page_title: Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens
section_title: Whale
hierarchical_section_title: Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens / History / Whale
caption_attribution_description: Illustration from: "Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens." Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine, v.16, no.1, July 1862.
context_page_description: The Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens in Boston, Massachusetts, featured a public aquarium and zoo. It was located in the Financial District on Central Court. On display were "hundreds of specimens of the finny tribe there to be seen sporting in their native element, in all their variety of hue and shape" as well as other animals. James Ambrose Cutting and Henry D. Butler ran the business, derived from an earlier incarnation known as the Boston Aquarial Gardens.P.T. Barnum bought it in 1862, renovated it, and reopened it as Barnum's Aquarial Gardens.
context_section_description: The proprietors added a live beluga whale to the collection in 1861. It was the first cetacean ever kept in captivity in the modern world. 
  "The present whale, now an active swimming resident of our city, was caught in the St. Lawrence River, Upper Canada, between the Orelle and DuLoup rivers. His capture was secured by weirs, a sort of trap made of wooden stakes, inclosing an area of several miles of water, but so shaped as to concenter to a point where big fish are nabbed. ... Having been secured he was placed in a huge box for transportation. Before this was accomplished however, the whale gave its captors very much trouble by his powerful flappings, jumpings &c. &c., having floundered some Frenchmen several times, much to their peril and inconvenience. The box was lined with sea-weed, and was partially covered at the top with slats. The precious freight was then carried 7 miles over one of the roughest roads in Canada, and from thence by rail 500 miles to Boston, by special trains. ... At each station the monster was well watered, as if he had been a locomotive. The aqueous attentions were quite necessary during the journey of 60 hours. All along the route the distinguished traveller was the object of great curiosity, and the most animated conversation. On being placed in the huge tank at the Aquarial Gardens, the process of which was witnessed by hundreds with the most intense interest, the whale at once swam in the most lively and graceful manner!"
  By 1869 "the skeleton of the specimen exhibited at the ... Gardens ... [was] in the Museum of Comparative Zoology ... presented by Mr. Cutting."
caption: "The sphinx riding the ring at the Aquarial Gardens," 1862
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