Diary of Charles Francis Adams

BOSTON, USA
Wednesday. 13th. 1836
Morning cloudy with a very raw East wind. I went with my Wife and a party to the Menagerie in Union Street.1 Carried with us the two elder children. There is a tolerable collection of large animals. A male and female elephant, a rhinoceros, several lionesses but no lion, Tigers of Java and Bengal, the white polar bear and the black bear, hyaenas, panthers and leopards in plenty. Also two beautiful Zebras, a gnu or horned horse, a buffalo, several camels and dromedaries, an antelope, Lama and Angora goat, Monkeys in plenty, cockatoos and an anaconda. A curious creature is the kangaroo from New Holland.
On the whole, an exhibition of this kind is exceedingly interesting, but to enjoy it fully requires the absence of children, for first they must be taken strict care of, second, they are so small and defenceless that one cannot keep out of the imagination, a possibility of the breaking of a single iron bar.
NOTE:
The “Zoological Exhibition” at 45 Union Street had been on view since late in 1835. The collection of beasts and birds had been advertised as “much more extensive” than any exhibited earlier in Boston (Columbian Centinel, 29 Dec., p. 3, col. 6).