[Illustration: P T Barnum
From the 1870 edition of Barnum’s Autobiography]
M. R. WERNER
[Illustration]
BARNUM
[Illustration: THE STAR SERIES]
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.
All rights reserved, including those of translation
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
TO
JAMES SHELLEY HAMILTON
PREFACE
P. T. Barnum wrote a voluminous autobiography, the many editions
of which have long been out of print. This autobiography is one of
the most ingenious and fascinating, and at the same time one of the
most bombastic and verbose books in American literature. It will be
discussed here in its proper place in detail, and it is mentioned in
the very beginning because some explanation is necessary, besides the
story of this extraordinary man, for telling it now. Barnum was taken
for many years at his own valuation, by his friends and critics alike;
those who admired him accepted him for what he himself always said
he was, “The Prince of Humbugs,” and those who despised him admitted
readily that he deserved that title. His autobiography was regarded
during his lifetime as the perfect embodiment of the facts of that life
and their interpretation, and no attempt has been made since to review
one of America’s greatest shows. In the Preface to some of his editions
of the _Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself_, and _Struggles
and Triumphs, Forty Years’ Recollections of P. T. Barnum_, as it was
sometimes called, Barnum wrote:
“There is an almost universal, and not unworthy curiosity to learn
the methods and measures, the ups and downs, the strifes and
victories, the mental and moral _personnel_ of those who have taken
an active and prominent part in human affairs. But an autobiography
has attractions and merits superior to those of a ‘Life’ written
by another, who, however intimate with its subject, cannot know
all that helps to give interest and accuracy to the narrative, or
completeness to the character. The story from the actor’s own lips
has always a charm it can never have when told by another.”
The story from the actor’s own lips is likely to be prejudiced in
favor of the author who is also the hero. When Rudyard Kipling first
toured the United States, he interviewed Mark Twain. Mark Twain told
this young Anglo-Indian, who had visited the Hartford shrine to worship
before an American whom he believed to be a master, something that
applies to Barnum and his autobiography:
“Returning to the big chair, he [Mark Twain], speaking of truth and
the like in literature, said that an autobiography was the one work
in which a man, against his own will and in spite of his utmost
striving to the contrary, revealed himself in his true light to the
world....
“‘But in genuine autobiography, I believe it is impossible for a
man to tell the truth about himself or to avoid impressing the
reader with the truth about himself.... It is not in human nature
to write the truth about itself. None the less the reader gets
a general impression from an autobiography whether the man is a
fraud or a good man. The reader can’t give his reasons any more
than a man can explain why a woman struck him as being lovely when
he doesn’t remember her hair, eyes, teeth, or figure. And the
impression that the reader gets is a correct one.’
“‘Do you ever intend to write an autobiography?’ Kipling asked.
“‘If I do, it will be as other men have done--with the most earnest
desire to make myself out to be the better man in every little
business that has been to my discredit; and I shall fail, like the
others, to make my readers believe anything except the truth.’”[1]
Even so with Barnum: it is impossible for him to tell the truth about
himself, and yet he does not avoid impressing the reader with the truth
about himself. No one thanks P. T. Barnum more than I for publishing
his voluminous autobiography, for without it this book would have
been more difficult, and with it the task of interpreting the story
and character of one of the most typical Americans was a business
of checking the inaccuracies that necessarily follow from what Mark
Twain called the earnest desire to make himself out to be the better
man in every little business that has been to his discredit. There
was also the work of coördinating the material found in the seven
different editions of the autobiography, for Barnum continually found
it necessary in later editions to suppress things contained in early
editions which seemed unseemly after mature consideration, even though
they happened to be the truth about himself. He also added appendices
each year towards the end of his career that gave interesting
information about his activities, so that in order to get a complete
picture of the man from his autobiography it is necessary to read about
ten different volumes. After these duties were finished, there remained
only the larger task of ferreting out those things which the author
of his own life always sees fit to omit entirely. Every eminent or
notorious person should write his autobiography, if only to provide his
future biographer with a skeleton to articulate.
Since Barnum’s death in 1891 there has been ample time to estimate
accurately his influence and position in our life. It is my conviction
that both of these were important. A distinguished American editor
said recently that he considers Lincoln and Barnum the most typical
American figures, and that he is rather afraid to think which is
the more typical. William Roscoe Thayer wrote in _The Life of John
Hay_: “If the question had been asked during the third quarter of the
nineteenth century, ‘Who is the typical American of this period?’ a
perspicacious observer might have replied, ‘Phineas T. Barnum.’” And it
is because he was so typical and at the same time so unique that Barnum
remains to-day one of the outstanding figures of our national life, for
Barnum was a most typical American without ever becoming an average
American. In newspapers, books, and magazines we frequently see the
sentence, “P. T. Barnum was right.” There was a popular song beginning,
“P. T. Barnum had the right idea.” But the people to-day who use these
expressions are rather doubtful of the details of the showman’s social
psychology, which made him successful, and therefore right. That social
psychology is usually summed up popularly in the phrase attributed to
him, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But there was more to Barnum
than that, and it is the purpose of this book to give an impression of
that idea, or group of ideas, which has interested the world in Barnum
since the year 1841, when Barnum’s American Museum opened its doors at
Ann Street and Broadway.
The things that Barnum did were often so curious, sometimes so
incredible, and always so picturesque, that the reader may be inclined
to doubt their accuracy. I am not writing a romance, however, and there
is ample authority for every statement and anecdote included in this
book; the bibliography at the end indicates the sources of information.
