CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.
FRIENDS TO THE RESCUE--MONEY OFFERS REFUSED--BENEFITS
DECLINED--MAGNIFICENT OFFER OF PROMINENT NEW YORK CITIZENS--WILLIAM
E. BURTON--LAURA KEENE--WILLIAM NIBLO--GENERAL TOM THUMB--EDITORIAL
SYMPATHY--“A WORD FOR BARNUM” IN BOSTON--LETTER FROM “MRS.
PARTINGTON”--CITIZENS’ MEETING IN BRIDGEPORT--RESOLUTIONS OF
RESPECT AND CONDOLENCE--MY LETTER ON THE SITUATION--TENDER OF FIFTY
THOUSAND DOLLARS--MAGNITUDE OF THE DECEPTION PRACTISED UPON
ME--PROPOSITION OF COMPROMISE WITH MY CREDITORS--A TRAP LAID FOR ME
IN PHILADELPHIA--THE SILVER LINING TO THE CLOUD--THE BLOW A BENEFIT
TO MY FAMILY--THE REV. DR. E. H. CHAPIN--MY DAUGHTER HELEN--A
LETTER WORTH TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS--OUR NEW HOME IN NEW YORK.
Happily, there is always more wheat than there is chaff. While my
enemies and a few envious persons and misguided moralists were abusing
and traducing me, my very misfortunes revealed to me hosts of hitherto
unknown friends who tendered to me something more than mere sympathy.
Funds were offered to me in unbounded quantity for the support of my
family and to re-establish me in business. I declined these tenders
because, on principle, I never accepted a money favor, unless I except
the single receipt of a small sum which came to me by mail at this time
and anonymously so that I could not return it. Even this small sum I at
once devoted to charity towards one who needed the money far more than I
did.
The generosity of my friends urged me to accept “benefits” by the score,
the returns of which would have made me quite independent. There was a
proposition among leading citizens in New York to give a series of
benefits which I felt obliged to decline though the movement in my favor
deeply touched me. To show the class of men who sympathized with me in
my misfortunes and also the ground which I took in the matter I venture
to copy the following correspondence which appeared in the New York
papers of the day:
NEW YORK, June 2, 1856.
MR. P. T. BARNUM:
_Dear Sir_,--The financial ruin of a man of acknowledged energy and
enterprise is a public calamity. The sudden blow, therefore, that
has swept away, from a man like yourself, the accumulated wealth of
years, justifies we think, the public sympathy. The better to
manifest our sincere respect for your liberal example in
prosperity, as well as exhibit our honest admiration of your
fortitude under overwhelming reverses, we propose to give that
sympathy a tangible expression by soliciting your acceptance of a
series of benefits for your family, the result of which may
possibly secure for your wife and children a future home, or at
least rescue them from the more immediate consequences of your
misfortune.
Freeman Hunt, E. K. Collins, Isaac Y. Fowler, James Phalen,
Cornelius Vanderbilt, F. B. Cuting, James W. Gerard, Simeon Draper,
Thomas McElrath, Park Godwin, R. F. Carman, Gen. C. W. Sanford,
Philo Hurd, President H. R. R.; Wm. Ellsworth, President Brooklyn
Ins. Co.; George S. Doughty, President Excelsior Ins. Co.; Chas. T.
Cromwell, Robert Stuyvesant, E. L. Livingston, R. Busteed, Wm. P.
Fettridge, E. N. Haughwout, Geo. F. Nesbitt, Osborne, Boardman &
Townsend, Charles H. Delavan, I. & C. Berrien, Fisher & Bird,
Solomon & Hart, B. Young, M. D., Treadwell, Acker & Co., St.
Nicholas Hotel, John Wheeler, Union Square Hotel, S. Leland & Co.,
Metropolitan Hotel, Albert Clark, Brevoort House, H. D. Clapp,
Everett House, John Taylor, International Hotel, Sydney Hopman,
Smithsonian Hotel, Messrs. Delmonico, Delmonico’s, Geo. W. Sherman,
Florence’s Hotel, Kingsley & Ainslee, Howard Hotel, Libby &
Whitney, Lovejoy’s Hotel, Howard & Brown, Tammany Hall, Jonas
Bartlett, Washington Hotel, Patten & Lynde, Pacific Hotel, J.
