EveryMuseum.com - B.F. Wirt Collection

Benjamin Franklin Wirt was born in 1852 to a pioneer family of Youngstown. A graduate of the Rayen School, he read law with Laurin D. Woodworth. He joined Mr. Woodworth's practice after being admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one. Locally prominent and respected, Wirt was elected to a four-year term as a State Senator in 1889.

Benjamin F. Wirt and his wife, Mary McGeehan Wirt, were world travelers and collectors of curios. They accumulated coins, furnishings, artifacts, and works of art from all over the globe. Wirt was a bibliophile with a great love for beautiful books and rare documents. A friend said Wirt was "a man of very pronounced literary learning, which tendency has led to his acquiring a large collection of books, among which are to be found many choice and rare volumes." At the time of his death, his library numbered nearly 4,000 volumes and included a collection of papers signed by noted historical figures. Mary McGeehan Wirt was a talented artist who chose expression through the art of china painting.

Benjamin F. Wirt (1852-1930)
After Wirt's death in 1930, his estate was placed in trust. Trustees were appointed by Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the early 1960s to undertake his wish to establish a museum for his collection. On June 14, 1965, the Wirt trustees and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society came to an agreement concerning the housing and exhibition of the Wirt Collection. Among the curiosities now held by MVHS for the Wirt Trustees are English, Chinese, and Japanese ceramics, other Asian artwork, religious figures and relics, fossils and semi-precious stones, Native American pottery and baskets, other ethnographic artifacts, and books, documents, and paintings One of the paintings is of special interest to a recent visitor. A doctoral candidate researching Claude R. Hirst has examined the artist's watercolor "Old Volumes" (also called "Old Books and Vase"). The researcher identified the open book in the painting as a volume of poems by Samuel Rogers. The Wirt Collection includes two books by that poet. The poem depicted in the painting is "The Pleasures of Memory," contained in one of the Wirt Books. This Hirst painting represents Mr. Wirt's love of both fine art and fine books.

Items from the Wirt Collection are exhibited in the carriage house where they are seen and enjoyed by many people who use the space. In honor of Benjamin F. and Mary McGeehan Wirt, MVHS has named the multi-purpose room in the carriage house "The Wirt Room."