Manny’s Discovery
William Valiant, Curator at the Rutgers Geology Museum from 1893 to 1927, was the first person to provide insight and details into how Manny was discovered. Valiant wrote many pages describing the museum, its collections, and his impressions throughout his time working there. As curator of the Rutgers Geology Museum, Valiant used his deep knowledge of the collection to organize all items from 1893 to 1896. He provided a snapshot of the museum’s history through his collection of papers and gave clues for further research.
In this part of Valiant’s personal manuscript, he explains that in the mid 1800s, a tenant of the Chestnut Hill Farm in Mannington, New Jersey, discovered a pair of large tusks while digging for marl, a source of natural fertilizer commonly used in agriculture throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This was the first part of Manny’s skeleton to be found. However, the tusks were exposed to air, which caused them to crumble and were completely destroyed. The tusks seen protruding from Manny’s skull in the museum are casts made from molds of similarly sized tusks.