Mose Kimball founded The Boston Museum in 1841. Also called the Boston Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, the venue was was a dime museum, a theatre, a natural history museum, zoo, and art museum. Kimball was a close associate of P.T. Barnum, and, after Barnum, the most notable of all Dime Museum impresarios. In 1842 Kimball traveled to New York to meet his rival, P. T. Barnum, for the first time. He brought with him “The Feejee Mermaid,” of which Kimball would remain the sole owner and Barnum would lease for $12.50 a week. The pair of museum operators remained friends until Barnum’s death in 1891. The Boston Museum closed in 1903.