Antidiluvian Oak from bog near Killarney, Ireland

The objects seen here are souvenirs collected by Abby Knight McLane and her husband Allen McLane. The well-traveled couple is thought to have personally gathered the collection, which represents the kind of curio-cabinet collecting that occupied many Americans in the late 1800s.

Though each piece is unique, McLane’s souvenir collection is a typical mix of found objects and items with historical associations: a piece of a cedar doorpost from Government House in St. Augustine, Florida; a stone in the shape of an arrowhead from Mount Pony, near Culpeper, Virginia; “antediluvian oak” from a bog near Killarney, Ireland; a small white stone from the ruins of Pompeii, Italy; and a round metal fragment of the HMS Great Eastern, the ship used in the laying of the Atlantic Cable.

Bequest of Abby Knight McLane, 1919