User:PemberMuseum/Pember Library and Museum

The Pember Library and Museum

[The Pember Library and Museum] is a public library and museum founded in 1909 as the gift of Franklin Tanner Pember and his wife, Ellen Pember, to the citizens of the town of Granville, New York. The collection is the culmination of a lifetime of travel and natural history collecting by the Franklin and Ellen Pember and the two collections, a library on the first floor and the natural history collection on the second floor, remain exactly as they were 101 years ago.

The Pembers undertook construction of the building in 1908 and deeded the building and its entire contents to the village of Granville, New York. The Museum has been in continuous operation as a non-profit organization since 1909 and was one of the first educational institutions chartered by the Regents of the State of New York.

Victorian floor-to-ceiling exhibition cases of cherry wood fill the museum, and overflow with birds, mammals, reptiles, eggs, rocks, plants and minerals. Unusual insects from around the world, nests and butterflies are part of the collection, displayed in vintage Victorian tabletop cases.

Franklin Pember did much of his own taxidermy. Drawers full of all sizes and colors of glass eyes, pedestals for birds, and prepared skins were found in his workshop on the third floor of his Granville house. He was acquainted with naturalists in the New York-Vermont area and was a noted ornithologist. In the second volume of Birds of New York, by E.H. Eaton, published by the New York State Museum in 1914, Pember is cited as a reference for knowing the breeding sites of a Golden Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Pigeon Hawk, and the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.