Struggles amd Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P.T. Barnum

Returning from Denver, we stopped at the truly wonderful town of Greeley, where when we left home in April not ten persons resided, but where was now settled the “Union Colony.” This company then numbered six hundred. Greeley is now a city, two years old, containing thousands of inhabitants and increasing at a rate totally unexampled. There is no community of interests here except in such public works as the irrigating canals and the school-houses. Each inhabitant owns whatever lands and buildings he or she pays for; and real estate and other property rises in value according to the increase in the number of inhabitants. Here are millions of acres of rich valley land, which needed only the irrigation that the Cache de Poudre River is giving through the canals of the Union Colony. This model town of Greeley will ever have peace and prosperity within its borders; for no title can inhere to any land or building where intoxicating drinks are permitted to be sold. It is a “city of refuge” from the curse of strong drink; and to it for generations to come will whole families congregate as their paradise guarded by flaming swords of sobriety and order where they can live rationally, happily, and prosperously.

From Greeley we returned to New York, and my family removed to our Summer quarters in Bridgeport the last of June. Here we were visited by numerous noble friends. The late Alice Cary spent several weeks with us at Waldemere, and although her health was feeble she enjoyed the cool breezes as well as the fine drives, clam-bakes, etc., for which Bridgeport is specially renowned. Indeed, my own house was the last which this good and gifted lady ever entered except her own in New York, to which I accompanied her from Bridgeport. Her sister Phœbe, who so quickly followed Alice to the other world, was also my guest at Waldemere.

But the restless spirit of an energetic man of leisure prompted me again to travel. I went with friends to Montreal, Quebec, the Saginaw River, and the regions round about. Returning by way of Saratoga Springs, my English friends again had occasion to open their eyes at the large Union Hotel, and Congress Hall, where fifteen hundred persons dine at one time, and two thousand lodge under a single roof without crowding.

“Well, this is a big country, and you Americans do everything on a big scale, that’s a fact,” was the expression for the thousandth time of my Anglo-Saxon companions.

In September, I made up a party of ten, including my English friend, and we started for Kansas on a grand buffalo hunt. General Custar, commandant at Fort Hayes, was apprized in advance of our anticipated visit, and he received us like princes. He fitted out a company of fifty cavalry, furnishing us with horses, arms and ammunition. We were taken to an immense herd of buffaloes, quietly browsing on the open plain. We charged on them, and during an exciting chase of a couple of hours, we slew twenty immense bull buffaloes. We might have killed as many more had we not considered it wanton butchery.

My friend George A. Wells, of Bridgeport, who is a great hunter, was one of the party, and although he had slain two buffaloes, and had lost himself on the prairie, not only to his own dismay, but to the great terror for four mortal hours of all his companions, he was by no means satisfied. He wanted to camp out and hunt buffaloes for several days longer. Another Bridgeport huntsman, Mr. James Wilson, was of the same mind. But when the question was put to vote, my English friend, John Fish, who had made himself sore by hard riding; Mr. Charles B. Hotchkiss, a Bridgeport bank president, who was quite content with killing one buffalo; my right bower, David W. Sherwood, who with a single shot dropped an immense bull (as indeed he now and then has done with no other weapon than his tongue); David M. Read, a Bridgeport merchant; another Bridgeporter, Theodore W. Downs – each credited with one or two carcases on the field; and I who had brought down two and had half killed another buffalo, – all voted that we had done enough and were in favor of returning home. Whereupon Wells indignantly exclaimed:

“I was invited out here for a hunt, but you have made it a race.”

But every man had killed his buffalo, some had killed two, and we were satisfied. We had plenty of buffalo and antelope meat, and on the whole our ten days’ sport afforded another “sensation,” – a feeling so necessary to one in my state. But “sensations” cannot be made to order every day. I am, therefore, taught by an experience of three years’ “retirement” from business, that it is better to be moderately engaged in some legitimate occupation so long as health and energy permit. If a man is regularly in “harness,” though he may do but a small portion of the drawing, he will at least so far occupy his mind as not to need spasmodic excitements.

