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1893-1897 paleontologist. Professor Cope served as Mercer’s expert consultant, identifying the animal and vegetable remains found in the latter’s explorations. Cope died in 1897 and was commemorated by HCM in a portrait now at Fonthill.
1894	Appointed Curator of American and Prehistoric Archaeology, Museum of Science and Art, University of Pennsylvania.
Explored caves in Virginia, West Virginia, and for 600 miles along the Ohio River: in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. (In his report on the Ohio River trip, he wrote that in his voyage of “600 miles down an important route of ancient North American travel, by way of the once chilly haunts of alleged Paleolithic Men in Ohio and Indiana and through the preferred territory of the ‘mound builder,’ [he] had failed to find cave-buried traces of any pre-Indian wanderer.”)
Investigated the “Bone Hole” in Port Kennedy, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, which he re-explored in 1895 and 1896.
August-September: visited Austria (Bayreuth for Wagner festival), Germany, England (Salisbury, Rushmore, etc.), and Italy (Verona, Padua, Venice).
1895	January-March: led the Corwith Expedition (named after its sponsor) to explore hill caves of the Yucatan Peninsula of Central America, searching once more for traces of early human life.
Began construction of an archaeological workshop and studio on the grounds of his family home, Aldie. He named his studio the Indian House, after a cave in Bucks County he had explored in 1891.
1895-1897 Published two papers on the kabal, or potter’s wheel ofYucatan (investigated on Corwith Expedition); the first paper in The American Naturalist, and the second in the University Bulletin. (One of Mercer’s “New World” tiles on the Columbus Room fireplace in Fonthill shows a Yucatan woman using a kabal. HCM’s study of Mexican pottery methods shortly anticipated the establishment of his own pottery: see Part IV, 1897.)
1896	Continued excavations for the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences at Port Kennedy, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; explored Big Bone Cave and other Tenessee caves.
Indian House, HCM’s studio, built in 1895-6.
Hired Frank King Swain (1876-1954) as his assistant. On June 1st, Swain began working at the newly-completed Indian House.
HCM’s analysis of the findings of the Corwith expedition, The Hill Caves of Yucatan, published by J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia.
1897 HCM’s Researches upon the Antiquity of Man in the Delaware Valley and the Eastern United States was published by the University of Pennsylvania, as Vol. 6 of its Series in Philology, Literature and Archaeology (Boston: Ginn & Co). This compendium of his earlier papers wrapped up Mercer’s career as a traditional archaeologist.
July 20: HCM staged an outdoor exhibition at Galloway’s Ford, in Lower Bucks
Mercer’s “Kabal” tile depicts the potter’s wheel ofYucatan.
HENRY CHAPMAN MERCER: AN ANNOTATED CHRONOLOGY