The Hamlin Necklace

The Hamlin Necklace is a unique and innovatively made example of nineteenth-century North American jewelry. This treasure of the Mineralogical and Geological Museum at Harvard University consists of eighteen removable gem pendants, mainly containing tourmalines from Mount Mica, Maine. The first North American gem quality tourmalines were discovered and mined at Mount Mica in 1820 by Elijah L. Hamlin. His son Augustus C. Hamlin (1829-1905), designed the necklace. It was bequeathed along with a set of tourmaline gemstones to Harvard University in 1934.