Hence, although my worldly possessions – trivial indeed in comparison with the wealth of some of America’s millionaires – were yet as ample as I cared to acquire, nevertheless from the very necessity of my active nature, in the Autumn of 1870 I began to prepare a great show enterprise, requiring five hundred men and horses to transport and conduct it through the country. Selecting as manager of this gigantic enterprise Mr. William C. Coup, whom I had favorably known for some years as a capital showman and a man of good judgment, integrity, and excellent executive ability, we spent several weeks in blocking out and perfecting our course of action. As one project after another, involving the outlay of thousands upon thousands of dollars, was laid before Manager Coup, he began to open his eyes pretty widely, and before we had been three weeks in consultation, he exclaimed:

“Why, Mr. Barnum, such a show as you are projecting after a while would ruin the richest man in America, for the expenses would double the receipts every day!”

I begged Mr. Coup not to be alarmed, reminding him that I was not wholly inexperienced in the show business, and that, in any event, I was to “foot the bills.” It is true that the enormous expense of this vast scheme involved a greater risk than any showman had ever before dared to assume. My main object in setting on foot this great travelling exhibition was to open a safety valve for my pent up energies, and I felt far more anxious to put before the public a grand and triumphant show than I did to add a penny to my competence.

When my plans were made public, the proprietors of the travelling shows throughout the country, with scarcely an exception, declared that my exhibition necessarily must prove a failure, for, they said, “No travelling show in the world ever took in one-half so much money per day as Barnum’s daily expenses will be.” I knew that this was nearly true; but in reply to their ill-omened prognostications, I only said: “Well, but you see, no show that has travelled ever drew out one-half of the people; I expect to attract all of them.” I confess I felt that my reputation for always giving my patrons more than their money’s worth, and also for scrupulously excluding from my exhibitions everything objectionable to the refined and moral, would inevitably draw out large numbers of people who are not in the habit of attending ordinary travelling shows. With these views, I had confidence in my undertaking from the start, and I expended money like water in order fully to carry out my intentions and desires.

Previous business arrangements prevented my opening, at the first, in New York; but I did the next best thing by going to the next best place for the benefit and convenience of my numerous New York friends and patrons, and opened in Brooklyn April 10, 1871. At the outset the exhibition was truly a mammoth one. It embraced a museum, menagerie, caravan and hippodrome – all first-class and unsurpassed in previous shows – and Dan. Costello’s celebrated circus was added. It was an exhibition absolutely colossal, exhaustive, and bewilderingly various as the most liberal expenditure and years of experience could possibly make it. My motto through life has been: “Get the best, regardless of expense.” My aim was to combine in the several shows more startling and entirely novel wonders of creation than were ever before seen in one collection anywhere in the world, and to furnish my patrons with wholesome instruction and innocent amusement, without the taint of anything that should seem immoral or exceptionable. In all this I fully succeeded, and I declare with pride that this grand combination has proved to be the crowning success of my managerial life.

My canvas covered about three acres of ground, and would hold nearly ten thousand people, yet from the start in Brooklyn, and throughout the entire Summer tour, it was of daily occurrence that from one thousand to three thousand people were turned away. After an extraordinarily successful week in Brooklyn, I visited all the leading places in the immediate vicinity; then the principal towns in Connecticut; next through Rhode Island to Boston. How the great combination was received and appreciated in “the Athens of America” is well set forth in the following extracts from a two-column article in the Boston Journal:

The arrival in Boston last Monday of Barnum’s new enterprise, comprising a museum, menagerie, caravan and hippodrome, to which is gratuitously added Dan. Costello’s mammoth circus, has produced a sensation in this city never before equalled by any amusement enterprise known to New England. We have had our anniversaries, reviews, parades, the Odd Fellows, and to-day shall have Fisk’s famous “Ninth.” But after all, nothing seems to equal or eclipse the great Barnum and his immense amusement enterprise, which is the theme of universal comment and observation here, as elsewhere. “Have you seen Barnum?” is the question that is heard in the streets, counting houses, stores and shops, the public being as anxious to see the veteran Show King as they are to visit his big show. We confess that Barnum is a curiosity, and always has been for the last thirty years, during which time he has figured prominently before the American people, until the fame of him is as familiar to both worlds as household words. Verily, who has not heard of P. T. Barnum and the famous American Museum? We don’t mean that as a specimen of the genus homo Barnum is very different from other specimens who have gained notoriety and success; but simply as an embodiment of the very best representative type of a shrewd, enterprising, wide awake American, who has achieved an immense success in his specialty as the greatest amusement caterer of the nineteenth century. Through two disastrous conflagrations his immense museum collection in New York, however, the accumulations of half a century, were in a single day almost entirely swept out of existence. This was a serious loss to the public, as it was to Mr. Barnum, although he is said to have taken it as coolly and imperturbably as the apple woman round the corner would the loss of a Roxbury russet. Already advancing in years, and thinking, no doubt, he had served the public long enough, Mr. Barnum concluded, after the loss of his museum, to retire permanently from the show business, and, taking Horace Greeley’s advice, go a fishing or seek the shades of a more quiet and private life for the balance of his days. A man, however, like P. T. Barnum, who has spent a whole life amid scenes of bustle and excitement, with a constant tension of muscle and brain, catering for the ever recurring demands of a curious public, naturally fond of amusements, especially the marvellous and sensational, is rarely satisfied to withdraw suddenly, like the tortoise, within his own shell, and let the outside world “wag” without taking an active interest in passing events. Thus Mr. Barnum’s retirement, although surrounded by every luxury that money could furnish, became the veriest prison to every element, nervous, physical and intellectual, of his being, and it is no wonder, under these circumstances, that he became absolutely “restive under rest.” His ambition, like ancient “Utica,” he felt to be too much “pent up,” and as “volcanoes bellow ere they disembogue,” so “smoke betrays the wild consuming fire.” Like Dan. Costello’s famous gymnasts his vaulting ambition has fairly o’erleapt itself, for by a single bound he comes before the public in a new role, having on his hands an “elephant” more ponderous and expensive to manage than the famous quadruped that used to be seen “plowing” on his Bridgeport farm, not for agricultural purposes exactly, but as a “rocket thrown up to attract public attention to my Broadway American Museum.” About a year ago Mr. Barnum, desirous to do good in his day and generation, instituted and put on wheels his present mammoth enterprise, at a cost of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars, which has met with a success unparalleled in the annals of the show business. This success is so sudden and complete as to astonish everybody, and none more so than professionals themselves. Knowing the interest the public feels in all that pertains to P. T. Barnum, and especially his “last great effort,” (Barnum himself calls it his last great “splurge,” which we readily grant in deference to his known modesty,) we sent one of our reporters to interview the whole affair, and as his injunctions were imperative to “stick to facts” (fiat justitia ruat codum), our readers will be able to judge of the big show as it appeared. One thing is very evident. Since starting from New York, Barnum’s show has been patronized by the largest concourse of people ever known in New England. His transit across the country has been like “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” while his entertainments have been visited by the great masses, including eminent clergymen and their families, and the most respectable of all persuasions – in fact, by everybody, “without reference to race, color, or previous condition,” etc. Barnum’s great procession, which made its first appearance in the streets last Monday, is one of the grandest and most magnificent pageants of the kind that ever appeared in Boston. The great cortege is varied and almost interminable in length. The cages, chariots, carriages and vans – no two being painted or finished alike – are of unique workmanship, elaborate design and gorgeously painted and gilded. The mottoes inscribed on the cages are peculiarly curt and Barnamish. The massively carved chariot, called the Temple of Juno, which, in construction, is somewhat telescopic, that is, lets up and down to the extent of thirty feet or more, by means of