THE FIGHT FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SEASIDE PARK--LAYING OUT CITY
STREETS IMPATIENCE WITH "OLD FOGIES"--BUILDING A SEASIDE
HOME--WALDEMERE--A HOME IN NEW YORK CITY.
A remarkable feature of Mr. Barnum's life was his loyalty to the
place he had chosen as his home, and his devotion to its
interests. He had great faith in Bridgeport, and worked
unceasingly to justify it. He looked far ahead, saw the
prospective growth of the place, and laid broad plans of
preparation for the future.
Apart from his great services in laying out East Bridgeport, he
was the author of the improvements on the water-front known as
Seaside Park. The idea of such a thing occurred to him first in
1863, when he rode over the ground and observed its fitness for
the purpose. He then began agitating the matter, and urging the
immediate acquirement by the city of land for a park and public
drive-way along the margin of the Sound. It was necessary, he
represented, to do it at once, before the natural increase in the
value of the land made such an undertaking too expensive. That it
would be a profitable venture he felt certain; for such an
improvement would make every bit of real estate in the city more
valuable, and would attract many new residents to the place.
There were, however, many conservatives, "old fogies" he called
them, who opposed him. He then approached the farmers who owned
the land lying immediately upon the shore, and tried to convince
them that, if they would give the city, free, a deep slip next to
the water, to be used as a public park, it would increase in
value the rest of their land so much as to make it a profitable
operation for them. But it was like beating against the wind.
They were "not so stupid as to think that they could become
gainers by giving away their property."
He succeeded, however, in getting the active aid and co-operation
of Messrs. Nathaniel Wheeler, James Loomis, Francis Ives,
Frederick Wood, and some others, who went with him to the
landowners and added their persuasions to his. After much urging,
they finally got the terms upon which the proprietors would give
a portion and sell another portion of their land, which fronted
on the water, provided the land thus disposed of should forever
be appropriated to the purposes of a public park. But,
unfortunately, a part of the land it was desirable to include was
a farm, of some thirty acres, then belonging to an unsettled
estate, and neither the administrator nor the heirs could or
would give away a rod of it. But the whole farm was for
sale--and, to overcome the difficulty in the way of its transfer
for the public benefit, Barnum bought it for about $12,000, and
then presented the required front to the park. He did not want
this land or any portion of it, for his own purposes or profit,
and he offered a thousand dollars to any one who would take his
place in the transaction; but no one accepted, and he was quite
willing to contribute so much of the land as was needed for so
noble an object. Besides this, he gave $1,400 toward purchasing
other land and improving the park, and, after months of
persistent personal effort, he succeeded in raising, by private
subscription, the sum necessary to secure the land needed. This
was duly paid for, deeded to, and accepted by the city, and
Barnum had the pleasure of naming this new and great public
improvement, "Seaside Park."
When Mr. Barnum first selected Bridgeport as his home, as already
stated in a preceding chapter, the place was commended to him by
its nearness to New York, its convenience of access, and the
beauty of its situation. "Nowhere," said he, "in all my travels
in America and abroad had I seen a city whose very position
presented so many and varied attractions. Situated on Long Island
Sound, with that vast water-view in front, and on every other
side a beautiful and fertile country with every variety of inland
scenery, and charming drives which led through valleys rich with
well-cultivated farms, and over hills thick-wooded with
far-stretching forests of primeval growth--all these natural
attractions appeared to me only so many aids to the advancement
the beautiful and busy city might attain, if public spirit,
enterprise, and money grasped and improved the opportunities the
locality itself extended. I saw that what Nature had so freely
lavished must be supplemented by yet more liberal Art."
It was in pursuance of this object that he built the famous
Iranistan; and when he did so he felt confident that this superb
place would so increase the value of surrounding property that
none but first-class residences would be erected in the vicinity.
He, however, went on to improve the surrounding property as much
as possible. He opened numerous fine avenues through land
purchased by himself, and freely gave them to the city. In this
way he opened miles of new streets and planted them with
thousands of shade trees. The planting of trees was almost a
mania with him, in pursuit of the doctrine laid down in Scott's
"Heart of Mid-Lothian": "When ye hae naething else to do, ye may
be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing when ye're
sleeping."
Barnum was always for enterprise and progress. "Conservatism," he
said, "may be a good thing in the State, or in the Church, but it
is fatal to the growth of cities, and the conservative notions of
old fogies make them indifferent to the requirements which a very
few years in the future will compel, and blind to their own best
interests. Such men never look beyond the length of their noses,
and consider every investment a dead loss unless they can get the
sixpence profit into their pockets before they go to bed. My own
long training and experience as a manager impelled me to carry
into such private enterprises as the purchase of real estate that
best and most essential managerial quality of instantly deciding,
not only whether a venture was worth undertaking, but what, all
things considered, that venture would result in. Almost any man
can see how a thing will begin, but not every man is gifted with
the foresight to see how it will end, or how, with the proper
effort, it may be made to end. In East Bridgeport where we had no
'conservatives' to contend with, we were only a few years in
turning almost tenantless farms into a populous and prosperous
city. On the other side of the river, while the opening of new
avenues, the planting of shade trees, and the building of many
houses, have afforded me the highest pleasures of my life, I
confess that not a few of my greatest annoyance's have been
occasioned by the opposition of those who seem to be content to
simply vegetate through their existence, and who looked upon me
as a restless, reckless innovator, because I was trying to remove
the moss from everything around them, and even from their own
eyes."
Mrs. Barnum's health continued to decline, and in the summer of
1867 her doctor commended her to live on the seashore.
Accordingly her husband sold Lindencroft, and they removed for
the summer to a small farm-house adjoining Seaside Park. So
delighted were they with life by the water during the hot days of
the summer that they determined thereafter to spend every summer
on the very shore of Long Island Sound. Finding it impossible to
prepare a house of their own in time for the next season, they
spent the summer of 1868 in a new and handsome house which Mr.
Barnum owned but which he had built for sale. In the fall of
1868, however, he purchased a large and beautiful grove of
hickory trees adjoining Seaside Park, and decided to build a
permanent residence there.
But there was a vast deal to do in grading and preparing the
ground, in opening new streets and avenues as approaches to the
property, and in setting out trees near the proposed site of the
house; so that ground was not broken for the foundation till
October. He planned a house which should combine the greatest
convenience with the highest comfort, keeping in mind always that
houses were made to live in as well as to look at, and to be
"homes" rather than mere residences. So the house was made to
include abundant room for guests, with dressing-rooms and baths
to every chamber; water from the city throughout the premises;
gas manufactured on the ground; and that greatest of all
comforts, a semi-detached kitchen, so that the smell as well as
the secrets of the cuisine might be confined to its own locality.
The stables and gardens were located far from the mansion, on the
opposite side of one of the newly-opened avenues, so that in the
immediate vicinity of the house, on either side and before both
fronts, stretched large lawns, broken only by the grove, single
shade-trees, rock-work, walks, flower-beds, and drives. The whole
scheme as planned was faithfully carried out in less than eight
months The first foundation stone was laid in October, 1868; and
they moved into the completed house in June following, in 1869.
On taking possession of this new residence, Barnum formally named
it "Waldemere." Literally this name was "Wald-am-Meer," or
"Woods-by-the Sea," but Barnum preferred the more euphonious
form. On the same estate he built at the same time two beautiful
cottages, called "Petrel's Nest," and "Wavewood," the homes of
his two daughters, Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Seeley--the latter his
youngest. Here Barnum decided to speed five months of every year,
and for his home during the other seven months he purchased a
splendid mansion on Murray Hill, in New York City, at the corner
of Fifth Avenue and 38th Street.