XL. MY WAR ON THE RAILROADS
SCENES IN THE LEGISLATURE--SHARP-SHOOTING--PROPOSITIONS FOR A NEW CAPITAL OF CONNECTICUT--THE RIVALRY OF CITIES--CULMINATION OF THE RAILROAD CONTROVERSY--EXCITEMENT AMONG THE LOBBYISTS--A BILL FOR THE BENEFIT OF COMMUTERS--PEOPLE PROTECTED FROM THE PLUNDERERS--HOW SETTLERS ARE DRAWN INTO A STATE AND THEN CHEATED BY THE RAILROAD COMPANIES--EQUAL RIGHTS FOR COMMUTERS AND TRANSIENT PASSENGERS--WHAT COMMODORE VANDERBILT DID--WHAT THE NEW YORK AND NEW HAVEN RAILROAD COMPANY WANTED TO DO--EXPOSURE OF THEIR PLOT--CONSTERNATION OF THE CONSPIRATORS--MY VICTORY--AGAIN ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE--UNITED STATES SENATOR FERRY--EX-GOVERNOR W. A. BUCKINGHAM--THEODORE TILTON--GOVERNOR HAWLEY--FRIENDS AT LINDENCROFT--NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS AND DEFEATED.
During my membership in the Connecticut Legislature of 1865, I made several new friends and agreeable acquaintances, and many things occurred, sometimes in the regular proceedings, and sometimes as episodes, which made the session memorable. On one occasion, a representative, who was a lawyer, introduced resolutions to reduce the number of Representatives, urging that the “House” was too large and ponderous a body to work smoothly; that a smaller number of persons could accomplish business more rapidly and completely; and, in fact, that the Connecticut Legislature was so large that the members did not have time to get acquainted with each other before the body adjourned sine die.
I replied, that the larger the number of representatives, the more difficult it would be to tamper with them; and if they all could not become personally acquainted, so much the better, for there would be fewer “rings,” and less facilities for forcing improper legislation.
“As the house seems to be thin now, I will move to lay my resolutions on the table,” remarked the member; “but I shall call them up when there is a full house.”
“According to the gentleman’s own theory,” I replied, “the smaller the number, the surer are we to arrive at correct conclusions. Now, therefore, is just the time to decide; and I move that the gentleman’s resolutions be considered.” This proposition was seconded amid a roar of laughter; and the resolutions were almost unanimously voted down, before the member fairly comprehended what was going on. He afterwards acknowledged it as a pretty fair joke, and at any rate, as an effective one.
The State House at Hartford was a disgrace to Connecticut; the Hall of Representatives was too small; there were no committee rooms, and the building was utterly unfit for the purposes to which it was devoted. The State House at New Haven was very little better, and I made a strong effort to secure the erection of new edifices in both cities. I was chairman of the committee on new State Houses, and during our investigations it was ascertained that Bridgeport, Middletown and Meriden would each be willing to erect a State House at its own cost, if the city should be selected as the new capital of the State. These movements aroused the jealousy of Hartford and New Haven, which at once appointed committees to wait upon us. The whole matter, however, finally went by default, and the question was never submitted to the people. It is quite possible, however, that ere long the citizens of Bridgeport or Meriden will offer to build a capitol, and that one of these two cities with the entire consent of the rest of the State, including the inhabitants of Hartford and New Haven, will become the capital of Connecticut.
As the session drew near its close, the railroad controversy culminated by my introduction of a bill to amend the act for the regulation of railroads by the interpolation of the following:
SECTION 508. No railroad company, which has had a system of commutation fares in force for more than four years, shall abolish, alter, or modify the same, except for the regulation of the price charged for such commutation; and such price shall, in no case, be raised to an extent that shall alter the ratio between such commutation and the rates then charged for way fare, on the railroad of such company.
The New York and New Haven Railroad Company seemed determined to move heaven and earth to prevent the passage of this law. The halls of legislation were thronged with railroad lobbyists, who button-holed nearly every member. My motives were attacked, and the most foolish slanders were circulated. Not only every legal man in the house was arrayed against me, but occasionally a “country member” who had promised to stick by and aid in checking the cupidity of railroad managers, would drop off, and be found voting on the other side. I devoted many hours, and even days, to explaining the true state of things to the members from the rural regions, and although the prospect of carrying this great reform looked rather dark, I felt that I had a majority of the honest and disinterested members of the house with me. Finally, Senator Ballard informed me that he had canvassed the Senate and was convinced that the bill could be carried through that body if I could be equally successful with the house. At last it was known that the final debate would take place and the vote be taken on the morning of July 13.
When the day arrived the excitement was intense. The passages leading to the hall were crowded with railroad lobbyists; for nearly every railroad in the State had made common cause with the New York and New Haven Company, and every representative was in his seat, excepting the sick man, who had doctored the railroads till he needed doctoring himself. The debate was led off by skirmishers on each side, and was finally closed on the part of the railroads by Mr. Harrison, of New Haven, who was chairman of the railroad committee. Mr. Henry B. Harrison was a close and forcible debater and a clear-headed lawyer. His speech exhibited considerable thought, and his earnestness and high character as a gentleman of honor, carried much weight. Besides, his position as chairman of the committee naturally influenced some votes. He claimed to understand thoroughly the merits of the question, from having, in his capacity as chairman, heard all the testimony and arguments which had come before that committee; and a majority of the committee, after due deliberation, had reported against the proposed bill.
On closing the debate, I endeavored to state briefly the gist of the case,--that, only a few years before, the New York and New Haven Company had fixed their own price for commuters’ tickets along the whole line of the road, and had thus induced hundreds of New York citizens to remove to Connecticut with their families, and build their houses on heretofore unimproved property, thus vastly increasing the value of the lands, and correspondingly helping our receipts for taxes. I urged that there was a tacit understanding between the railroad and these commuters and the public generally, that such persons as chose thus to remove from a neighboring State, and bring their families and capital within our borders, should have the right to pass over the railroad on the terms fixed at the time by the president and directors;--that any claim that the railroad could not afford to commute at the prices they had themselves established was absurd, from the fact that even now, if one thousand families who reside in New York, and had never been in our own State, should propose to the railroad to remove these families (embracing in the aggregate five thousand persons), to Connecticut, and build one thousand new houses on the line of the New York and New Haven Railroad, provided the railroad would carry the male head of the family at all times for nothing, the company could well afford to accept the proposition, because they would receive full prices for transporting all other members of these families, at all times, as well as full prices for all their visitors and servants.