The footnote is one of the banes of a reader’s continued interest. If
he is a curious reader, the footnote plagues him with the necessity to
look at the bottom of the page; if he is a cursory reader, the footnote
which he skips is always an annoyance because he is compelled to skip
it. Therefore, I have omitted, at the risk of being called a romancer
and in the hope of being more entertaining, all footnotes except those
absolutely necessary to my reputation for veracity.
Many persons have aided me in the composition of this book. My thanks
are especially due to Leonidas Westervelt, whose private collection
of Barnum and Jenny Lind books, pamphlets, and letters, which is
probably the largest in existence, he so kindly placed at my disposal;
to C. Barnum Seeley, for information about his grandfather; to Harry
Houdini, for permission to use pictures and showbills from his huge
private collection of theatrical material; to Elizabeth Hall Dietz, for
valuable assistance; and to the New York Public Library and the Harvard
College Library.
M. R. W.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CONNECTICUT YANKEE 3
GROWING PAINS 24
BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM 43
TRAVELS WITH A MIDGET 77
HIS BROTHER’S KEEPER 103
JENNY LIND 114
THE SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE IN THE AMERICAN WOODS 140
SUNDRIES AND AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 198
HUMBUGGED AND BANKRUPT 218
“THE ART OF MONEY-GETTING” 228
THE DWARFS’ DUEL, OR THE MARRIAGE OF THE MIDGETS 253
THIS WORLD, AND THE NEXT 274
THE CIRCUS 306
OLD AGE 361
“NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE, BE DONE--” 370
BIBLIOGRAPHY 373
INDEX 377
BARNUM
CHAPTER I
THE CONNECTICUT YANKEE
I
Firecrackers had just celebrated the thirty-fourth year of the
Independence of the United States in the small town of Bethel,
Connecticut, when the first son by his second wife was born to Philo F.
Barnum. P. T. Barnum was born on July 5, 1810. He arrived late. It was
a pity, for he would so much have enjoyed being born on the Fourth of
July. He himself wrote that after peace and quiet were restored, and
the audience had regained their seats, he made his début. Probably his
tardiness was for the best: competition between P. T. Barnum and the
national holiday would have been too much--for the national holiday.
Lincoln had just about cut his first tooth, and Poe was in his
swaddling clothes, when Barnum appeared on the American scene. When, in
1891, he died, Free Silver was beginning to be discussed in the Senate,
and William James’s _Principles of Psychology_ was a new book. The span
his life covered was as significant as any in American history, and
he managed to make himself as much at home among his contemporaries
as the Fourth of July. Barnum wrote to Matthew Arnold when Arnold
was lecturing in this country, inviting him to visit at Bridgeport,
Connecticut. The invitation read: “You and I, Mr. Arnold, ought to be
acquainted. You are a celebrity, I am a notoriety.” This remained his
self-appointed position among his fellowmen during his entire lifetime.
They named him Phineas Taylor Barnum, after his maternal grandfather,
Phineas Taylor, from whom he inherited a tract of swampy,
snake-infested land, known as “Ivy Island,” and a propensity for
practical jokes which the boy never outgrew. Barnum wrote of his
grandfather: “He would go farther, wait longer, work harder, and
contrive deeper, to carry out a practical joke, than for anything
else under heaven.” Barnum admitted the influence of Phineas Taylor’s
propensity, and throughout his own life he exercised it with all
the force which heredity gives to individual action. The paternal
grandfather was Ephraim Barnum--Captain Ephraim Barnum, a captain of
militia in the Revolutionary War. Captain Ephraim Barnum had fourteen
children by two wives, and died at the age of eighty-four, when P. T.
Barnum was seven years old. His grandson tells us that “he relished a
joke better than the average of mankind.”
Philo F. Barnum, P. T. Barnum’s father, was sometime tailor, farmer,
tavern-keeper, livery-stable proprietor, and country store merchant.
He also operated a small express company, and his son wrote that “with
greater opportunities and a larger field for his efforts and energies,
he might have been a man of mark and means.” He never did a profitable
business in any of these capacities.
Phineas began the little schooling he received when he was six years
old. He later wrote that “a school-house in those days was a thing
to be dreaded--a schoolmaster, a kind of being to make the children
tremble.” The first three male teachers he sat under--a Mr. Camp, a
Mr. Zerah Judson, and a Mr. Curtiss--“used the ferule prodigiously.”
For one season he attended the private school of Laurens P. Hickok,
later Professor Hickok, the educational philosopher and metaphysician.
Hickok’s sweetheart, Eliza Taylor, was also a pupil. “One day he threw
a ruler at my head,” Barnum wrote. “I dodged, and it struck Eliza in
the face. He quietly apologized and said she might apply that to some
other time when she might deserve it.” Young Phineas excelled all other
scholars in Bethel in arithmetic, he admits, and his later career shows
a constant development by the rules of arithmetical progression and
sometimes even as fast as a geometrical progression. He recalled that
his teacher and a neighbor got him out of bed late at night at the age
of twelve to settle a wager. The teacher had bet that Phineas could
figure up the correct number of feet in a load of wood in five minutes.
Phineas marked down on the stovepipe in his father’s kitchen the given
dimensions and in less than two minutes gave the correct result,
much to the delight of his teacher, his mother, and himself, and the
incredulous astonishment of the neighbor.
