USPS logo LINK — USPS employee news Printable

Rare return

Stolen Darwin letter returned after 30 years

Shrewsbury, the British town where Charles Darwin was born in 1809, is home to a statue of the evolution theorist.
Shrewsbury, the British town where Charles Darwin was born in 1809, is home to a statue of the evolution theorist.

A letter written by evolution theorist Charles Darwin in 1875 was recently returned to the Smithsonian Institution after being stolen more than 30 years ago by a museum intern.

Someone who came into possession of the letter turned it over to the FBI after learning of its theft, The Washington Post reported last week.

“It’s in great condition,” FBI spokeswoman Katherine Zackel said of the 140-year-old letter. “It’s surprising; it actually still looks really good.”

Darwin wrote the two-page letter to Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden to thank him for sending two field studies of land that would become Yellowstone National Park.

“I am much obliged to you for your kindness & for the honour which you have done me in sending your Geological Report of the Yellowstone River & your Preliminary Field Report on the Colorado & New Mexico,” Darwin wrote.

Darwin is said to have written 7,000 letters in his life.

Post-story highlights