And now, what are the facts? Do we desire the railroad to carry even one-fifth of these new comers for nothing? Do we, indeed, desire to compel them to transport them for any definitely fixed price at all? On the contrary, we find that during the late rebellion, when gold was selling for two dollars and eighty cents per dollar, this company doubled its prices of commutation, and retains the same prices now, although gold is but one half that amount ($1.40). We don’t ask them to go back to their former prices; we don’t compel them to rest even here; we simply say, increase your rates, pile up your demands just as high as you desire, only you shall not make fish of one and fowl of another. You have fixed and increased your prices to passengers of all classes just as you liked, and established your own ratio between those who pay by the year, and those who pay by the single trip; and now, all we ask is, that you shall not change the ratio. Charge ten dollars per passenger from New York to New Haven, if you have the courage to risk the competition of the steamboats; and whatever percentage you choose to increase the fare of transient passengers, we permit you to increase the rates of commuters in the same ratio.
The interests of the State, as well as commuters, demand this law; for if it is once fixed by statute that the prices of commutation are not to be increased, many persons will leave the localities where extortion is permitted on the railroads, and will settle in our State. But these railroad gentlemen say they have no intention to increase their rates of commutation, and they deprecate what they term “premature legislation,” and an uncalled for meddling with their affairs. Mr. Speaker, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Men engaged in plots against public interests always ask to be “let alone.” Jeff Davis only asked to be “let alone,” when the North was raising great armies to prevent the dissolution of the Union. The people cannot afford to let these railroads alone. This hall, crowded with railroad lobbyists, as the frogs thronged Egypt, is an admonition to all honest legislators, that it is unsafe to allow the monopolies the chance to rivet the chains which already fetter the limbs of those whom circumstances place in the power of these companies.
It was at this point in my remarks when I received the telegram from my son-in-law in New York, announcing the burning of the American Museum. Reading the despatch, and laying it on my desk without further attention, I continued:
These railroad gentlemen absolutely deny any intention of raising the fares of commuters, and profess to think it very hard that disinterested and conscientious gentlemen like them should be judged by the doings of the Hudson River and Harlem Railroads. But now, Mr Speaker, I am going to expose the duplicity of these men. I have had detectives on their track, for men who plot against public interests deserve to be watched. I have in my pocket positive proofs that they did, and do, intend to spring their trap upon the unprotected commuters on the New York and New Haven Railroad.
I then drew from my pocket and read two telegrams received that morning, one from New York and the other from Bridgeport, announcing that the New York and New Haven Railroad Directory had held a secret meeting in New York, the day before, for the purpose of immediately raising the fares of commuters twenty per cent, so that in case my bill became a law they could get ahead of me. I continued:
Now, Mr. Speaker, I know that these despatches are true; my information is from the inside of the camp. I see a director of the New York and New Haven Railroad sitting in this hall; I know that he knows these despatches are true; and if he will go before the railroad committee and make oath that he don’t know that such a meeting took place yesterday for exactly this purpose, I will forfeit and pay one thousand dollars to the families of poor soldiers in this city. In consideration of this attempt to forestall the action of this legislature, I offer an amendment to the bill now under consideration by adding after the word “ratio,” the words “as it existed on the first day of July, 1865.” In this way, we shall cut off any action which these sleek gentlemen may have taken yesterday. It is now evident that these railroad gentlemen have set a trap for this legislature; and I propose that we now spring the trap, and see if we cannot catch these wily railroad directors in it. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question.
The opposition were astounded at the revelation and the previous question was ordered. The bill as amended was carried almost with a “hurrah.” It is now an act in the statute book of the State, and it annually adds many dollars to the assessment roll of Connecticut, since the protection afforded to commuters against the extortions practised by railway companies elsewhere is a strong inducement to permanent settlers along the lines of Connecticut railways.[C]
[C] The New York and New Haven Railroad Company never forgave me for thus securing a righteous law for the protection of its commuters. Even as lately as 1871, the venders of books on the trains were prohibited from selling to passengers this book which exposes their cupidity. A parallel railroad from New York to New Haven would be good paying stock, and would materially disturb, if not destroy, the present railroad and express monopolies.
In the spring of 1866, I was again elected to represent the town of Fairfield in the Connecticut Legislature. I had not intended to accept a nomination for that office a second time, but one of the directors of the New York and New Haven Railroad, who was a citizen of Fairfield and had been a zealous lobby member of the preceding legislature, had declared that I should not represent the town again. As the voters of Fairfield seemed to think that the public interests were of more importance than the success of railroad conspiracies, combinations, and monopolies, I accepted their nomination.
Almost the only exciting question before that legislature was the election of an United States Senator. President Johnson had begun to show disaffection towards the Republican party which elected him, and the zealous members of that party were watching with anxious hearts the actions of those who offered themselves as candidates for offices of trust and responsibility. One of the Republican United States Senators had already abandoned the party and affiliated with Johnson. The other Senator was a candidate for re-election. He had been a favorite candidate with me, but when I became convinced that he sympathized with the recreant Senator and President Johnson, no importunities of political friends or any other inducement could change my determination to defeat him, if possible. I devoted days and nights to convincing some of my fellow numbers that the interests of the State and the country demanded the election of Hon. O. S. Ferry to that important office.
Excitement ran high. Ex-Governor Wm. A. Buckingham was also a candidate. I knew he would make an excellent Senator but he had filled the gubernatorial chair for eight years; and as the present senator had held his office twelve years, and he was from the same city as Governor Buckingham, I urged that Norwich should not carry off all the honors; that Fairfield County was entitled to the office; and both before and at the Republican nominating caucus I set forth, so far as I was able, what I considered the merits and peculiar claims of Mr. Ferry. I suggested that Mr. Buckingham might rest on his laurels for a couple of years and be elected to fill the place of the next retiring senator in 1868. Mr. Ferry started in the ballotings with a very small vote indeed, and it required the most delicate management to secure a majority for him in that caucus. But it was done; and as the great strife was between the two other rival candidates, Mr. Ferry had scarcely a hope of the nomination and was much surprised the next morning to hear of his success. He was elected for the term beginning March 4, 1866, and one of his opposing candidates in the caucus ex-Governor William A. Buckingham, was elected, two years afterwards, for the senatorial term commencing March 4, 1869.
I was again chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and on the whole the session at New Haven, in 1866, was very agreeable to me; there were many congenial spirits in the House and our severer labors were lightened by some very delightful episodes.