Johnson, Johnson’s Hotel, and over 1,000 others.
To this gratifying communication I replied as follows:
LONG ISLAND, Tuesday, June 3, 1856.
GENTLEMEN,--I can hardly find words to express my gratitude for
your very kind proposition. The popular sympathy is to me far more
precious than gold, and that sympathy seems in my case to extend
from my immediate neighbors, in Bridgeport, to all parts of our
Union.
Proffers of pecuniary assistance have reached me from every
quarter, not only from friends, but from entire strangers. Mr. Wm.
E. Burton, Miss Laura Keene and Mr. Wm. Niblo have in the kindest
manner tendered me the receipts of their theatres for one evening.
Mr. Gough volunteered the proceeds of one of his attractive
lectures; Mr. James Phalon generously offered me the free use of
the Academy of Music; many professional ladies and gentlemen have
urged me to accept their gratuitous services. I have, on principle,
respectfully declined them all, as I beg, with the most grateful
acknowledgments (at least for the present), to decline yours--not
because a benefit, in itself, is an objectionable thing, but
because I have ever made it a point to ask nothing of the public on
personal grounds, and should prefer, while I can possibly avoid
that contingency, to accept nothing from it without the honest
conviction that I had individually given it in return a full
equivalent.
While favored with health, I feel competent to earn an honest
livelihood for myself and family. More than this I shall certainly
never attempt with such a load of debt suspended in terrorem over
me. While I earnestly, thank you, therefore, for your generous
consideration, gentlemen, I trust you will appreciate my desire to
live unhumiliated by a sense of dependence; and believe me,
sincerely yours, P. T. BARNUM.
To Messrs. FREEMAN HUNT, E. K. COLLINS, and others.
And with other offers of assistance from far and near, came the
following from a little gentleman who did not forget his old friend and
benefactor in the time of trial:
JONES’ HOTEL, PHILADELPHIA, May 12, 1856.
MY DEAR MR. BARNUM,--I understand your friends, and that means “all
creation,” intend to get up some benefits for your family. Now, my
dear sir, just be good enough to remember that I belong to that
mighty crowd, and I must have a finger (or at least a “thumb”) in
that pie. I am bound to appear on all such occasions in some shape,
from “Jack the Giant Killer,” up stairs, to the doorkeeper down,
whichever may serve you best; and there are some feats that I can
perform as well as any other man of my inches. I have just started
out on my western tour, and have my carriage, ponies and assistants
all here, but I am ready to go on to New York, bag and baggage, and
remain at Mrs. Barnum’s service as long as I, in my small way, can
be useful. Put me into any “heavy” work, if you like. Perhaps I
cannot lift as much as some other folks, but just take your pencil
in hand and you will see I can draw a tremendous load. I drew two
hundred tons at a single pull to-day, embracing two thousand
persons, whom I hauled up safely and satisfactorily to all parties,
at one exhibition. Hoping that you will be able to fix up a lot of
magnets that will attract all New York, and volunteering to sit on
any part of the loadstone, I am, as ever, your little but
sympathizing friend,
GEN. TOM THUMB.
Even this generous offer from my little friend I felt compelled to
refuse. But kind words were written and spoken which I could not
prevent, nor did I desire to do so, and which were worth more to me than
money. I should fail to find space, if I wished it, to copy one-tenth
part of the cordial and kind articles and paragraphs that appeared about
me in newspapers throughout the country. The following sentence from an
editorial article in a prominent New York journal was the key-note to
many similar kind notices in all parts of the Union: “It is a fact
beyond dispute that Mr. Barnum’s financial difficulties have accumulated
from the goodness of his nature; kind-hearted and generous to a fault,
it has ever been his custom to lend a helping hand to the struggling;
and honest industry and enterprise have found his friendship prompt and
faithful.” The _Boston Journal_ dwelt especially upon the use I had made
of my money in my days of prosperity in assisting deserving laboring men
and in giving an impulse to business in the town where I resided. It
seems only just that I should make this very brief allusion to these
things, if only as an offset to the unbounded abuse of those who
believed in kicking me merely because I was down; nor can I refrain from
copying the following from the _Boston Saturday Evening Gazette_, of May
3, 1856:
BARNUM REDIVIVUS.