machinery, is of solid carved work, gilt all over with the precious metals and studded profusely with plated mirrors, which give to the tableau a truly gorgeous and magnificent effect. Upon an elevated seat, just beneath a rich and unique oriental canopy of the most elaborate finish, sits, in perfect nonchalance, the representative Queen, surrounded by gods and goddesses in mythological costume, giving a striking picture of an oriental pageant, as seen in the days of the Roman Emperors. This gorgeous car, built in London expressly for Barnum, is forty feet high, and is rendered picturesque in effect by the team of elephants, camels and dromedaries which lead or escort the van. The entire procession is the longest and most varied ever witnessed here, and consisted of about seventy cages, wagons and chariots, and 250 horses. But let us follow this grand street demonstration to the grounds selected for the great exposition, for we are a little anxious to know what becomes of so many horses, wagons, housings, traps and paraphernalia in general. The lot on which the three colossal tents are pitched presents a really novel and interesting sight. From two to three acres of land are required for all the purposes of exhibition, hotel caravansary, ecurie, horse tents, etc. Immediately after returning from the pageant the cages containing the living wild animals, and all the museum curiosities, are driven under the spacious tents and arranged in regular order, those containing the animals being arranged in the caravan and menagerie, while the others are classified in the museum department. The horses are detached from the cages, dens and chariots by experienced grooms and immediately removed to eight long rows of horse tents, which are located in a separate lot, containing about thirty horses each, these being principally draft and baggage horses, as the ring stock is conveyed to hotel and livery stables. Of the 245 people connected with this varied show, two-thirds were employed in getting their breakfast. The establishment is equipped with portable stoves and accomplished cooks. The meals are served in large tents, and in this way all the attaches but the artists are fed. Everything connected with the enterprise is first class – a fact which strikes one, turn which way he will. Not only is everything done for the comfort and convenience of the people engaged with it, but the same thoughtfulness is manifested in behalf of the horses, whether used for draught purposes, or as accessories to the arenic performances. The tents in which the horses are kept are large, and ample room is assigned each animal. In fact they are complete stables with patent mangers and all the modern stable appointments. The best rye straw is used for bedding, and never were horses better provided with the little notions which certainly contribute to their comfort, and which are probably in exact accordance with a horse’s idea of good living. A veterinary surgeon is regularly employed, and the health of the horses is, we have reason to believe, much closer looked after than the health of many people is by their family physician. The wagons used for the conveyance of baggage when the company is moving are converted into sleeping rooms at night, by letting down shelves, which, when equipped with bedding and blankets form very comfortable berths. Each wagon accommodates twelve persons. Another feature worthy of notice is the manner in which the baggage is carried. If each person carried a “Saratoga,” of course it would require some fifty wagons to carry the trunks. To obviate this difficulty, the clothing and other personal effects of the employees are kept in one large wagon. The possessions of each one are numbered. This wagon is in charge of a clerk, who has reduced his business to a science, and with the same skill that a photographer picks out your old “negative” from among a thousand others, when you order an additional dozen cartes de visite, this gentleman can produce the article called for at a moment’s notice. Having satisfied ourselves that Barnum’s numerous employees know how to groom their stock, as well as how to “keep a hotel,” we will now take our readers with us to the great show, the doors of which are by this time opened (of course they must buy their own tickets, for the management are not in the habit of “papering” their house rather than play to empty benches), and we shall see whether Phineas has kept faith with the public, for we have a glimmering recollection that he promised not long ago to make this last great effort the “crowning success of his managerial life,” which we are of course bound to believe, although we have also a sort of inquisitive penchant to “look for the proofs.” Already the masses of curious sight-seers are occupying every foot of available ground, the three ticket wagons being literally besieged, from which the necessary cards of admission are being rapidly distributed at fifty cents per head for adults, children half price, and very soon the three colossal tents are full to overflowing with anxious spectators. The first impression that one receives on entering is that of bewilderment, such is the magnitude, extent, variety and uniqueness of the combination. Here in almost endless variety we see gathered together from all parts of the earth a miniature representation of the wonder world, that nobody but Barnum would ever have thought of securing for a travelling exhibition.