During the summer, Governor Hawley, Hon. David Gallup, Speaker of the House, Hon. O. S. Ferry, U. S. Senator, Mr. W. G. Coe, of Winsted, Mr. A. B. Mygatt, of New Milford, Mr. Theodore Tilton, editor of the New York Independent, Mr. George Pratt, of Norwich, Mr. S. H. Wales, of the Scientific American, Mr. David Clark, of Hartford, Mr. A. H. Byington, of Norwalk, and many other gentlemen of distinction were occasional guests at Lindencroft. Several times we had delightful sails, dinners, and clam-bakes at Charles Island, eight miles east of Bridgeport, a most cool and charming spot in the warm summer days. The health of my wife, which had been poor since 1855, prevented many occasions of festivity for which I had all other facilities; for Lindencroft was indeed a charming residence, and it afforded every requisite for the entertainment of large numbers of friends.
During the summer Governor Hawley appointed me a commissioner to the Paris Exposition, but I was unable to attend.
In the spring of 1867, I received from the Republican convention in the Fourth District in Connecticut the nomination for Congress. As I have already remarked, politics were always distasteful to me. I possess naturally too much independence of mind, and too strong a determination to do what I believe to be right, regardless of party expediency, to make a lithe and oily politician. To be called on to favor applications from office-seekers, without regard to their merits, and to do the dirty work too often demanded by political parties; to be “all things to all men” though not in the apostolic sense; to shake hands with those whom I despised, and to kiss the dirty babies of those whose votes were courted, were political requirements which I felt I could never acceptably fulfil. Nevertheless, I had become, so far as business was concerned, almost a man of leisure; and some of my warmest personal friends insisted that a nomination to so high and honorable a position as a member of Congress, was not to be lightly rejected, and so I consented to run. Fairfield and Litchfield counties composed the district, which in the preceding Congressional election, in 1865, and just after the close of the war, was republican. In the year following, however, the district in State election went democratic, although the republican State ticket was elected. I had this democratic majority to contend against in 1867, and as the whole State turned over and elected the democratic ticket, I lost my election. In the next succeeding Congressional election, in 1869, the Fourth District also elected the only democratic congressman chosen from Connecticut that year, although the State itself was republican again by a considerable majority.
I was neither disappointed nor cast down by my defeat. The political canvass served the purpose of giving me a new sensation, and introducing me to new phases of human nature,--a subject which I had always great delight in studying. The filth and scandal, the slanders and vindictiveness, the plottings and fawnings, the fidelity, treachery, meanness and manliness, which by turns exhibited themselves in the exciting scenes preceding the election, were novel to me, and were so far interesting. My personal efforts in the canvass were mainly confined to the circulation of documents, and I did not spend a dollar to purchase a vote.
Shortly after my opponent was nominated, I sent him the following letter, which was also published in the Bridgeport Standard:
BRIDGEPORT, CONN., Feb. 21, 1867.
W. H. BARNUM, Esq., Salisbury, Conn.
DEAR SIR: Observing that the democratic party has nominated you for Congress from this district, I desire to make you a proposition.
The citizens of this portion of our State will be compelled on the first Monday in April next, to decide whether you or myself shall represent their interests and their principles in the Fortieth Congress of the United States.
The theory of our government is, that the will of the people shall be the law of the land. It is important, therefore, that the people shall vote understandingly, and especially at this important crisis in our national existence. In order, that the voters of this district shall fully comprehend the principles by which each of their congressional candidates is guided, I respectfully invite you to meet me in a serious and candid discussion of the important political issues of the day, at various towns in the Fourth Congressional District of Connecticut, on each week day evening, from the fourth day of March until the thirtieth day of the same month, both inclusive.
If you will consent to thus meet me in a friendly discussion of those subjects, now so near and dear to every American heart, and, I may add, possessing at this time such momentous interest to all civilized nations in the world, who are suffering from misrule, I pledge myself to conduct my portion of the debate with perfect fairness, and with all due respect for my opponent, and doubt not you will do the same.
Never, in my judgment, in our past history as a nation, have interests and questions more important appealed to the people for their wise and careful consideration. It is due to the voters of the Fourth Congressional District that they have an early and full opportunity to examine their candidates in regard to these important problems, and I shall esteem it a great privilege if you will accept this proposition.
Please favor me with an early answer, and oblige,
Truly yours,
P. T. BARNUM.
To this letter Mr. William H. Barnum replied, declining to accept my proposition to go before the people of the district, and discuss the political questions of the day.
During the canvass I received the following letter, which, together with my reply, was published in the Bridgeport Standard and in the New York Tribune:
LITCHFIELD CO., Conn., Feb. 20, 1867.
P. T. BARNUM.--Dear Sir: Although Fairfield County was entitled to the nomination of the copperhead candidate for Congress from the Fourth District, and under ordinary circumstances it would have been given to William F. Taylor, of Danbury, you are, perhaps, aware that they have changed their tactics and nominated a wealthy namesake of yours, simply for the purpose of using his money against you. A democratic ex-Congressman is said to be preparing a tariff of prices to be paid for votes, and they boast that their candidate will expend $50,000 to secure his election. Already, I am credibly informed, the greenbacks are being freely circulated by his friends. I write to ask what your intentions are in regard to counteracting this effort of the copperhead party. Do you intend to fight fire with fire? The day of election is fast approaching, and we are confident of success, as all our friends are wide awake.
Respectfully yours, ---- ----
The New York Tribune, commenting upon the correspondence, said:
Mr. P. T. Barnum, Union candidate for Congress in the Fourth District of Connecticut, was lately solicited by a friend to spend money in a manner deemed objectionable by Mr. Barnum, and he responded as became a patriot.
The following was my reply to the above letter:
BRIDGEPORT, Feb. 23, 1867.
---- ESQ.--Dear Sir: Your kind letter of the 20th inst. has caused me painful emotions. I now wish to say, once for all, that under no conceivable circumstances will I permit a dollar of mine to be used to purchase a vote, or to induce a voter to act contrary to his honest convictions.
The idea that the intelligent reading men of New England can be bought like sheep in the shambles, and that the sacred principles which have so far guided them in the terrible struggle between liberty and slavery can now, in this eventful hour of national existence, be set up at auction and knocked down to the highest bidder, seems to me as preposterous as it is shameful and humiliating. But if it is possible that occasionally a degraded voter can thus be induced to “sell his birthright for a mess of pottage,” God grant that I may be a thousand times defeated sooner than permit one grain of gold to be accursed by using it so basely!
