The Cohoes Mastodont was discovered during the excavation for Harmony Mill #3 in 1866. The mill is sometimes referred to as the "Mastodon Mill" for this reason. When all the bones were recovered, they were kept at the Harmony Mills Office on exhibit, where they were seen by hundreds of people. The discovery was a nationwide sensation, generating considerable press coverage and controversy. In 1867, the skeleton was transferred to state ownership and exhibited in the State Cabinet of Natural History in Albany. It was later displayed, along with a furry replica, in the State Education building in Albany. Both of these are shown below. In life, the mastodont stood nearly nine feet tall and weighed five or six tons; its tusks were more than four feet long.
The Mastodont TodayIn 1976, the skeleton was disassembled and put into storage, while the replica found a new home in the Cohoes Public Library. In the mid-1990s, the 11,000 year old skeleton was painstakingly cleaned, rearticulated and studied, revealing more clues about the life and times of this ancient resident of Cohoes. It now stands in the lobby of the New York Sate Museum in Albany.
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