American Historical Ephemera & Photography

CDV on cardstock mount (toning; mount and print slightly trimmed along top edge, light spotting/smudes). Caption on recto and printed information about subject on verso.

Featuring a large stuffed gorilla, posed with a bent rifle in his hands. This gorilla specimen was presented by the Reverend William Walker, an Amherst alum and West African missionary, to Edward Hitchcock, the president of Amherst College. The gorilla was reportedly killed near the Gabon River during the spring of 1862, stuffed by Jillson of Feltonville, and mounted by Walker's oldest son. The pose of the gorilla in this photograph was inspired by Du Chaillu's Explorations and Adventures, in which a gorilla killed a hunter, took his gun, and bit it so hard enough to leave marks on the barrel. 

Source: Hitchcock, Edward. Reminiscences of Amherst College: Historical, Scientific, Biographical, and Autobiographical: Also, of Other and Wider Life Experiences. Northampton, Massachusetts: Bridgman & Childs, 1863.