For months on end, the citizens of the town of 6,000 grappled with where to put their taxidermic treasures. The 400 mounted birds were bestowed to Rowley in the 1920s by Charles Houghton, a taxidermist and library trustee for 31 years, who loved both the library and his bird collection. He left the collection to the library, which was then housed in town hall, and the birds wound up on display there. Later, when the library moved to a small schoolhouse, the birds remained with town leaders because there was no room for them in the new location.
Rowley recently built a large public library, and people familiar with the bird collection said it could finally be restored to a library facility, as the donor requested. But others protested that the collection was too stuffy for the nice, new building. "The argument was, in new modern libraries, you don't tend to display this type of exhibit," says A.J. Paglia, chairman of the board of selectmen.
A nonbinding resolution put to the townspeople found that a large majority supported the idea of having the collection on display at the library. A compromise was finally reached. Rather than the entire collection, only birds of the Great Salt Marsh in the Northeast are on display. The rest of the birds will stay at town hall.
Those residents who squawked at the decision might feel better knowing that the collection has been determined to be quite valuable.