I will not believe that American citizens can lend themselves to the contemptible meanness of sapping the very life-blood of our noble institutions by encouraging a fatal precedent, which ignores all principle, and would soon prevent any honest man, however distinguished for his intelligence and loyalty, from representing his district in our national councils. None could then succeed except unprincipled vagabonds, who, by the lavish expenditure of money, would debauch and degrade the freemen whose votes they coveted.
No, sir! Grateful as I am for the distinguished honor of receiving a unanimous nomination for Congress from the loyal Union party in my district, I have no aspiration for that high position if it is only to be attained by bringing into disgrace the noble privilege of the free elective franchise. Think for a moment what a deadly weapon is being placed in the hands of tyrants throughout the civilized world, with which to destroy such apostles of liberty as John Bright and Garibaldi, if it can be said with truth that American citizens have become so corrupt and degraded, so lost to a just estimate of the value and true nobility of the ballot, that it is bought and sold for money.
My dear sir, any party that can gain a temporary ascendancy by such atrocious means, not only poisons the body politic of a free and impartial government, but is also sure to bring swift destruction upon itself. And so it should be.
I am unaccustomed to political life, and know but little of the manner of conducting a campaign like the present. I believe, however, it is customary for the State Central Committee to assess candidates, in order that they shall defray a proper portion of the expenses incurred for speakers and documents to enlighten the voters upon the political issues of the day. To that extent I am willing and anxious to be taxed; for “light and knowledge” are always desired by the friends of human rights and of public order.
But I trust that all money used for any other purpose, in the pending election will come from the pockets of those who now (as during the rebellion) are doing their utmost to aid traitors, and who, still unrepenting, are vindictively striving to secure at the ballot-box what their Southern allies failed to accomplish on the field of battle. If any of our friends misapprehend my true sentiments upon the subject of bribery, corruption and fraud, I hope you will read them this letter.
Truly yours,
P. T. BARNUM.
P. S.--The following is the law of Connecticut on the bribery of electors:
SECTION 64. No person shall offer or receive any money, or other thing, by way of gift, fee or reward, for giving, or refusing to give, a vote for electing members of the General Assembly, or any officer chosen at an electors’ meeting, nor promise, procure, or in any way confer, any gratuity, reward or preferment, for any vote given or to be given, in any election; and every person guilty of so doing shall forfeit the sum of $17, one-half to him who shall prosecute to effect, and the other half to the treasury of the town where the offence is committed, and every person who shall be convicted a second time of a like offence shall be disfranchised.
That section commends itself to the obedience of every law-abiding voter, and I shall be the last to consent to its violation.
P. T. B.
When Congress met, I was surprised to see by the newspapers that the seat of my opponent was to be contested on account of alleged bribery, fraud and corruption in securing his election. This was the first intimation that I had ever received of such an intention, and I was never, at any time before or afterwards, consulted upon the subject. The movement proved to have originated with neighbors and townsmen of the successful candidate, who claimed to be able to prove that he had paid large sums of money to purchase votes. They also claimed that they had proof that men were brought from an adjoining State to vote, and that in the office of the successful candidate naturalization papers were forged to enable foreigners to vote upon them. But, I repeat, I took no part nor lot in the matter, but concluded that if I had been defeated by fraud, mine was the real success.
XLI. BENNETT AND THE HERALD
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM LEASE--ITS VALUE--BENNETT OF THE HERALD BUYS IT FOR $200,000--HE PURCHASES THE PROPERTY--OVERESTIMATE OF ITS WORTH--MAX MARETZEK--MISS CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG’S ESTIMATE OF CERTAIN PEOPLE--THE POWER BEHIND THE HERALD THRONE--THE HERALD’S INFLUENCE--BENNETT KICKED AND COWHIDED--HIS LAWYER INSISTS UPON MY TAKING BACK THE MUSEUM LEASE--I DECLINE--BENNETT REFUSES MY ADVERTISEMENTS--INTERVIEW WITH MR. HUDSON--WAR OF THE MANAGERS UPON THE HERALD--BENNETT HUMBLED--LOSS OF THE HERALD’S PRESTIGE--MONEY--DAMAGE TO BENNETT’S ESTABLISHMENT--THE EDITOR SUED--PEACE BETWEEN THE HERALD AND THE MANAGERS.
When the old American Museum burned down, and while the ruins were still smoking, I had numerous applications for the purchase of the lease of the two lots, fifty-six by one hundred feet, which had still nearly eleven years to run. It will be remembered that in 1847 I came back from England, while my second lease of five years had yet three years more to run, and renewed that lease for twenty-five years from 1851 at an annual rental of $10,000. It was also stipulated that in case the building was destroyed by fire the proprietor of the property should expend twenty-four thousand dollars towards the erection of a new edifice, and at the end of the term of lease he was to pay me the appraised value of the building, not to exceed $100,000. Rents and real estate values had trebled since I took this twenty-five years’ lease, and hence the remaining term was very valuable. I engaged an experienced and competent real estate broker in Pine Street to examine the terms of my lease, and in view of his knowledge of the cost of erecting buildings and the rentals they were commanding in Broadway, I enjoined him to take his time, and make a careful estimate of what the lease was worth to me, and what price I ought to receive if I sold it to another party. At the end of several days, he showed me his figures, which proved that the lease was fully worth $275,000. As I was inclined to have a museum higher up town, I did not wish to engage in erecting two buildings at once, so I concluded to offer my museum lease for sale. Accordingly, I put it into the hands of Mr. Homer Morgan, with directions to offer it for $225,000, which was $50,000 less than the value at which it had been estimated.
The next day I met Mr. James Gordon Bennett, who told me that he desired to buy my lease, and at the same time to purchase the fee of the museum property, for the erection thereon of a publication building for the New York Herald. I said I thought it was very fitting the Herald should be the successor of the Museum; and Mr. Bennett asked my price.
“Please to go or send immediately to Homer Morgan’s office,” I replied, “and you will learn that Mr. Morgan has the lease for sale at $225,000. This is $50,000 less than its estimated value; but to you I will deduct $25,000 from my already reduced price, so you may have the lease for $200,000.”
