Publication Information12407Washington. Jan. 6 1867

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My Dear Mr Marsh.

I hope the New Year has found you in good health and spirits and Mrs. Marsh in better condition than when you last wrote. We at home here are not very bright. Mary having had much sickness & pain within the last few months. She and Lucy send much love I have a maggot in my brain, which may or may not develop into a full blown fly. ?.. This planting of maggots is however a harmless amusement when inserted under the skin . Serving to deflate "wholesome-ly" the frame of rabbits, reindeers, buffalo etc. in summer time, but about the brain performance I am not so sure. My bestrus however is as follows

Mr. Peabody has recently added to the original foundation of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore another half million, and the affair now possesses exclusive of a splendid building and its personalities, about 800.000. dollars well invested. The whole

design and plan is now being discussed by Mr Peabody and friends although under the enlarged arrangements it not yet known what will be made of it. At present it is a , on which anything may be drawn. One element is however to be the possession of a gallery of arts to be connected with proposed instruction in the art of design. There is to be a good library, and courses of lectures in various subjects. Whether works will be published of any kind & what else will be done, is yet to be determined.

Professor Marsh of Yale College, a nephew of Mr. Peabody is much interested in the Institute, although not officially connected with it. He has been here for a week or two, studying Smithsonian operation in the interest of the New Museum of Yale College recently endowed by Mr. Peabody, and attending to other matters and I have had a good deal of conversation with him respecting the Baltimore Establishment. Discussing

the question as to the proper head of the Peabody Institute, and the importance of making a proper selection. I asked him why you would not be the best person to give it form. The idea struck him like a revelation, and he became full of it at once. As to the possibility of your accepting the place if offered, I said I could not of course form any estimate. If it were merely an Academy or college, to teach young people of either sex what any school or establishment would impart to them I know you would refuse at once, as no amount of money would compensate for the drudgery and confinement. If however you were free to make of it what you thought best, and a suitable salary were assigned, with no interference in details from any board of Trustees or other person. I thought you might be willing to consider the matter if not this year perhaps then later In reply to enquiry as to what would

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be the a proper salary. I said that nothing under 5000 or 6000 dollars and a good house, would be worth offering to your consideration. Prof Marsh thought this amt. would be little enough "for such a man". $3000.00 had been proposed, but he readily understood that you were better worth two or three times that amount, then two or three different persons of 3000. each!

Prof. Marsh is in Baltimore today, and will talk the matter over but of course there is no use to act further till we can know your views which I would be glad to have from you as soon as possible. I do not know whether they would make appointments, other than the offices they already have. Nor whether their conditions would be such as you would accept; nor whether any appointment will be made at once, if at all, or a year or ten later, but I would at any rate like some expression of opinion from you. Whether to the Secession element in Baltimore would be an [...] over or whether

it would be willing to have so good a as you are in its midst, is a question.

The Institute you are perhaps aware is situated in the shadow of the Baltimore Monument, and part of the investment of the fund is very fine residences in the same neighborhood, the best in Baltimore

A friend whom I wish to oblige asks my aid to procure certain postage stamps for him: he calls for

. 1854. on blueish paper.

Newpaper Stamp "Bello rio per le Poste"

2 soldi. Black ink on white paper

(Cross of Savoy) 3 line. yellow

I am making up a series of stamps for Lucy, not yet very complete, and would be glad of an omnium gatherum of Italian stamps of which I suppose you have plenty

I would however like very much

those mentioned for Mr. Forbes

Spencer F BairdHon. Geo. P. MarshFlorenceItaly

References in this letter:

Founded in 1857 with the financial backing of George Peabody (d. 1869), a self-made investment banker, this Baltimore institution originally served as an lyceum of all the arts, featuring lectures and a library.

Nephew and heir of George Peabody, Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) was the first professor of palaeontology at Yale. He specialized in extinct vertebrates of the Rocky Mountains.

At Baird's urging, John M. Forbes became a major contributor to the establishment of the laboratories Baird founded at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, later known as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.