Relics

Charnley-Persky House Museum

During a foundation excavation in 2002, a late 19th-century garbage pit was discovered adjacent to the house. The landfill contained a range of items, including fine china, medicinal bottles, stoneware, and toiletries. An archaeological dig was sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians in 2010, unearthing additional artifacts, and another dig is planned for the future.

Frances Willard House Museum

The France Willard House Museum combines elements that have been sensitively and historically restored or conserved, such as Frances Willard’s den and bedroom, and those that have been left intact with the patina of age—including her bicycle, which she named “Gladys”.

International Museum of Surgical Science

From trephined skulls and kidney stones to prosthetic limbs and bone grafts, the International Museum of Surgical Science has a vast collection of specimens on view. Visitors can also experience a turn-of-the-century apothecary assembled on site from the remnants of two New York apothecaries.

Roger Brown Study Collection

Many objects in the collection have particular power. Prehistoric stone tools, Roger Brown’s baby shoe, his great grandfather’s naval band and umbilical cord, a West African tribal hunter’s shirt, and other such things occupy most of the physical space—and all of the psychic space—of the Roger Brown Study Collection.