Steps appear to have been taken promptly for securing a charter or act of incorporation from the legislature, and such an act was passed the next winter, approved on the 17th of January, 1857, and presented and adopted at the academy meeting of February 9 following.
The charter provides that under the name of The Academy of Science of St. Louis the incorporators and their associates and successors shall have perpetual succession, may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded in the courts, may acquire and dispose of real, personal or mixed property for the advancement of science and the establishment in St. Louis of a museum and library for the study of its various branches; that they may have a common seal and break or alter the same at pleasure, and may make and alter such constitution, regulations and by-laws, not contrary to the laws of the land, as may be requisite for their government. Exemption from taxation is provided for all property owned or held by the academy so long as it is held and used in good faith for the designated objects, except that leasehold interests which may be granted to other persons are made taxable. It is distinctly stated that members acquire no individual ownership in the property and effects of the academy, their interest in the same being declared to be usufructuary merely, and not to be transferred, assigned, hypothecated or otherwise disposed of except by corporate act of the academy: and whenever the corporation shall have failed to answer the purposes for which it was created, or shall suffer its charter to be forfeited by the law of the land, its cabinet, collections and library are to revert to and become vested in the City of St. Louis, to be deposited with some public institution in the city, for general use and inspection, under such regulations as the city may prescribe.
One or two of the gentlemen present at the first meeting appear to have taken little active part in the affairs of the academy, but most of them were evidently much in earnest, and these, as well as some of those whom they proceeded to elect to associate membership, attended the fortnightly meetings with regularity. Arranged in the order of the frequency with which their names are recorded in the roster of members at the meetings of 1856, these more active charter members stand thus: Pope, Holmes, Fallen, Pollak, Stevens, McPheeters, Prout, Shumard, Engelmann, Wislizenus, Eads, Tingley and Chouteau. It is not difficult to analyze the constitutional provisions and the early activity of the academy in connection with the interests and attainments of these original members.
