The Steinheim Museum at Alfred University, was an eclectic cabinet of curiosities created in the 1870s by the University President, Jonathan Allen. It was the first museum in Western New York State, and in 1933 became the second oldest college science museum in the country.

The building was inspired by German castles. Its facade was built from almost 8000 different stones collected by Allen from within a three mile radius of the museum; to show men and women what sort of earth we live on.

Its interior, shelving and cabinets were carved from hundreds of varieties of wood, many of them with histories of their own; There is a railing... made from the spars of vessels sunken by the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, on a piece of the stairway Colonel Ellsworth was shot, a limb of the apple tree under which Grant received the surrender of General Lee and many other historic relics.

The museum was built organically, without architectural plans and extensions were added as it became crowded. Allen was quoted as saying that if there was anything in the world like any portion of the building he would immediately tear that part down.

The Steinheim housed an extraordinary collection that included birds, shells, corals, fossils, plants, pottery, glass, American Indian articles, oil paintings, statuary, shoes, stuffed animals, basketry, crockery, costumes, ancient and historical implements, relics, rocks and minerals and other curiosities including the skeleton of the first woman prosecuted in Allegany County for murder.

In the years between its completion in 1892 and the early fifties the museum was an inspiration to many thousands of students and visitors who travelled from all over America to visit.

After the death of President Allen the museum became neglected and started to crumble.

In the 1950s the museum was an illicit meeting place for lovers. Successive generations of students dared each other to break into the museum and bring back an artifact as proof. The dilapidation of the building threatened the collection and uncoordinated rescue efforts left artifacts strewn around various departments of the university and other undocumented safe-keeping places in the village.

Between 1953 when the museum was finally closed to the public and the time the building was renovated in 1996 into a career development center, most of the collection had vanished.

There are rumours as the whereabouts of many of the artifacts. A stone lion sits in a garden. Some coins are safely stored in an attic, a portion of the mollusk collection is in a museum in Philadelphia and two of the oil paintings hang in the University corridors.

Over the next three months I will publicise a photographic amnesty for the lost artifacts of the Steinheim Museum. I will try to find objects that were stored, stolen, passed on or lost from the Steinheim museum and rather than request their return, will photograph them in their new context.

I will search for the artifacts using the following methods: a poster campaign, knocking on people’s doors, interviewing local historians, the college archivists and other important leads, closely studying the archived files and photographs on the Steinheim, placing an advert in all the local newspapers, contacting alumni and faculty of the University and interviewing the owners of local auction houses.

I will interview the new owners about how they acquired the object and will collect stories of their time together. Each person will remain completely anonymous, the idea being not to harass the new owners, but to celebrate and record the subsequent journeys each artifact has managed to travel.

Perhaps I will find no artifacts at all, but I will record the journey of trying to find them.

all photographs courtesy Alfred University Archives