Image: Receipt for a Library Company share, 1733.

We continue our monthly “Shareholder Spotlight” series by taking a closer look at Share #486 and its second owner, William Maclure (1763-1840).

Shareholders have always been the backbone of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Starting with the first group of fifty tradesmen who formed the library in 1731, shareholders have provided crucial financial support each year for our mission to “pour forth benefits for the common good.”

We keep careful track of who has owned each historic share, and our list of 9,800+ shareholders includes signers of the Declaration and Constitution, merchants, doctors, soldiers, scientists, artists, philanthropists, politicians, and much more.

Share #486

This share was first issued to Bernard Fearis on July 22, 1786.

Fearis had previously served as Librarian of the Library Company for six months, from June 24, 1779 to January 11, 1780, and his pay was to be fifty pounds and a Library Company share. For an unknown reason, the share was not issued to him until six years later in 1786.

Fearis maintained his Library Company share for the next nine years, and then sold it to William Maclure (1763-1840) on December 9, 1795.

Maclure had been born in Scotland, and came to the United States as a young man to work as a merchant. He apparently earned enough money that he retired from business after just a few years. It is unclear how much time he spent in Philadelphia, but he maintained his Library Company share for the rest of his life.[i]

Image: Frontispiece from Samuel George Morton, “A Memoir of William Maclure, Esq.,” Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia, 1841).

In 1803, Maclure was living in London and serving as a commissioner to help settle American claims on the French government for spoliations committed during the Revolutionary War.

But his personal passion was clearly geology and natural history. When he returned to the United States, he undertook a large-scale geological survey of the U.S. He presented his results to the American Philosophical Society in 1809, and continued to expand his work in subsequent years. He published a revised edition in 1817.[ii]

Image: “A Map of the United States of America,” bound into William Maclure, Observations on the Geology of the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1817).

Image: Plate II, bound into William Maclure, Observations on the Geology of the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1817).

Maclure was elected president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in December 1817, and served in that role for the rest of his life.[iii]

Meanwhile, he was also interested in educational reform and the potential for practical education. He took steps to set up an agricultural school in Spain, but when those plans were thwarted by political changes, he worked to establish a similar school in the United States. He partnered with Robert Owen in New Harmony, Indiana; when the Owenite community dissolved, the school continued as the New Harmony Working Men’s Institute.[iv]

Maclure continued his ties to Philadelphia, but spent much of his remaining years in Mexico. He was a significant benefactor to the Academy of Natural Sciences, even transferring his 2,200-volume library in New Harmony to the Academy to join the approximately 1,500 volumes he had previously donated there.[v]

After his death, his brother and executor Alexander Maclure eventually sold the share to Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) on September 6, 1844. Peale was an artist and naturalist, and a fellow member of the Academy of Natural Sciences. Titian had accompanied Maclure on at least one expedition to Florida in 1819.[vi]

Share #486 has been owned by fifteen people total.

Not yet a shareholder?

Share #486 is currently available. We work hard to match potential shareholders with historic shares that match their interests, and we would love to match you with William Maclure’s share or another option.

You can become a Library Company shareholder with an initial gift of $500. To learn more, visit our website or reach out to our Development Office at development@librarycompany.org.

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[i] L. F. F., “William Maclure,” EBSCO, 2023, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/william-maclure (accessed July 17, 2025).

[ii] Samuel George Morton, “A Memoir of William Maclure, Esq.,” Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia, 1841).

[iii] Morton, 16.

[iv] L. F. F., “William Maclure.”

[v] Morton, 24.

[vi] “Titian Ramsay Peale,” Florida Museum of Natural History https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/naturalists/peale/ (accessed July 17, 2025). “A Brief History of Science at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University,” Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University https://ansp.org/about/press-room/releases/2012/brief-history-academy-science/ (accessed July 17, 2025).