Bennett replied that he would look into the affair closely; and the next day his attorney sent for my lease. He kept it several days, and then appointed an hour for me to come to his office. I called according to appointment. Mr. Bennett and his attorney had thoroughly examined the lease. It was the property of my wife. Bennett concluded to accept my offer. My wife assigned the lease to him, and his attorney handed me Mr. Bennett’s check on the Chemical Bank for $200,000. That same day I invested $50,000 in United States bonds; and the remaining $150,000 was similarly invested on the following day. I learned at that time that Bennett had agreed to purchase the fee of the property for $500,000. He had been informed that the property was worth some $350,000 to $400,000, and he did not mind paying $100,000 extra for the purpose of carrying out his plans. But the parties who estimated for him the value of the land knew nothing of the fact that there was a lease upon the property, else of course they would in their estimate have deducted the $200,000 which the lease would cost. When, therefore, Mr. Bennett saw it stated in the newspapers that the sum which he had paid for a piece of land measuring only fifty-six by one hundred feet was more than was ever before paid in any city in the world for a tract of that size, he discovered the serious oversight which he had made; and the owner of the property was immediately informed that Bennett would not take it. But Bennett had already signed a bond to the owner, agreeing to pay $100,000 cash, and to mortgage the premises for the remaining $400,000.
Supposing that by this step he had shaken off the owner of the fee, Bennett was not long in seeing that, as he was not to own the land, he would have no possible use for the lease, for which he had paid the $200,000; and accordingly his next step was to shake me off also, and get back the money he had paid me.
At this time Bennett was ruling the managers of the theatres and other amusements with a rod of iron. He had established a large job printing office in connection with the Herald office; and woe to the manager who presumed to have his bills printed elsewhere. Any manager who dared to decline employing Bennett’s job office to print his small bills and posters, at Bennett’s exorbitant prices, was ignored in the Herald; his advertisements were refused, and generally, he and his establishment were black-balled and blackguarded in the columns of the Herald. Of course most of the managers were somewhat sensitive to such attacks, and therefore submitted to his impositions in the job office, his double price for newspaper advertisements, and any other overbearing conditions the Herald might choose to dictate. The advertisements of the Academy of Music, then under the direction of Mr. Max Maretzek, had been refused on account of some dissatisfaction in the Herald office in regard to free boxes, and also because the prima donna, Miss Clara Louise Kellogg, had certain ideas of her own with regard to social intercourse with certain people, as Miss Jenny Lind had with regard to the same people, when she was under my management, and to some degree under my advice, and these ideas were not particularly relished by the power behind the Herald throne.
For my own part, I thoroughly understood Bennett and his concern, and I never cared one farthing for him or his paper. I had seen for years, especially as Bennett’s enormously overestimated “influence” applied to public amusements, that whatever the Herald praised, sickened, drooped, and if the Herald persisted in praising it, finally died; while whatever the Herald attacked prospered, and all the more, the more it was abused. It was utterly impossible for Bennett to injure me, unless he had some more potent weapon than his Herald. And that this was the general opinion was quite evident from the fact that several years had elapsed since gentlemen were in the almost daily habit of cuffing, kicking and cowhiding Bennett in the streets and other public places for his scurrilous attacks upon them, or upon members of their families. It had come to be seen that what the Herald said, good or bad, was, like the editor himself, literally of “no account.”
My business for many years, as manager of the Museum and other public entertainments, compelled me to court notoriety; and I always found Bennett’s abuse far more remunerative than his praise, even if I could have had the praise at the same price, that is, for nothing. Especially was it profitable to me when I could be the subject of scores of lines of his scolding editorials free of charge, instead of paying him forty cents a line for advertisements, which would not attract a tenth part so much attention. Bennett had tried abusing me, off and on, for twenty years, on one occasion refusing my advertisement altogether for the space of about a year; but I always managed to be the gainer by his course. Now, however, when new difficulties threatened, all the leading managers in New York were members of the “Managers’ Association,” and as we all submitted to the arbitrary and extortionate demands of the Herald, Bennett thought he had but to crack his whip, in order to keep any and all of us within the traces. The great Ogre of the Herald supposed he could at all times frighten the little managerial boys into any holes which might be left open for them to hide in. Accordingly, one day Bennett’s attorney wrote me a letter, saying that he would like to have me call on him at his office the following morning. Not dreaming of the object I called as desired, and after a few pleasant commonplace remarks about the weather, and other trifles, the attorney said:
“Mr. Barnum, I have sent for you to say that Mr. Bennett has concluded not to purchase the museum lots, and therefore that you had better take back the lease, and return the $200,000 paid for it.”
“Are you in earnest?” I asked with surprise.
“Certainly, quite so,” he answered.
“Really,” I said, smiling, “I am sorry I can’t accommodate Mr. Bennett; I have not got the little sum about me; in fact, I have spent the money.”
“It will be better for you to take back the lease,” said the attorney seriously.
“Nonsense,” I replied, “I shall do nothing of the sort, I don’t make child’s bargains. The lease was cheap enough, but I have other business to attend to, and shall have nothing to do with it.”
The attorney said very little in reply; but I could see, by the almost benignant sorrow expressed upon his countenance, that he evidently pitied me for the temerity that would doubtless lead me into the jaws of the insatiable monster of the Herald. The next morning I observed that the advertisement of my entertainments with my Museum Company at Winter Garden was left out of the Herald columns. I went directly to the editorial rooms of the Herald; and learning that Bennett was not in, I said to Mr. Hudson, then managing editor:
“My advertisement is left out of the Herald; is there a screw loose?”
“I believe there is,” was the reply.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“You must ask the Emperor,” said Mr. Hudson, meaning of course Bennett.
“When will the ‘Emperor’ be in?” I inquired; “next Monday,” was the answer.
“Well, I shall not see him,” I replied; “but I wish to have this thing settled at once. Mr. Hudson, I now tender you the money for the insertion of my Museum advertisement on the same terms as are paid by other places of amusement, will you publish it?”
“I will not,” Mr. Hudson peremptorily replied.
“That is all,” I said. Mr. Hudson then smilingly and blandly remarked, “I have formally answered your formal demand, because I suppose you require it; but you know, Mr. Barnum, I can only obey orders.” I assured him that I understood the matter perfectly, and attached no blame to him in the premises. I then proceeded to notify the Secretary of the “Managers’ Association” to call the managers together at twelve o’clock the following day; and there was a full meeting at the appointed time. I stated the facts in the case in the Herald affair, and simply remarked, that if we did not make common cause against any newspaper publisher who excluded an advertisement from his columns simply to gratify a private pique, it was evident that either and all of us were liable to imposition at any time.
One of the managers immediately made a motion that the entire association should stop their advertising and bill printing at the Herald office, and have no further connection with that establishment. Mr. Lester Wallack advised that this motion should not be adopted until a committee had waited upon Bennett, and had reported the result of the interview to the Association. Accordingly, Messrs. Wallack, Wheatley and Stuart were delegated to go down to the Herald office to call on Mr. Bennett.