He was often kept out of school to help on his father’s farm, and he
records as one of his earliest emotions an aversion to hand-work that
earned him a reputation as the laziest boy in town. This impression
of him by his neighbors, however, was false, Barnum said, “because I
was always busy at head-work to evade the sentence of gaining bread
by the sweat of my brow.” Throughout his life he hated manual labor
and routine work, but the number of enterprises in which he sometimes
engaged simultaneously would indicate that he never disliked work if
he was allowed to choose its nature. What Barnum called “my organ of
acquisitiveness” was large. At an early age he earned money by selling
cherry-rum to soldiers, and when he was twelve years old he owned a
sheep, a calf, and a sum of money in his own right. He would have been
a wealthy boy for his environment, if his father had not insisted that
he buy his own clothes.
When he was about twelve years old, Barnum paid his first visit to
New York City, assisting a neighbor to deliver a drove of cattle
there. To “go to York” from Connecticut in 1821 was not a trip, but
a journey, which had some of the elements of a pilgrimage; it took
Phineas four days to reach the big city with his cattle. During this
period passengers traveled from Connecticut to New York via the New
York-Boston stage coach or by boat via Long Island Sound. The stage
coach was not allowed to take on passengers in any Connecticut town on
Sunday, and any man who rode on horseback or in his carriage before
sundown on the Lord’s Day was arrested by a deacon of the church. If
the stage coach driver was found with passengers in his possession, he
was arrested by meeting house sentinels, posted along the Connecticut
route of the coach. In Barnum’s youth the Blue Laws were Connecticut’s
contribution to American life. The voyage to New York by boat depended
upon the state of the wind, sometimes requiring eight hours and
sometimes several days. Barnum’s grandfather, Phineas Taylor, took
this voyage upon an occasion which gave him an opportunity to enact
what seemed to impress his grandson as Phineas Taylor’s most famous
practical joke. On this particular voyage the fourteen jolly jokers
from Bethel were becalmed for seven days, at the end of which all
needed to shave. There was one razor on board, belonging to Phineas
Taylor, who professed himself against the practice of shaving and
refused the loan of his razor. Finally, the boat approached New York
on Sunday afternoon. Barnum’s grandfather was persuaded to lend his
razor since the barber shops would be closed when the party arrived
in New York. Because time was short, he stipulated that each man must
shave half his face and pass the razor on to the next. After all had
finished, each could begin shaving the other half of his face. Half of
each face was shaved, and Phineas Taylor began on the other half of
his own face. When he had finished, Barnum’s grandfather stropped the
razor, and, as if by accident, it flew from his hand into the water.
All the other passengers created a sensation with their half-shaved
faces when they arrived in New York on Sunday afternoon. Barnum himself
never ceased to delight in this type of joke.
Barnum’s father soon despaired of ever being able to make his son
useful on the farm, and Barnum admitted that he “generally contrived
to shirk the work altogether, or, by slighting it, get through with
the day’s work.” His father opened a country store in Bethel and made
Phineas the clerk. Here he drove sharp bargains with old women who
paid for their purchases in butter, eggs, beeswax, feathers, and rags.
The atmosphere of the country store exercised an important influence
on Barnum’s later career. On wet days there was no business, and
then, he tells us, “from six to twenty social, jolly, story-telling,
joke-playing wags and wits, regular originals, would get together at
the tavern or store, and spend their evenings or stormy afternoons in
relating anecdotes, describing their adventures, playing off practical
jokes upon each other, and engaging in every project out of which a
little fun could be extracted by village wits whose ideas were usually
sharpened at brief intervals by a ‘treat,’ otherwise known as a glass
of Santa Cruz rum, old Holland gin, or Jamaica spirits.” Practical
jokes of a crude nature, the product of brains whose sole aim was to
get the better of the other fellow somehow, were a great source of
amusement and one of the few sources of instruction of young Phineas.
These Connecticut Yankees must have made this Connecticut Yankee
realize that if he was to survive in this world, he must be sharp and
not too scrupulous, except on Sunday.
His own grandfather played what Barnum called a practical joke, and
which we might be inclined to call something more, on the boy the
day he was born. It has been mentioned that Barnum inherited a tract
of land called “Ivy Island” from Phineas Taylor in consideration of
taking the name Phineas through life. His grandfather never spoke of
the boy in the presence of strangers without saying that he was the
richest boy in town because he owned “Ivy Island.” For about six years
these allusions to “Ivy Island” continued, and finally, when he was
twelve years old, permission was granted him to visit the property
which was deeded in his name. The property consisted of bogs, snakes,
hornets, and stunted ivies, mostly under water. When he asked for an
explanation, Phineas was told that it could not be an island unless
it was literally surrounded by water, and that it could not be “Ivy
Island” unless its main product was stunted ivies. We shall see how
Barnum used “Ivy Island” to advantage, but at the time it was a
profound disappointment, and the incident must have influenced his
impression of the ways of the world.
Deception was common practice in the country store business. Barnum
wrote that often he cut open bundles of rags brought to the store
by country women to exchange for goods, and found that what were
ostensibly good linen and cotton rags contained in their midst extra
weight in the shape of stone, gravel or ashes; and farmers regularly
brought their loads of oats, corn, and rye into town short of their
stated weights. Many years later Barnum told a story in his book, _The
Humbugs of the World_, that he would agree characterizes the atmosphere
in which he found himself as a boy:
“There is a much older and better-known story about a grocer who
was a deacon, and who was heard to call downstairs before breakfast
to his clerk:
“‘John, have you watered the rum?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And sanded the
sugar?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And dusted the pepper?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘And
chicoried the coffee?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Then come up to prayers.’”
