The PSNH used this etching of the old Portland Academy building, its home from 1859 to 1866, on the cover of its publications. Dr. William Wood, PSNH’s President described the fire, and the efforts of curator Edward Sylvester Morse to save the PSNH collections during the Great Fire of 1866,

Such was the scene and hour, when for the first time it became apparent that danger threatened the City Hall and other public buildings in that vicinity, and among them the Hall of the Portland Society of Natural History. When two or three of the members of the Society, wearied with their exertions in other parts of the city, entered the building, they found there only the General Curator. He had been busy making preparations to remove the cabinets, by unlocking and opening all the cases, placing empty drawers in front of them, swinging the table-cases athwart the tables so that they could readily be seized by their ends, and in other ways making the best and every arrangement that suggested itself for effecting a rapid clearance of the Exhibition Hall.