In February 1862, eleven-year-old Sarah Gooll Putnam describes and illustrates her visit to the Boston Aquarial and Zoological Gardens in her diary.
The attracion was opened in Boston in 1859 by associates of P.T. Barnum, and featured Barnum-like acts such as performing elephants, trained bears, fortune-tellers, and the white beluga whale described by Putnam along with the educational exhibits of marine animals. Putnam writes about other parts of the attraction, including the elephants and a monkey riding on a horse’s back.
View the drawing inside the diary up close here.