Then follows in the same article a detailed account of the leading attractions, which want of space precludes me from copying. The notice concludes as follows:

With all these unique and bewildering attractions our faith has been wonderfully increased, and we shall no longer doubt why it is that P. T. Barnum is the happiest and most successful show proprietor that ever came before the American public, and no man more than he deserves, as he is constantly receiving, their unstinted and unprecedented patronage. The great show is now on its triumphant tour through Northern New England, and will no doubt be visited by myriads everywhere, as it has been here and elsewhere.

From Boston my exhibition went through New Hampshire and into Maine as far as Waterville. Why the show did not go to towns beyond in the State is fully and amusingly explained in the following, which appeared in the New York Tribune, August 19, 1871:

BARNUM’S MENAGERIE AND CIRCUS

One of the greatest successes ever achieved in the annals of the sawdust ring has been accomplished the present season by P. T. Barnum’s Museum, Menagerie and Circus. From the inception of the enterprise success has crowned its efforts. Mr. Barnum’s name in itself has been a tower of strength, and to his direction and general control its success is due. There are few men that have the courage to invest nearly $500,000 in so precarious a business, and to run it at a daily expense of nearly $2,500. But Mr. Barnum had faith that the public would respond liberally to his appeal. One great secret of his success has been ever to give the public a great deal for their money, and to fix the prices of admission at popular rates. But we doubt if he expected so great a success as has recently, in the State of Maine, been showered upon him. It is worthy of being recorded as equal to Jenny Lind’s triumphal American tour. It had originally been the intention to make a tour with the great show as far east as Bangor, Me., and it was so announced, but subsequently they found that there were many bridges over which it was impossible for the large chariots to pass, and that the show would be obliged to make stands at several small towns en route which could not possibly pay the running expenses even if every inhabitant attended, consequently it was decided that Lewiston, Me., should be the terminus of their eastern tour. The following letter, dated Winthrop, Me., July 30, from a correspondent, will best convey the idea of the great interest and enthusiasm there manifested by the people:

“The business in Maine has been immense, contrary to the predictions of showmen generally. Since entering the State, except at Brunswick, where it rained hard all day, they have been compelled to show three times daily to accommodate the vast crowds that flocked from every direction. While exhibiting at Gardiner and Augusta persons came all the way from Bangor. When they reached Waterville, a scene occurred which has never been equaled in this or any other country. The village was crowded with people who had come from the surrounding country, many of them travelling a distance of seventy-five miles, and all the morning crowds were pouring in from all points of the compass in carriages, wagons, ox-carts, and on foot. Near the circus tents, in an adjoining field, were several large tents pitched, which had served to shelter the people the previous night who had come long distances and encamped there. The authorities of the village had taken the precaution to stop the sale of all spiritous liquors during that day, and had caused barrels of water and plenty of ice to be placed at the street corners, for the free use of all. Carts were provided at the expense of the village to constantly replenish the barrels. The early morning performance was commenced and it was found that they could not accommodate a tithe part of their patrons, and ere its close an excursion train of twenty-seven cars, crowded in every part, came in from Bangor, closely followed by another of seventeen cars from Belfast. Seeing this vast accession to the already large numbers of visitors, the manager was somewhat puzzled how to accommodate them. Finally, it was decided to give a continuous exhibition, giving an act in the circus department every few moments. This style of performance was kept up without cessation until nine o’clock in the evening, when a heavy shower of rain falling, afforded the manager an excuse to close the exhibitions. The men and horses were completely exhausted, and their next drive being forty-eight miles to Lewiston, where they were to exhibit three times, they shipped all the ring horses by railroad, to give them an opportunity for much needed rest. On driving out of Augusta, on July 29, they narrowly escaped an accident similar to the one which happened in New Jersey. One of the passenger wagons, with twelve passengers and having four horses attached, had driven down a steep hill, when suddenly they came upon a locomotive crossing the road immediately in front of them. The driver, with great presence of mind, suddenly pulled the horses to the right, making an abrupt turn, which overturned the wagon, breaking the arm of Mr. Summerfield, one of the business men, bruising several others, and injuring somewhat severely Josephe, the French giant, who was compelled to remain behind the show for a couple of days.”