A WORD FOR BARNUM.
BARNUM, your hand! Though you are “down,”
And see full many a frigid shoulder,
Be brave, my brick, and though they frown,
Prove that misfortune makes you bolder.
There’s many a man that sneers, my hero,
And former praise converts to scorning,
Would worship--when he fears--a Nero,
And bend “where thrift may follow fawning.”
You humbugged us--that we have seen,
_We got our money’s worth_, old fellow,
And though you thought our _minds_ were _green_,
We never thought your _heart_ was _yellow_.
We knew you liberal, generous, warm,
Quick to assist a falling brother,
And, with such virtues, what’s the harm
All memories of your faults to smother?
We had not heard the peerless Lind,
But for your spirit enterprising,
You were the man to raise the wind,
And make a _coup_ confessed surprising.
You’re reckoned in your native town
A friend in need, a friend in danger,
You ever keep the latchstring down,
And greet with open hand the stranger.
Stiffen your upper lip. You know
Who are your friends and who your foes now;
We pay for knowledge as we go;
And though you get some sturdy blows now,
You’ve a fair field,--no favors crave,--
The storm once passed will find you braver,--
In virtue’s cause long may you wave,
And on the right side, never waver.
Desirous of knowing who was the author of this kindly effusion, I wrote,
while preparing this autobiography, to Mr. B. P. Shillaber, one of the
editors of the journal, and well known to the public as “Mrs.
Partington.” In reply, I received the following letter in which it will
be seen that he makes sympathetic allusion to the burning of my last
Museum, only a few weeks before the date of his letter:
CHELSEA, April 25, 1868.
MY DEAR MR. BARNUM:--The poem in question was written by A. Wallace
Thaxter, associate editor with Mr. Clapp and myself, on the
_Gazette_--since deceased, a glorious fellow--who wrote the poem
from a sincere feeling of admiration for yourself. Mr. Clapp, (Hon.
W. W. Clapp,) published it with his full approbation. I heard of
your new trouble, in my sick chamber, where I have been all winter,
with regret, and wish you as ready a release from attending
difficulty as your genius has hitherto achieved under like
circumstances.
Yours, very truly,
B. P. SHILLABER.
But the manifestations of sympathy which came to me from Bridgeport,
where my home had been for more than ten years, were the most gratifying
of all, because they showed unmistakably that my best friends, those who
were most constant in their friendship and most emphatic in their
esteem, were my neighbors and associates who, of all people, knew me
best. With such support I could easily endure the attacks of traducers
elsewhere. The _New York Times_, April 25, 1856, under the head of
“Sympathy for Barnum,” published a full report of the meeting of my
fellow-citizens of Bridgeport, the previous evening, to take my case
into consideration.
In response to a call headed by the mayor of the city, and signed by
several hundred citizens, this meeting was held in Washington Hall “for
the purpose of sympathizing with P. T. Barnum, Esq., in his recent
pecuniary embarrassments, and of giving some public expression to their
views in reference to his financial misfortunes.” It was the largest
public meeting which, up to that time, had ever been held in Bridgeport.
Several prominent citizens made addresses, and resolutions were adopted
declaring “that respect and sympathy were due to P. T. Barnum in return
for his many acts of liberality, philanthropy and public spirit,”
expressing unshaken confidence in his integrity, admiration for the
“fortitude and composure with which he has met reverses into which he
has been dragged through no fault of his own except a too generous
confidence in pretended friends,” and hoping that he would “yet return
to that wealth which he has so nobly employed, and to the community he
has so signally benefited.” During the evening the following letter was
read:
NEW YORK, Thursday, April 24, 1856.
WM. H. NOBLE, Esq.,
_Dear Sir_:--I have just received a slip containing a call for a
public meeting of the citizens of Bridgeport to sympathize with me
in my troubles. It is headed by His Honor the Mayor, and is signed
by most of your prominent citizens, as well as by many men who by
hard labor earn their daily bread, and who appreciate a calamity
which at a single blow strips a man of his fortune, his dear home,
and all the worldly comforts which years of diligent labor had
acquired. It is due to truth to say that I knew nothing of this
movement until your letter informed me of it.
