CLIPPING

A RARE COLLECTION
Levi Hazen’s Private Museum at West Hartford One of the Largest and Best in New England
Randolph Herald and News, July 29, 1897

Levi Hazen of West Hartford is well known to many readers of this paper as a civil engineer and student of natural history. Comparatively few of them, however, know that he has at his home one of the most valuable and interesting private museums in New England. He gives a cordial welcome to all who visit him and takes pleasure in showing the treasures in his museum to his visitors.

Through years of study and of patient research among the rocks and minerals of New England and of the western states, he has gained a large fund of practical information that the student will find very valuable. The idle visitor will find much to amuse and interest him. Mr. Hazen’s home is at the southerly end of West Hartford village, only a few minutes’ walk from the railway station. Entering the room devoted to his collection you come first to a century-old desk upon which are found many beautiful specimens of Mexican onyx, a number of those ancient pre-historic cups and jars found in the vicinity of the ancient Aztec potteries and in the mounds of Dakota and Georgia, and specimens of Egyptian marble.

Just beyond this you find a desk and small cabinet that are filled with a variety of seashells ranging from the tiny rice shell to the largest conch. There are many rare shells in this collection and the student of conchology will find much that is interesting here. Beyond the desk is a large wall cabinet fitted with sliding doors.

On the first of its eleven shelves are found many specimens of Liriodendrons, petrified woods and bark embedded in slate and clay stones. Shelf 2 is filled with geodes, those curious rounded nodules of stone in which are cavities that are lined with crystals usually. Shelf 3 contains about 100 specimens of sulphuret of iron, fool’s gold. On shelf 4 are found fine specimens of tourmalines, those crystals of various colors usually found in pure white quartz in this state. Shelves 5 and 6 are filled with specimens of iron ore. Shelf 7 is filled with fine and interesting specimens of chalcedony and conglomerates. On shelf 8 is a fine lot of agates and specimens of chalcedony. When chalcedony of various colors is arranged in stripes it constitutes agate; if all the stripes are horizontal it is onyx. Shelf 9 is filled with large and beautiful agates ranging from two to four inches in diameter.

Mr. Hazen justly takes much pride in this collection. It is asserted that there is not in New England a more beautiful or valuable collection of agates. On shelf 10 are many specimens of stalactites and stalagmites. Shelf 11 is filled with specimens of lead ore. Under the cabinet are specimens of the Kansas sea cabbage and two specimens of the inoceramids. Upon the shelves of the next cabinet are several large geodes and many fine specimens of aragonites, brown spar, maximilliary quartz, crystallized quartz, chrysoberyl, feldspar, basanite, heulandites, pargasite, edenite, talc, calcite, crystallized sulphur as it poured out of Vesuvius, wovelite, beautiful tremolite, a white variety of borublend in long, blade like crystals, etc. The next cabinet is devoted to the coal period and contains about 60 specimens of ferns on stone and over 120 specimens of adamites, fossil shells, etc. The student will find this a very interesting cabinet. Underneath it is a large and beautiful specimen of ferns on clay. The next cabinet is devoted to the ancient fossil corals found in the western states and territories. This is an interesting collection.

An ancient safe that is fastened with a huge padlock comes next. On this is a cabinet of drawers containing a large collection of polished specimens from the Michigan drift. On the cabinet is a box of phrenitis corals, some of which came from Sweden but many were found in the West. Fine specimens of zaphrentis are found in the sands of Lake Memphremagog. A few specimens of orthis are in this collection. There are 50 specimens of copper ore from the various mines of the world, many specimens of asbestos and amianthus, which last is sometimes called mountain flax. A shelf is filled with specimens of quartz, talc and stalagmites. Beyond this is found a cabinet six feet in length that is filled with rare minerals from Europe and America. Among these are found wulfenite, double reflecting spar, manganese, tin, gold, zinc and antimony. Under this cabinet is a case filled with specimens of scapolite, Colorado dendrites, actinolite, etc., also a piece of sandstone containing the print of a turkey’s foot.

Then there is an 8-foot case that will interest all visitors. It is filled with Indian curiosities such as wampum, bows, arrows, etc. Many of the articles found here cannot be easily duplicated. Next to this case is one still more interesting. It contains over 100 relics of an Indian stone age. Here are stone clubs, stone troughs and grinders that were the mills in which squaws ground corn for mush or other Indian food preparations, stone axes, gouges, hoes, chisels, cleavers, sinkers, spear points, arrowheads, scrapers or knives used for cleaning skins before tanning, etc. Many of these relics were found in Hartford and vicinity. Visitors will find Mr. Hazen’s account of the uses made of the various articles in this case very interesting.

Extending through the center of the room is a large Thompson case opening upon all sides, in which is a collection that the student of mineralogy will find most interesting. It will interest every visitor. In front are found crocidolite, eagle-eye and cats-eye opals and fire opals, a box of precious stones, the largest and finest collection of cut agates in the state. These were cut in Europe. On a lower shelf are about 100 specimens of lava, polished granites, fossil fishes, shark teeth, whale teeth, etc.

On the south side are many specimens of silver ore, a rare variety of rutile crystals and specimens of obsidian, a glass produced by volcanoes. On a shelf are 46 specimens of gypsum, among which are some crystallized in the form of leaves. There are also 33 specimens of petrified wood. Some of them are very curious. On the top shelf is a large and interesting collection of corals. At the end are found the rare hailstones of rutile and timonium in clear quartz. There are fifty small boxes filled with small specimens of rare minerals, corals filled with chalcedony, etc. On the north side one shelf is filled with garnets and other rare minerals. Another shelf contains many boxes filled with quartz specimens, among which are many of those pretty gems known as New York diamonds, and crystals in each of which is a cavity in which is a drop of water. In the case are found, also, many specimens magnetic iron, cryolite from Greenland, petrified pears, plums and other fruit, petrified or stone lily in a piece of petrified wood, a trilobite in red sandstone, stone lily in the red chalk of Kansas, an Egyptian god, quartz crystals in sandstone cavities, etc.

On the top of the case is a large bone from the leg of a mammoth and some of the most beautiful specimens of dolomite found in any collection. These were found in the mountains of Tyrol in Europe. There is a large specimen of Texas calcite, a fine specimen of barytes Iron Niagara and a rare specimen of the flooring of the ancient temple of Rome. There are many specimens of andalusites and macules that are very pretty. Of rubellites, the red variety of tourmalines, there are some beautiful specimens. There are four large boxes filled with fossils. There are 150 small boxes filled with trilobites, etc. are many of the fossils of the Silurian age. There are many species of the Silurian age, ancient corals from Florida, crystals of fluorspar containing drops of water, etc.

In a room opening from the museum is a mounted specimen of the Canadian lynx, swords of the narwhal and swordfish, a tooth of a walrus that weighs nearly eight pounds, petrified corals from the Michigan drift, and a curious copper coin upon which is a rattlesnake under the cap of liberty. On the cap are 13 stars and there are 13 rattles upon the snake’s tail. There are many other curiosities that are fully as interesting as those named here but this story is already long. All who are interested in any degree in the curiosities of nature will find a visit to Mr. Hazen’s museum and an inspection of his large collection of treasures profitable. He will give them a hearty welcome.