The boy was brought up to attend church regularly. Barnum’s grandfather
was a Universalist, and that was the religion which he strenuously
defended during his maturity and unto his death, but apparently he
also came under the stern influence of strict Methodism. Of his early
religious experiences Barnum told a reporter for the _New York Sun_
when he was seventy-three years old: “I was brought up in the fear
of hell, and when I went to Methodist prayer meetings, at the age of
thirteen or fourteen, I used to go home and pray and cry and beg God
to take me out of existence if He would only save me; but I didn’t
see much chance for me in the way they put it.” There was only one
meeting house in Bethel, where all attended, and no differences of
sects seemed to disrupt the harmony of religion, but seemingly this
did not detract from the severity with which worship was indulged.
Doubtless it was partly as a reaction from the fiery hell of those
early Methodist influences that Barnum as soon as he was able to choose
for himself turned to Universalism, by which salvation is guaranteed
more or less to all those who seek for it, without regard to their
previous condition of sinful servitude. The meeting house at Bethel,
without steeple or bell, was also without heat in winter, for one of
the brethren said when a stove was suggested by an irreverent reformer,
“A pretty pass, indeed, when professing Christians need a fire to warm
their zeal.” The women were allowed to bring to church tin boxes with
live coals, as foot-stoves, but the men were expected to endure with
hardihood the cold Connecticut winter draughts during the long sermons,
which usually lasted one hour and a half, and sometimes continued for
two hours.
Phineas attended a Bible class at which the students drew texts for
their compositions from the clergyman’s hat. In his autobiography
Barnum told that he once drew forth the text from Luke x. 42: “But one
thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not
be taken away from her.” “_Question_: What is the one thing needful?”
His answer is short, but it serves as a concise creed from which he did
not deviate later in life:
“This question, ‘What is the one thing needful?’ is capable of
receiving various answers, depending much upon the persons to whom
it is addressed.
“The merchant might answer that ‘the one thing needful is plenty of
customers, who buy liberally without “beating down,” and pay cash
for all their purchases.’
“The farmer might reply that ‘the one thing needful is large
harvests and high prices.’
“The physician might answer that ‘it is plenty of patients.’
“The lawyer might be of opinion that ‘it is an unruly community,
always engaged in bickerings and litigations.’
“The clergyman might reply, ‘It is a fat salary, with multitudes of
sinners seeking salvation and paying large pew rents.’
“The bachelor might exclaim, ‘It is a pretty wife who loves her
husband, and who knows how to sew on buttons.’
“The maiden might answer, ‘It is a good husband, who will love,
cherish, and protect me while life shall last.’
“But the most proper answer, and doubtless that which applied to
the case of Mary, would be, ‘The one thing needful is to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, follow in his footsteps, love God and
obey his commandments, love our fellow-man, and embrace every
opportunity of administering to his necessities. In short, the
one thing needful is to live a life that we can always look back
upon with satisfaction, and be enabled ever to contemplate its
termination with trust in Him who has so kindly vouchsafed it to
us, surrounding us with innumerable blessings, if we have but the
heart and wisdom to receive them in a proper manner.’”
The clergyman approved highly this essay of the thirteen-year-old
Barnum, and he himself approved it many times in later life, when he
wrote the same thing in different words. To his mind, one must look
carefully to the main chance, attain monetary success by all odds,
and practise humility by means of a proper respect for God and Jesus
Christ. In short, Barnum lived a life that he himself always did
look back upon with satisfaction--a satisfaction which stands out
triumphantly in his autobiography.
The character of his early environment in Bethel, Connecticut, was
admirably summed up by Barnum when he was seventy-one years old.
He presented a bronze fountain eighteen feet high, “the design a
Triton of heroic size, spouting water from an uplifted horn,” to the
inhabitants of his birthplace. The town was decorated with flags and
bunting, and the police and fire companies, with apparatus and bands
of music, greeted their native son, their returned hero, the conqueror
of Success. Barnum made this speech, which is inserted here because
it tells with characteristic altiloquence more of his early life than
anything he ever wrote, or which ever could be written by another:
“My friends: Among all the varied scenes of an active and eventful
life, crowded with strange incidents of struggle and excitement, of
joy and sorrow, taking me often through foreign lands and bringing
me face to face with the king in his palace and the peasant in
his turf-covered hut, I have invariably cherished with the most
affectionate remembrance the place of my birth, the old village
meeting house, without steeple or bell, where in its square family
pew I sweltered in summer and shivered through my Sunday-school
lessons in winter, and the old school-house where the ferule,
the birchen rod and rattan did active duty, and which I deserved
and received a liberal share. I am surprised to find that I can
distinctly remember events which occurred before I was four years
old.
“I can see as if but yesterday our hard-working mothers hetcheling
their flax, carding their tow and wool, spinning, reeling, and
weaving it into fabrics for bedding and clothing for all the family
of both sexes. The same good mothers did the knitting, darning,
mending, washing, ironing, cooking, soap and candle making, picked
the geese, milked the cows, made butter and cheese, and did many
other things for the support of the family.
“We babies of 1810, when at home, were dressed in tow frocks,
and the garments of our elders were not much superior, except on
Sunday, when they wore their ‘go-to-meeting clothes’ of homespun
and linsey-woolsey.
“Rain water was caught and used for washing, while that for
drinking and cooking was drawn from wells with their ‘old oaken
bucket’ and long poles and well sweeps.