The moment Bennett saw them, he evidently suspected the object of their mission, for he at once commenced to speak to Mr. Wallack in a patronizing manner; told him how long he had known, and how much he respected his late father, who was “a true English gentleman of the old school,” with much more in the same strain. Mr. Wallack replied to Bennett that the three managers were appointed a committee to wait upon him to ascertain if he insisted upon excluding from his columns the Museum advertisements,--not on account of any objection to the contents of the advertisements, or to the Museum itself, but simply because he had a private business disagreement with the proprietor?--intimating that such a proceeding, for such a reason, and no other, might lead to a rupture of business relations with other managers. In reply, Mr. Bennett had something to say about the fox that had suffered tailwise from a trap, and thereupon advised all other foxes to cut their tails off; and he pointed the fable by setting forth the impolicy of drawing down upon the Association the vengeance of the Herald. The committee, however, coolly insisted upon a direct answer to their question.
Bennett then answered: “I will not publish Barnum’s advertisement; I do my business as I please, and in my own way.”
“So do we,” replied one of the managers, and the committee withdrew.
The next day the Managers’ Association met, heard the report, and unanimously resolved to withdraw their advertisements from the Herald, and their patronage from the Herald job establishment, and it was done. Nevertheless, the Herald for several days continued to print gratuitously the advertisements of Wallack’s Theatre and Niblo’s Garden, and inordinately puffed these establishments, evidently in order to ease the fall, and to convey the idea that some of the theatres patronized the Herald, and perhaps hoping by praising these managers to draw them back again, and so to nullify the agreement of the Association in regard to the Herald. Thereupon, the managers headed their advertisements in all the other New York papers with the line, “This Establishment does not advertise in the New York Herald,” and for many months this announcement was kept at the top of every theatrical advertisement and on the posters and playbills.
The Herald then began to abuse and vilify the theatrical and opera managers, their artists and their performances, and by way of contrast profusely praised Tony Pastor’s Bowery show, and Sundry entertainments of a similar character, thereby speedily bringing some of these side-shows to grief and shutting up their shops. Meanwhile, the first-class theatres prospered amazingly under the abuse of Bennett. Their receipts were never larger, and their houses, never more thronged. The public took sides in the matter with the managers and against the Herald, and thousands of people went to the theatres merely to show their willingness to support the managers and to spite “Old Bennett.” The editor was fairly caught in his own trap; other journals began to estimate the loss the Herald sustained by the action of the managers, and it was generally believed that this loss in advertising and job printing was not less than from $75,000 to $100,000 a year. The Herald’s circulation also suffered terribly, since hundreds of people, at the hotels and elsewhere, who were accustomed to buy the paper solely for the sake of seeing what amusements were announced for the evening, now bought other papers. This was the hardest blow of all, and it fully accounted for the abuse which the Herald daily poured out upon the theatres.
But the more Bennett raved the more the people laughed, and the more determined did they seem to patronize the managers. Many people came to the Museum, who said they came expressly to show us that the public were with us and against the Herald. The other managers stated their experience to be the same in this respect. In fact, it was a subject of general remark, that, without exception, the associated managers never had done such a thriving business as during the two years in which they gave the Herald the cold shoulder.
Bennett evidently felt ashamed of the whole transaction; he would never publish the facts in his columns, though he once stated in an editorial that it had been reported that he had been cheated in purchasing the Broadway property; that the case had gone to court, and the public would soon know all the particulars. Some persons supposed by this that Bennett had sued me; but this was far from being the case. The owner of the lots sued Bennett, to compel him to take the title and pay for the property as per agreement; and that was all the “law” there was about it. He held James Gordon Bennett’s bond, that he would pay him half a million of dollars for the land, as follows: $100,000 cash, and a bond and mortgage upon the premises for the remaining $400,000. The day before the suit was to come to trial, Bennett came forward, took the deed, and paid $100,000 cash and gave a bond and mortgage of the entire premises for $400,000. That lien still exists against the Herald property.
Had I really taken back the lease as Bennett desired, he would have been in a worse scrape than ever; for having been compelled to take the property, he would have been obliged, as my landlord, to go on and assist in building a Museum for me according to the terms of my lease, and a Museum I should certainly have built on Bennett’s property, even if I had owned a dozen Museums up town. As it was, Bennett was badly beaten on every side, and especially by the managers, who forever established the fact that the Herald’s abuse was profitable, and its patronage fatal to any enterprise; and who taught Mr. Bennett personally the lesson of his own insignificance, as he had not learned it since the days when gentlemen used to kick and cowhide him up and down the whole length of Nassau Street. In the autumn of 1868, the associated managers came to the conclusion that the punishment of Bennett for two years was sufficient, and they consented to restore their advertisements to the Herald. I was then associated with the Van Amburgh Company in my new Museum, and we concluded that the cost of advertising in the Herald was more than it was worth, and so we did not enter into the new arrangement made by the Managers’ Association.
XLII. PUBLIC LECTURING
MY TOUR AT THE WEST--THE CURIOSITY EXHIBITOR HIMSELF A CURIOSITY--BUYING A FARM IN WISCONSIN--HELPING THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES--A RIDE ON A LOCOMOTIVE--PUNCTUALITY IN MY ENGAGEMENTS--TRICKS TO SECURE SEATS IN THE LADIES’ CAR--I SUDDENLY BECAME FATHER TO A YOUNG MARRIED COUPLE--MY IDENTITY DENIED--PITY AND CHARITY--REVEREND DOCTOR CHAPIN PULLS THE BELL--TEMPERANCE--HOW I BECAME A TEETOTALER--MODERATE DRINKING AND ITS DANGERS--DOCTOR CHAPIN’S LECTURE IN BRIDGEPORT--MY OWN EFFORTS IN THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE--LECTURING THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY--NEWSPAPER ARTICLES--THE STORY OF VINELAND, IN NEW JERSEY.
