Museum Collections

Abstracted from a report submitted to the Board of Trustees by Dr. Frederick J. Dunford:

The Museum’s first organizational meeting was held on February 20, 1954. From the beginning, the founders were focused on educating local children about the environment that surrounded them (and by this time, was beginning to disappear). With advice and direction from Dr. Charles Russell, retired head of the Department of Eduction at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, they set about creating a “children’s museum”, that “… offered a place to make something or to learn. It was not a collection of materials as such, but a collection of individuals producing materials, which might have to do with the life history of clams, or the seasonal changes in the ground underfoot.” The “Cape Cod Junior Museum of Natural History” was born and so it remained until 1962 when the name was changed to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History.

Categories of the Museum’s Permanent Collection:

Avian Skins and Mounts (comprised of several collections and individual accessions).

Avian Eggs (oological; consisting of one collection).

Rocks, Minerals and Sand (comprised of several collections and individual accessions).

Fossils including Petrified Wood (comprised of several collections).

Marine Shells (numerous collections). Marine Invertebrates (one small research collection).

Marine Mammal (numerous individual accessions).

Reptile and Amphibian (several accessions – primarily turtle/ tortoise shells).

Mammal Skins and Mounts (several accessions).