“Fire was kept over night by banking up the brands in ashes in the
fireplace, and if it went out one neighbor would visit another
about daylight the next morning with a pair of tongs to borrow a
coal of fire to kindle with. Our candles were tallow, home-made,
with dark tow wicks. In summer nearly all retired to rest at early
dark without lighting a candle except on extraordinary occasions.
Home-made soft soap was used for washing hands, faces, and
everything else. The children in families of ordinary circumstances
ate their meals on trenchers, wooden plates. As I grew older
our family and others got an extravagant streak, discarded the
trenchers and rose to the dignity of pewter plates and leaden
spoons. Tin peddlers who traveled through the country with their
wagons supplied these and other luxuries. Our food consisted
chiefly of boiled and baked beans, bean porridge, coarse rye bread,
apple sauce, hasty pudding beaten in milk, of which we all had
plenty. The elder portion of the family ate meat twice a day--had
plenty of vegetables, fish of their own catching, and occasionally
big clams, which were cheap in those days, and shad in their
season....
“Our dinners several times each week consisted of ‘pot luck,’ which
was corned beef, salt pork, and vegetables, all boiled together in
the same big iron pot hanging from the crane which was supplied
with iron hooks and trammels and swung in and out of the huge
fireplace. In the same pot with the salt pork, potatoes, turnips,
parsnips, beets, carrots, cabbage, and sometimes onions, was placed
an Indian pudding, consisting of plain Indian meal mixed in water,
pretty thick, salted and poured into a home-made brown linen bag
which was tied at the top. When dinner was ready the Indian pudding
was _first_ taken from the pot, slipped out of the bag and eaten
with molasses. Then followed the ‘pot luck.’...
“There were but few wagons or carriages in Bethel when I was a boy.
Our grists of grain were taken to the mill in bags on horseback,
and the women rode to church on Sundays and around the country
on week days on horseback, usually on a cushion called a pillion
fastened behind the saddle, the husband, father, brother, or
lover riding in front on the saddle. The country doctor visited
his patients on horseback, carrying his saddle-bags, containing
calomel, jalap, Epsom salts, lancet and a turnkey, those being the
principal aids in relieving the sick. Nearly every person sick or
well was bled every spring.
“Teeth were pulled with a turnkey, and a dreadful instrument it was
in looks, and terrible in execution....
“I remember seeing my father and our neighbors put through military
drill every day by Capt. Noah Ferry in 1814, for the war with Great
Britain of 1812–15.
“My uncles, aunts, and others, when I was a child, often spoke
about ravages of Indians from which their ancestors had suffered,
and numbers of them remembered and described the burning of Danbury
by the British in 1777....
“Esquire Tom Taylor sometimes wore white-topped boots. He was
a large, majestic-looking man, of great will-force, and was
considered the richest man in Bethel. Mr. Eli Judd was marked
second in point of wealth. Every year I took twelve dollars to
Esquire Tom Taylor to pay the interest on a two hundred dollar note
which my father owed him. I also annually carried four dollars
and fifty cents to Eli Judd for interest on a seventy-five dollar
note which he held against my father. As these wealthy men quietly
turned over each note filed away in a small package till they found
the note of my father, and then indorsed the interest thereon,
I trembled with awe to think I stood in the presence of such
wonderfully rich men. It was estimated that the richer of them was
actually worth three thousand dollars!
“Esquire Tom Taylor made quite a revolution here by one act. He got
two yards of figured carpet to put down in front of his bed in the
winter, because the bare board floor was too cold for his feet,
while he was dressing. This was a big event in the social life of
that day, and Esquire Tom was thought to be putting on airs which
his great wealth alone permitted.
“When I was but ten years old, newspapers came only once a week.
The man who brought us the week’s papers came up from Norwalk, and
drove through this section with newspapers for subscribers and pins
and needles for customers. He was called Uncle Silliman. I can
remember well his weekly visit through Bethel, and his queer cry.
On coming to a house or village he would shout, ‘News! News! The
Lord reigns!’ One time he passed our school-house when a snow storm
was prevailing. He shouted: ‘News! News! The Lord reigns--and snows
a little.’
“Everybody had barrels of cider in their cellars and drank
cider-spirits called ‘gumption.’ Professors of religion and the
clergy all drank liquor. They drank it in all the hat and comb
shops, the farmers had it at hay and harvest times. Every sort
of excuse was made for being treated. A new journeyman must
give a pint or quart of rum to pay his footing. If a man had a
new coat he must ‘sponge’ it by treating. Even at funerals the
clergy, mourners, and friends drank liquor. At public vendues the
auctioneer held a bottle of liquor in his hand and when bidding
lagged he would cry ‘a dram to the next bidder,’ the bid would be
raised a cent, and the bidder would take his boldly and be the envy
of most of the others.
“The public whipping post and imprisonment for debt both flourished
in Bethel in my youthful days. Suicides were buried at crossroads.
How blessed are we to live in a more charitable and enlightened
age, to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of modern times, and to
realize that the world is continually growing wiser and better.
“I sincerely congratulate my native village on her character for
temperance, industry, and other good qualities.
“And now, my friends, I take very great pleasure in presenting this
fountain to the town and borough of Bethel as a small evidence of
the love which I bear them and the respect which I feel for my
successors, the present and future citizens of my native village.”
II
Among the many ways Barnum found for making money during his boyhood,
the lottery business was his most important enterprise; from the ages
of twelve to fifteen he was a lottery manager and salesman, selling
his tickets to the workmen in the hat and comb factories near Danbury.