In misfortune the true sympathy of neighbors is more consoling and
precious than anything which money can purchase. This voluntary
offering of my fellow-citizens, though it thrills me with painful
emotions and causes tears of gratitude, yet imparts to me renewed
strength and fills my heart with thankfulness to Providence for
raising up to my sight, above all this wreck, kind hearts which
soar above the sordid atmosphere of “dirty dollars.” I can never
forget this unexpected kindness from my old friends and neighbors.
I trust I am not blind to my many faults and shortcomings. I,
however, do feel great consolation in believing that I never used
money or position to oppress the poor or wrong my fellow-men, and
that I never turned empty away those whom I had the power to
assist.
My poor sick wife, who needs the bracing air which our own dear
home (made beautiful by her willing hands) would now have afforded
her, is driven by the orders of her physician to a secluded spot on
Long Island where the sea-wind lends its healthful influence, and
where I have also retired for the double purpose of consoling her
and of recruiting my own constitution, which, through the
excitements of the last few months, has most seriously failed me.
In our quiet and humble retreat, that which I most sincerely pray
for is tranquillity and contentment. I am sure that the remembrance
of the kindness of my Bridgeport neighbors will aid me in securing
these cherished blessings. No man who has not passed through
similar scenes can fully comprehend the misery which has been
crowded into the last few months of my life; but I have endeavored
to preserve my integrity, and I humbly hope and believe that I am
being taught humility and reliance upon Providence, which will yet
afford a thousand times more peace and true happiness than can be
acquired in the din, strife and turmoil, excitements and struggles
of this money-worshipping age. The man who coins his brain and
blood into gold, who wastes all of his time and thought upon the
almighty dollar, who looks no higher than blocks of houses, and
tracts of land, and whose iron chest is crammed with stocks and
mortgages tied up with his own heart-strings, may console himself
with the idea of safe investments, but he misses a pleasure which I
firmly believe this lesson was intended to secure to me, and which
it will secure if I can fully bring my mind to realize its wisdom.
I think I hear you say--
“When the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be.
But when the devil got well,
The devil a saint was he.”
Granted, but, after all, the man who looks upon the loss of money
as anything compared to the loss of honor, or health, or
self-respect, or friends,--a man who can find no source of
happiness except in riches,--is to be pitied for his blindness. I
certainly feel that the loss of money, of home and my home
comforts, is dreadful,--that to be driven again to find a
resting-place away from those I love, and from where I had fondly
supposed I was to end my days, and where I had lavished time,
money, everything, to make my descent to the grave placid and
pleasant,--is, indeed, a severe lesson; but, after all, I firmly
believe it is for the best, and though my heart may break, I will
not repine.
I regret, beyond expression, that any man should be a loser for
having trusted to my name; it would not have been so, if I had not
myself been deceived. As it is, I am gratified in knowing that all
my individual obligations will be met. It would have been much
better if clock creditors had accepted the best offer that it was
in my power to make them; but it was not so to be. It is now too
late, and as I willingly give up all I possess, I can do no more.
Wherever my future lot may be cast, I shall ever fondly cherish the
kindness which I have always received from the citizens of
Bridgeport.
I am, my dear Sir, truly yours,
P. T. BARNUM.
Shortly after this sympathetic meeting, a number of gentlemen in
Bridgeport offered me a loan of $50,000 if that sum would be
instrumental in extricating me from my entanglement. I could not say
that this amount would meet the exigency; I could only say, “wait, wait,
and hope.”
Meanwhile, my eyes were fully opened to the entire magnitude of the
deception that had been practised upon my too confiding nature. I not
only discovered that my notes had been used to five times the amount I
stipulated or expected, but that they had been applied, not to relieving
the company from temporary embarrassment after my connection with it,
but almost wholly to the redemption of old and rotten claims of years
and months gone by. To show the extent to which the fresh victim was
deliberately bled, it may be stated that I was induced to become surety
to one of the New Haven banks in the sum of $30,000 to indemnify the
bank against future losses it might incur from the Jerome company after
my connection with it, and by some legerdemain this bond was made to
cover past obligations which were older even than my knowledge of the
existence of the company. In every way it seemed as if I had been
cruelly swindled and deliberately defrauded.
