19th Century Scrapbook

Hayward area local Margaret Fitch collected and preserved many plants during the summer of 1896. She adhered each piece of vegetation to a page and added it to her personal scrapbook—likely with no intention for it to make its way into a formal collection. But in 2014, that scrapbook and the old plants left inside were donated to the Museum to be preserved in perpetuity. What remains of Margaret’s initial efforts now acts as a time capsule of the vegetation of this area over 120 years ago.