Lotteries at this time were permitted by the state and often indulged
in by churches and educational institutions, and in Bethel lotteries
were held for the benefit of the church, where, according to Barnum,
the minister often preached against gambling. That grandfather, Phineas
Taylor, who appears at every turn in the early career of Barnum, was
manager of a lottery, and it was by his example and with his advice
that Phineas tried this means of growing rich quickly.
In September, 1825, when Barnum was fifteen years old, his father died
insolvent. Phineas had loaned his father all his savings and held Philo
Barnum’s note for the money, but as he was a minor his debt was ruled
out, and he was compelled to serve as clerk in a store just before
the funeral in order to get money for shoes to follow the coffin to
the grave. Irena Barnum, his mother, continued to keep the tavern at
Bethel to support herself and her five children, of whom Phineas was
the oldest. Phineas soon became a clerk in the general store at Grassy
Plain, a village one mile northwest of Bethel, where he worked for six
dollars a month and his board. Here his duties were much the same as
they had been in his father’s country store at Bethel, but he showed
signs of the advertising ability and the power to attract by unusual
enterprises which were later to make him famous, when he organized at
this store in Grassy Plain a lottery for the purpose of moving his
boss’s old stock of tinware and green glass bottles. Those who won
prizes in the lottery received their choice of a tin dipper or some
green glass bottles.
It was while he was a clerk at Grassy Plain that Phineas met Charity
Hallett. Charity had visited Grassy Plain on a Saturday to buy a
hat from Aunt “Rushia,” the only milliner of the two towns. It was
Phineas’s custom to return to Bethel every Saturday night, remaining
with his mother until Monday, so that he might go to church with her.
He was told that Charity was afraid to return to Bethel alone in the
storm on this particular Saturday night. During the ride he learned
that “the fair, rosy-cheeked, buxom girl, with beautiful white teeth,”
as he later described her appearance at the time, was a tailoress in
Bethel. Her face haunted him in his dreams that Saturday night. He met
her in church the next morning, and the reality seemed to fulfil the
pictures of his imagination. But he was able to see her only in church
every Sunday that season, for they were separated by the distance
between Bethel and Grassy Plain.
As his job continued in a country store, Barnum became more inured to
the ways and means of country store success. In his autobiography he
recorded the gist of these: “It was ‘dog eat dog’--‘tit for tat.’ Our
cottons were sold for wool, our wool and cotton for silk and linen;
in fact nearly everything was different from what it was represented.
The customers cheated us in their fabrics: we cheated the customers
with our goods. Each party expected to be cheated, if it was possible.
Our eyes, and not our ears, had to be our masters. We must believe
little that we saw, and less that we heard.... Such a school would ‘cut
eye-teeth,’ but if it did not cut conscience, morals, and integrity all
up by the roots, it would be because the scholars quit before their
education was completed.” He did quit for a time and went to Brooklyn,
New York, where he was offered a position in a grocery store, but the
humdrum of this existence of petty trade was beginning to annoy him.
His disposition was speculative, and a regular salary never satisfied
him, especially since all these early salaries were small. Although he
was only seventeen years old, he was ambitious enough to want his own
business, and he opened a porter-house in Brooklyn. He soon sold it
at a profit and on the basis of his experience became a bartender in
another porter-house in New York City. While working and living in New
York, he visited the theater frequently, and soon became in his own
opinion “a close critic.”
Grandfather Phineas Taylor wrote his grandson in 1828, offering him
half of his carriage-house rent free, if young Phineas would return
from New York and establish some kind of business in Bethel. Before he
left New York Phineas made arrangements for shipments with wholesale
merchants, and upon his return to Bethel turned the carriage-house,
which was situated on the main street of Bethel, into a retail fruit
and confectionery store, where ale and oysters were also sold. Phineas
invested his entire fortune, $120, in his Bethel store, and during
the first day’s business took in $63. Grandfather Phineas Taylor was
much pleased with his boy’s success; he advised him to take the agency
for some country-wide lottery in addition to his store business, and
Barnum followed his advice. The store was the resort of the country
loungers and the town wits, and the practical jokes which were played
there, and which delighted Barnum so much that he reproduced them in
detail in his autobiography, contributed to make him what he later was.
In the autobiography he himself attributes his development in part to
the influence of these stale puns and crude practical jokes, which he
did not seem to realize, even in his middle age, were far-fetched, and
often barbaric.
When Barnum was eighteen years old, his store in Bethel was visited by
the first showman he ever met, Hackariah Bailey, not related to James
A. Bailey, who was Barnum’s partner many years later. Hackariah Bailey
was a “character.” He imported the first elephant that was ever brought
to this country and made a fortune by exhibiting it. Later he toured
with several traveling menageries, operated opposition steamboats on
the Hudson River, and finally built a hostelry in Somers, New York,
which he called “Elephant Hotel,” where a golden elephant stood on a
large stone pillar in front of the veranda as homage to the foundation
of the Bailey fortune. Young Barnum listened with great interest to the
stories of Hackariah Bailey.
Barnum made another trip to New York City in his nineteenth year to
investigate opportunities, of which he had been told, for a thriving
lottery business in Pittsburg. An agency for the whole state of
Tennessee was vacant, and the offer of it was tempting, but there was
Charity Hallett, tailoress in Bethel, and Tennessee was too far from
Bethel. The possibilities of profit in the lottery business impressed
Barnum, and he used all the time he could spare from his store in
selling lottery tickets throughout near-by Connecticut counties. He
established agents throughout the surrounding country and soon was
selling from five hundred dollars’ worth to two thousand dollars’
worth of lottery tickets each day. It was in this business that
Barnum first used advertising. He issued handbills and circulars with
extravagant language and huge pictures. Immense gold signs and posters
in many colored inks covered the front of Barnum’s lottery office, and
“home-made poetry” persuaded prospective purchasers. Oyster suppers at
his mother’s tavern followed the drawing of prizes.
