Description:
.930g Weston Fragment * .587g Fragment.
- A building was struck in this fall.
Investigated by Yale professors Benjamin Silliman and James Kingsley, the first recorded
fall of a meteorite in the New World, and of the beginning of Yale’s meteorite collection,
the oldest in the United States. A chemical analysis of the meteorite made by Silliman,
the first to be performed in this country and among the first few in the world—was read
before the American Philosophical Society in March 1808, and published in its Transactions
the following year. Silliman was therefore established as the first active American participant
early in the development of the field of meteoritics.
He presented pieces of Weston to important friends as well as to scientific institutions. Some
of them eventually found their way into museum collections around the world, thereby
ensuring their preservation. Out of the approximately 350 pounds of the meteorite that fell
on the town of Weston, less than 50 pounds can now be accounted for. Many stones were
smashed by the finders in the town: "Strongly impressed with the idea that these stones
contained gold and silver, they subjected them to all the tortures of ancient alchemy, and the
goldsmith’s crucible, the forge, and the blacksmith’s anvil, were employed in vain to elicit
riches which existed only in the imagination."Much of the rest undoubtedly gathered dust
on numerous 19th century mantelpieces in western Connecticut before being thrown away.
After reading a report by the two Yale professors, President Thomas Jefferson is reputed to
have said, "It is easier to believe that two Yankee professors would lie than that stones would
fall from heaven!" In another version of the story, after listening to an account of the Weston
event and examining a specimen while dining with a senator, Jefferson said that five words
were enough to sum up the case: "It is all a lie."
Scholars have never been able to pinpoint the original source of Thomas Jefferson’s words
about the meteorite fall. Jefferson had a broad knowledge of science, so historians doubt
that he actually uttered such narrow-minded comments. Perhaps they were invented by
one of Jefferson’s detractors to embarrass him.
We do know that Jefferson was interested in the Weston event and called for a careful
investigation. This study was performed by Nathaniel Bowditch of Salem, the famous
author of "American Practical Navigator" and one of America’s most noted astronomers.
His findings confirmed those of the Yale professors. Stones had indeed fallen from the
heavens over Weston, Connecticut. So significant and popular this material is has resulted
in it simply NOT being available any longer.
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