the public until 1871, and not in its own building until 1877.