Charity Hallett, the “attractive tailoress,” continued to occupy
an important place in Barnum’s mind; he was still meeting her at
church, and whenever the sale of oysters, lottery tickets, and
general merchandise permitted him spare time. In the summer of 1829,
when he was just nineteen years old, Barnum, without mentioning
his intentions to his mother, proposed marriage. Those intentions
must have been obvious, however, for some time, because in his
autobiography Barnum wrote that his mother and his other relatives
thought that his enterprise, if not his origin, entitled him to aim
higher in the social scale than a local tailoress. But there were many
impartial townspeople, said Barnum, who thought that Charity Hallett
“was altogether too good for Taylor Barnum.” They were married that
November in New York City at the house of Charity’s uncle. Barnum
went on record in his autobiography as opposed to early marriages,
but he hastily prefaced these admonitions with the statement, “had I
waited twenty years longer, I could not have found another woman so
well suited to my disposition, and so valuable as a wife, a mother,
and a friend.” Barnum’s mother was angry at his secret marriage in New
York, but, after a month of Sundays, he was invited to bring his wife
to Sabbath dinner. During the two years after his marriage Barnum
continued his country store, his lottery business, with branches in
Danbury, Stamford, Norwalk, and Middletown, and found time to engage in
religious and political controversy.
III
At this period in New England history religion was rife, and in 1831,
particularly in the section where Barnum lived and throughout the rest
of New England as well, it was also violent. Converts were being made
wholesale by means of protracted religious meetings and hortatory
witchery; some of these converts worked themselves into religious
frenzy, and suicides as well as murders in the name of God were common
occurrences. Many of the more imaginative ministers advocated a
Christian Party in politics, and were in favor of confining the right
to hold public office to those only who professed faith in God and
belief in Jesus Christ. At the age of twenty-one Barnum was sagacious
enough to realize that in spite of all his respect for clergymen and
his reliance on their work they must be kept in their proper place,
which was in church. Many persons besides himself were alarmed at the
prospect of a religious fanaticism that would conquer civil government
to the destruction of liberty. Barnum wrote several articles on the
dangers of religious usurpation, which he sent to the nearest weekly
newspaper, a Danbury publication. The editor regretted that he could
not find space for Mr. Barnum’s contributions, whereupon, like many
writers on controversial subjects, Barnum was convinced that the editor
did not dare to print his articles, and that there was no free press.
But unlike most of his rejected brethren, Barnum took action. He
purchased a press and types, and within a few weeks after the rejection
of his religious opinions began publication of his own weekly newspaper
in Danbury, Connecticut, which was called, of course, _The Herald of
Freedom_.
There are no files of this paper extant, which is unfortunate, for
they would undoubtedly reveal interesting character developments
in our hero’s history. He himself tells us that “the boldness and
vigor with which this paper was conducted soon commanded a liberal
circulation, not only in the vicinity of its publication, but large
numbers of copies were sent into nearly every State in the Union.” The
vigor and boldness are not Barnum’s exaggerations, for we know that he
was always vehement, but particularly so at this period, and it was
not long before he was sued for libel. A Danbury butcher whom Barnum
accused in his paper as a spy in the Democratic Party caucus, sued for
libel and collected several hundred dollars. But this did not deter
the twenty-one-year-old editor and publisher, and soon afterwards he
had another and more important libel suit to defend. _The Herald of
Freedom_ accused a deacon of “taking usury of an orphan boy.” Had he
called the deacon a “note-shaver” and extortioner, or merely remarked
that he was “grinding the face of a poor orphan boy,” the court would
have been lenient, but to call a deacon a usurer was ungodly, for usury
is forbidden in the Bible, and the judge, who was also a churchman,
charged the jury vigorously; and when they brought in the appropriate
verdict, he sentenced Phineas T. Barnum, editor, to sixty days in the
common jail and to pay a fine of $100.
Barnum went to jail in Danbury, where his room was papered and
carpeted, and where friends were allowed to visit him daily. He
continued to edit _The Herald of Freedom_ there, and several hundred
additional subscriptions came in during his period of servitude.
Mr. P. F. Madigan, the New York autograph dealer, recently found
the following letter from Barnum, written while he was in jail. It
was addressed to Gideon Welles, then a member of the Connecticut
Legislature, and afterwards Secretary of the Navy under President
Lincoln:
“DANBURY, ‘COMMON JAIL,’ Oct. 7, 1832.