During the summer of 1866, Mr. Edwin L. Brown, Corresponding Secretary of the “Associated Western Literary Societies,” opened a correspondence with me relative to delivering, in the ensuing season, my lecture on “Success in Life,” before some sixty lyceums, Young Men’s Christian Associations, and Literary Societies belonging to the union which Mr. Brown represented. The scheme embraced an extended tour through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, and I was to receive one hundred dollars for every repetition of my lecture, with all my travelling expenses on the route. Agreeing to these terms, I commenced the engagement at the appointed time, and, averaging five lectures a week, I finished the prescribed round just before New Year’s. Before beginning this engagement, however, I gave the lecture for other associations at Wheeling, Virginia, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Louisville, Kentucky. I also delivered the lecture in Chicago, for Professor Eastman, who at that time had one of his Business Colleges in that city. He engaged the celebrated Crosby Opera House for the occasion, and I think, with, perhaps, two exceptions, I never spoke before so large and intelligent an audience as was there assembled. It was estimated that from five to six thousand ladies and gentlemen were gathered in that capacious building; and nearly as many more went away unable to obtain admission. I was glad to observe by the action of the audience, and by the journals of the following day, that my efforts on that occasion were satisfactory. Indeed, though it is necessarily egotistical, I may truly say that with this lecture I always succeeded in pleasing my hearers. I may add, that I have invariably, as a rule, devoted to charitable purposes every penny I ever received for lecturing, except while I was under the great Jerome Clock cloud in England, when I needed all I could earn.
My western tour was delightful; indeed it was almost an ovation. I found, in fact, that when I had strayed so far from home, the curiosity exhibitor himself became quite a curiosity. On several occasions, in Iowa, I was introduced to ladies and gentlemen who had driven thirty miles in carriages to hear me. I insisted, however, that it was more to see than to hear; and I asked them if that was not really the case. In several instances they answered in the affirmative. In fact, one quaint old lady said: “Why, to tell you the truth, Mr. Barnum, we have read so much about you, and your Museum and your queer carryings-on, that we were not quite sure but you had horns and cloven feet, and so we came to satisfy our curiosity; but, la, me! I don’t see but what you look a good deal like other folks, after all.”
While at the West, I visited my sister, Mrs. Minerva Drew, and her family, at Bristol, Wisconsin, where they reside on a farm which I presented to her about twenty years ago. Her children having grown up and married, all except her son, Fairchild B. Drew, who had just attained his majority, his father (Ezekiel Drew) wished to retain his services on the farm. Fairchild, however, felt that the farm was not quite large enough for his aspirations. I found also that he coveted a neighboring farm, which, with its stock, was for sale for less than five thousand dollars. I bought it for him, on condition that he should continue the care of the old farm, and that the two should be worked together. I trust that the arrangement will prove beneficial to all concerned; for there is great pleasure in helping others who try to help themselves; without such effort on their part, all good offices in their favor are thrown away,--it is simply attempting to make a sieve hold water.
On my tour, in attempting to make the connection from Cleveland, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, via Toledo, I arrived at the latter city at one o’clock, P.M., which was about two hours too late to catch the train in time for the hour announced for my lecture that evening. I went to Mr. Andrews, the superintendent of the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway, and told him I wanted to hire a locomotive and car to run to Fort Wayne, as I must be there at eight o’clock at night.
“It is an impossibility,” said Mr. Andrews; “the distance is ninety-four miles, and no train leaves here till morning. The road is much occupied by freight trains, and we never run extra trains in this part of the country, unless the necessity is imperative.”
I suppose I looked astonished, as well as chagrined. I knew that if I missed lecturing in Fort Wayne that evening, I could not appoint another time for that purpose, for every night was engaged during the next two months. I also felt that a large number of persons in Fort Wayne would be disappointed, and I grew desperate. Drawing my wallet from my pocket, I said:
“I will give two hundred dollars, and even more, if you say so, to be put into Fort Wayne before eight o’clock to-night; and, really, I hope you will accommodate me.”
The superintendent looked me thoroughly over in half a minute, and I fancied he had come to the conclusion that I was a burglar, a counterfeiter, or something worse, fleeing from justice. My surmise was confirmed, when he slowly remarked:
“Your business must be very pressing, sir.”
“It is indeed,” I replied; “I am Barnum, the museum man, and am engaged to speak in Fort Wayne to-night.”
He evidently did not catch the whole of my response, for he immediately said:
“Oh, it is a show, eh? Where is old Barnum himself?”
“I am Barnum,” I replied, “and it is a lecture which I am advertised to give to-night; and I would not disappoint the people for anything.”
“Is this P. T. Barnum?” said the superintendent, starting to his feet.
“I am sorry to say it is,” I replied.
“Well, Mr. Barnum,” said he, earnestly, “if you can stand it to ride to Fort Wayne in the caboose of a freight train, your well-established reputation for punctuality in keeping your engagements shall not suffer on account of the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railroad.”
“Caboose!” said I, with a laugh, “I would ride to Fort Wayne astride of the engine, or boxed up and stowed away in a freight car, if necessary, in order to meet my engagement.”
A freight train was on the point of starting for Fort Wayne; all the cars were at once ordered to be switched off, except two, which the superintendent said were necessary to balance the train; the freight trains on the road were telegraphed to clear the track, and the polite superintendent pointing to the caboose, invited me to step in. I drew out my pocket-book to pay, but he smilingly shook his head, and said: “You have a through ticket from Cleveland to Fort Wayne; hand it to the freight agent on your arrival, and all will be right.” I was much moved by this unexpected mark of kindness, and expressing myself to that effect, I stepped into the caboose, and we started.
The excited state of mind which I had suffered while under the impression that the audience in Fort Wayne must be disappointed now changed, and I felt as happy as a king. In fact, I enjoyed a new sensation of imperial superiority, in that I was “monarch of all I surveyed,” emperor of my own train, switching all other trains from the main track, and making conductors all along the line wonder what grand mogul had thus taken complete possession and control of the road. Indeed, as we sped past each train, which stood quietly on a side track waiting for us to pass, I could not help smiling at the glances of excited curiosity which were thrown into our car by the agent and brakemen of the train which had been so peremptorily ordered to clear the track; and always stepping at the caboose door, I raised my hat, receiving in return an almost reverent salute, which the occupants of the waiting train thought due, no doubt, to the distinguished person for whom they were ordered by special telegram to make way.
I now began to reflect that the Fort Wayne lecture committee, upon discovering that I did not arrive by the regular passenger train, would not expect me at all, and that probably they might issue small bills announcing my failure to arrive. I therefore prepared the following telegram which I despatched to them on our arrival at Napoleon, the first station at which we stopped:
Lecture Committee, Fort Wayne:--Rest perfectly tranquil. I am to be delivered at Fort Wayne by contract by half-past seven o’clock--special train.
At the same station I received a telegram from Mr. Andrews, the superintendent, asking me how I liked the caboose. I replied:
The springs of the caboose are softer than down; I am as happy as a clam at high water; I am being carried towards Fort Wayne in a style never surpassed by Cæsar’s triumphal march into Rome. Hurrah for the Toledo and Wabash Railroad!