As the clock company had gone to pieces and was paying but from twelve
to fifteen per cent for its paper, I sent two of my friends to New Haven
to ask for a meeting of the creditors and I instructed them to say in
substance for me as follows:
“Gentlemen: This is a capital practical joke! Before I negotiated with
your clock company at all, I was assured by several of you, and
particularly by a representative of the bank which was the largest
creditor of the concern, that the Jerome company was eminently
responsible and that the head of the same was uncommonly pious. On the
strength of such representations solely, I was induced to agree to
indorse and accept paper for that company to the extent of $110,000--no
more. That sum I am now willing to pay for my own verdancy, with an
additional sum of $40,000 for your ‘cuteness, making a total of
$150,000, which you can have if you cry ‘quits’ with the fleeced showman
and let him off.”
Many of the old creditors favored this proposition; but it was found
that the indebtedness was so scattered it would be impracticable to
attempt a settlement by an unanimous compromise of the creditors. It was
necessary to liquidation that my property should go into the hands of
assignees; I therefore at once turned over my Bridgeport property to
Connecticut assignees and I removed my family to New York, where I also
made an assignment of all my real and personal estate, excepting what
had already been transferred in Connecticut.
About this time I received a letter from Philadelphia proferring $500 in
case my circumstances were such that I really stood in need of help. The
very wording of the letter awakened the suspicion in my mind that it was
a trick to ascertain whether I really had any property, for I knew that
banks and brokers in that city held some of my Jerome paper which they
refused to compound or compromise. So I at once wrote that I did need
$500, and, as I expected, the money did not come, nor was my letter
answered; but, as a natural consequence, the Philadelphia bankers who
were holding the Jerome paper for a higher percentage at once acceded to
the terms which I had announced myself able and willing to pay.
Every dollar which I honestly owed on my own account I had already paid
in full or had satisfactorily arranged. For the liabilities incurred by
the deliberate deception which had involved me I offered such a
percentage as I thought my estate, when sold, would eventually pay; and
my wife, from her own property, advanced from time to time money to take
up such notes as could be secured upon these terms. It was, however, a
slow process. More than one creditor would hold on to his note, which
possibly he had “shaved” at the rate of two or three per cent a month,
and say:
“Oh! you can’t keep Barnum down; he will dig out after a while; I shall
never sell my claim for less than par and interest.”
Of course, I knew very well that if all the creditors took this view I
should never get out of the entanglement in which I had been involved by
the old creditors of the Jerome Company, who had so ingeniously managed
to make me take their place. All I could do was to take a thorough
survey of the situation, and consider, now that I was down, how I could
get up again.
“Every cloud,” says the proverb, “has a silver lining,” and so I did not
despair. “This blow,” I thought “may be beneficial to my children, if
not to me.” They had been brought up in luxury; accustomed to call on
servants to attend to every want; and almost unlimited in the
expenditure of money. My daughter Helen, especially, was naturally
extravagant. She was a warm-hearted, generous girl, who knew literally
nothing of the value of money and the difficulty of acquiring it. At
this time she was fifteen years old, and was attending a French boarding
school in the City of Washington. A few days after the news of my
failure was published in the papers, my friend, the Rev. Dr. E. H.
Chapin, of New York, was at my house. He had long been intimate with my
family, and was well acquainted with the extravagant ideas and ways of
my daughter Helen. One morning, I received a letter from her, filled
with sympathy and sorrow for my misfortunes. She told me how much
shocked she was at hearing of my financial disasters, and added: “Do
send for me immediately, for I cannot think of remaining here at an
expense which my parents cannot afford. I have learned to play the piano
well enough to be able to take some little girls as pupils, and in this
way I can be of some assistance in supporting the family.”
On reading this I was deeply affected; and, handing the letter to Dr.
Chapin, I said: “There, sir, is a letter which is worth ten thousand
dollars.”
“Twenty thousand, at the least!” was the exclamation of the Doctor when
he had read it.
We were now living in a very frugal manner in a hired furnished house in
Eighth Street, near Sixth Avenue, in New York, and our landlady and her
family boarded with us. At the age of forty-six, after the acquisition
and the loss of a handsome fortune, I was once more nearly at the bottom
of the ladder, and was about to begin the world again. The situation was
disheartening, but I had energy, experience, health and hope.