“MR. WELLES D’r Sir:
“I am by the unhallowed decree of that lump of superstition David
Daggett sent within these gloomy walls sixty days for daring to
tell the truth!! My trial with Hanson Taylor did not come on this
term on account of the absence of witnesses; but my trial with
Seth Seelye has come and the best counsel in the country were
employed against me. Seelye testified in his own defense, and in
his testimony he contradicted four unimpeachable witnesses. Daggett
charged the jury in such a manner that many intelligent men who
were present remarked that he was the best lawyer that had pled in
behalf of the State. The bar and seat of the Judge was filled with
priests, there being no less than eight present. Brother Holly of
the _Sentinel_ will report the case at length, and I hope you will
take the trouble to read the trial and then make such remarks as
justice demands. The excitement in this and the neighboring towns
is very great, and it will have a grand effect. Public opinion is
greatly in my favor. After the judge had given his cursed charge I
was advised by many to forfeit the bonds which were but $100, but
I chose to go to prison, thinking that such a step would be the
means of opening many eyes, as it no doubt will. A number of the
Presbyterians in this town have declared it to be oppression, and
are beginning to raise their voices against it. The same spirit
governs my enemies that imprisoned Sellick Osborn and burnt to
death Michael Servetus by order of John Calvin. But the people are
more enlightened than in the days of Calvin and they will upon
reading my trial express their indignation at such oppression and
persecution. You will observe that the Democrats in this County
have a Convention at Bridgeport on Thursday next. I am constantly
writing to our friends in different parts of the country urging
upon them the importance of attending this meeting, and I think it
will be well attended and be the means of helping our party very
much in this county. Judge Wildman is so lame with the rheumatics
that he cannot walk; but he declares he will attend the convention
if he is obliged to hire men to carry him in their arms. He is a
man of spirit and sense. It is a great pity we had not about twenty
men like him in this country.
“You will observe in my paper of last week that I have engaged the
services of our friend Andrews; if you can give him a compliment
you would much oblige me, as by my copying it into my columns it
might prove of much service to my paper. Please accept my warmest
thanks and those of my wife for your assistance in recovering the
lost shawl. It came safe and my wife was thrown into ecstasies as
an offset for the tears, which (womanlike) she had shed over the
loss of it. Lest I might tire your patience too much I will draw to
a close. Please give my respects to Judge Niles and the rest of
our friends, tell them that I am suffering for daring to tell the
truth but that the kindness of friends keeps my spirits buoyed up
in this day of trial. Let me hear from you when opportunity shall
offer and believe this to be from your Ob’t servant in good spirits.
P. T. BARNUM.
“G. WELLES, ESQ.”
Barnum in his early years was a Democrat, because Grandfather Phineas
Taylor was a staunch Democrat, and his father had also voted that
ticket. If we are to judge from the above letter, written when he was
twenty-two years old, Barnum had some of the qualifications of a ward
politician. He refers several times to “our friends,” and he seems
to have believed firmly that it was a duty as well as a privilege to
attend party conventions.
The end of Barnum’s term in the Danbury Common Jail was celebrated
by indignant defenders of a free press from the surrounding country.
In the court-room where he had been convicted and sentenced an ode,
written for the occasion, was sung, and an eloquent oration on the
Freedom of the Press was delivered by the Rev. Theophilus Fiske. Both
the ode and the oration have disappeared into limbo. “A sumptuous
repast” was served to several hundred guests, and speeches and toasts
continued most of the afternoon. But the most imposing part of the
celebration was still to come. It was reported in Barnum’s paper, _The
Herald of Freedom_, for December 12, 1832:
“P. T. Barnum and the band of music took their seats in a coach
drawn by six horses, which had been prepared for the occasion.
The coach was preceded by forty horsemen, and a marshal, bearing
the national standard. Immediately in the rear of the coach was
the carriage of the Orator and the President of the day, followed
by the Committee on Arrangements and sixty carriages of citizens,
which joined in escorting the editor to his home in Bethel.
“When the procession commenced its march amidst the roar of cannon,
three cheers were given by several hundred citizens who did not
join in the procession. The band of music continued to play a
variety of national airs until their arrival in Bethel, a distance
of three miles, when they struck up the beautiful and appropriate
tune of ‘Home, Sweet Home!’ After giving three hearty cheers, the
procession returned to Danbury. The utmost harmony and unanimity of
feeling prevailed throughout the day, and we are happy to add that
no accident occurred to mar the festivities of the occasion.”
While he was indulging in political and religious controversy, Barnum
was also buying recklessly for his country store. In order to do
business faster than the ordinary country store, he extended credit
and soon had an accumulation of bad debts. Many of these accounts are
balanced in his old ledger: “By death, to balance;” “By running away,
in full;” “By cheating me out of my dues, to balance;” “By failing
in full;” “By swearing he would not pay me, in full.” Barnum became
disgusted and sold his interest in the store. And that year lotteries
were prohibited in Connecticut by law. _The Herald of Freedom_ was not
making money, and No. 160 of that paper was the last issue published
under Barnum’s name. He was compelled to seek new and more profitable
enterprises, and he decided to enlarge his horizon. In the winter of
1834–1835, when he was twenty-four years old, Barnum removed his wife
and daughter to New York City.
Thus ends the early Yankee influence that shaped Barnum’s character.
It made of him a creature that in its development was to become the
apotheosis of the Yankee, with all the distinguishing characteristics
of that type and some very distinctive qualities all his own. Mrs.
Trollope in her _Domestic Manners of the Americans_ characterizes the
Yankee with traits that are appropriate to Barnum’s personality as
it was bred by his early environment. “In acuteness, cautiousness,
industry, and perseverance,” wrote Mrs. Trollope of the Yankee, “he
resembles the Scotch; in habits of frugal neatness, he resembles
the Dutch; in love of lucre he doth greatly resemble the sons of
Abraham; but in frank admission and superlative admiration of all
his own peculiarities, he is like nothing on earth but himself.”
The Connecticut Yankee with his wife, Charity, and their daughter,
Caroline, left Bethel with nothing but the crafty, bold and thrifty
Yankee heritage and the practical education that were calculated to
make him preëminent if the proper outlet and channel were offered for
his energies.