Today if you wish to see the restored replica of America’s first dinosaur discovery, uncovered in Haddonfield, N.J., in 1858, you can simply drive to the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton. The story of how it got there deserves to be told.

After the excavation of the skeleton, named Hadrosaurus Foulkii for the man who identified it, the bones were sent to the Academy of Science in Philadelphia, where they were stored.