At the invitation of the engineer, I took a ride of twenty miles upon the locomotive. It fairly made my head swim. I could not reconcile my mind to the idea that there was no danger; and intimating to the engineer that it would be a relief to get where I could not see ahead, I was permitted to crawl back again to the caboose.
I reached Fort Wayne in ample time for the lecture; and as the committee had discreetly kept to themselves the fact of my non-arrival by the regular train, probably not a dozen persons were aware of the trouble I had taken to fulfil my engagement, till in the course of my lecture, under the head of “perseverance,” I recounted my day’s adventures, as an illustration of exercising that quality when real necessity demanded. The Fort Wayne papers of the next day published accounts of “Barnum on a Locomotive,” and “A Journey in a Caboose”; and as I always had an eye to advertising, these articles were sent marked to newspapers in towns and cities where I was to lecture, and of course were copied,--thus producing the desired effects, first, of informing the public that the “showman” was coming, and next, assuring the lecture committee that Barnum would be punctually on hand as advertised, unless prevented by “circumstances over which he had no control.”
The managers of railroads running west from Chicago pretty rigidly enforce a rule excluding from certain reserved cars all gentlemen travelling without ladies. As I do not smoke, I avoided the smoking cars; and as the ladies’ car was sometimes more select and always more comfortable than the other cars, I tried various expedients to smuggle myself in. If I saw a lady about to enter the car alone, I followed closely, hoping thus to elude the vigilance of the brakeman, who generally acted as door-keeper. But the car Cerberus is pretty well up to all such dodges, and I did not always succeed. On one occasion, seeing a young couple, evidently just married, and starting on a bridal tour, about to enter the car, I followed closely, but was stopped by the door-keeper, who called out:
“How many gentlemen are with this lady.”
I have always noticed that young newly-married people are very fond of saying “my husband” and “my wife;” they are new terms which sound pleasantly to the ears of those who utter them; so in answer to the peremptory inquiry of the door-keeper, the bridegroom promptly responded:
“I am this lady’s husband.”
“And I guess you can see by the resemblance between the lady and myself,” said I to Cerberus, “that I am her father.”
The astounded husband and the blushing bride were too much “taken aback” to deny their newly-discovered parent, but the brakeman said, as he permitted the young couple to pass into the car:
“We can’t pass all creation with one lady.”
“I hope you will not deprive me of the company of my child during the little time we can remain together,” I said with a demure countenance. The brakeman evidently sympathized with the fond “parient” whose feelings were sufficiently lacerated at losing his daughter through her finding a husband, and I was permitted to pass. I immediately apologized to the young bride and her husband, and told them who I was, and my reasons for the assumed paternity, and they enjoyed the joke so heartily that they called me “father” during our entire journey together. Indeed, the husband privately and slyly hinted to me that the first boy should be christened “P. T.” My friend the Rev. Dr. Chapin, by the by an inveterate punster, is never tired of ringing the changes on the names in my family; he says that my wife and I are the most sympathetic couple he ever saw, since she is “Charity” and I am “Pity” (P. T.) On one occasion, at my house in New York, he called my attention to the monogram, P. T. B., on the door and said, “I did it,” “Did what,” I asked: “Why that,” replied the doctor, “P. T. B.,--Pull The Bell, of course,” thus literally ringing a new change on my initials.
At another time during my western lecturing trip, I was following closely in the wake of a lady who was entering the favorite car, when the brakeman exclaimed; “You can’t go in there, sir!”
“I rather guess I can go in with a lady,” said I, pointing to the one who had just entered.
“Not with that lady, old fellow; for I happen to know her, and that is more than you do; we are up to all these travellers’ tricks out here; it’s no go.”
I saw indeed that it was “no go,” and that I must try something else; “Look here, my dear fellow,” said I; “I am travelling every day on the railroads, on a lecturing tour throughout the West, and I really hope you will permit me to take a seat in the ladies’ car. I am Barnum, the Museum man from New York.”
Looking sharply at me for an instant, the altogether too wide-awake brakeman exclaimed: “Not by a d--n sight you ain’t! I know Barnum!”
I could not help laughing; and pulling several old letters from my pocket, and showing him the directions on the envelopes, I replied:
“Well, you may know him, but the ‘old fellow’ has changed in his appearance, perhaps. You see by these letters that I am the ‘crittur.’”
The brakeman looked astonished, but finally said: “Well, that is a fact sure enough. I know you when I come to look again, but really I did not believe you at first. You see we have all sorts of tricks played on us, and we learn to doubt everybody. You are very welcome to go in, Mr. Barnum, and I am glad to see you,” and as this conversation was heard throughout the car, “Barnum, the showman,” was the subject of general observation and remark.
I fulfilled my entire engagement, which covered the lecturing season, and returned to New York greatly pleased with my Western tour. Public lecturing was by no means a new experience with me; for, apart from my labors in that direction in England, and occasional addresses before literary and agricultural associations at home, I had been prominently in the field for many years as a lecturer on temperance. My attention was turned to this subject in the following manner:
In the fall of 1847, while exhibiting General Tom Thumb at Saratoga Springs, where the New York State Fair was then being held, I saw so much intoxication among men of wealth and intellect, filling the highest positions in society, that I began to ask myself the question, What guarantee is there that I may not become a drunkard? and I forthwith pledged myself at that time never again to partake of any kind of spirituous liquors as a beverage. True, I continued to partake of wine, for I had been instructed, in my European tour, that this was one of the innocent and charming indispensables of life. I however regarded myself as a good temperance man, and soon began to persuade my friends to refrain from the intoxicating cup. Seeing need of reform in Bridgeport, I invited my friend, the Reverend Doctor E. H. Chapin, to visit us, for the purpose of giving a public temperance lecture. I had never heard him on that subject, but I knew that on whatever topic he spoke, he was as logical as he was eloquent.
He lectured in the Baptist Church in Bridgeport. His subject was presented in three divisions: The liquor-seller, the moderate drinker, and the indifferent man. It happened, therefore, that the second, if not the third clause of the subject, had a special bearing upon me and my position. The eloquent gentleman overwhelmingly proved that the so-called respectable liquor-seller, in his splendid saloon or hotel bar, and who sold only to “gentlemen,” inflicted much greater injury upon the community than a dozen common groggeries--which he abundantly illustrated. He then took up the “moderate drinker,” and urged that he was the great stumbling-block to the temperance reform. He it was, and not the drunkard in the ditch, that the young man looked at as an example when he took his first glass. That when the drunkard was asked to sign the pledge, he would reply, “Why should I do so? What harm can there be in drinking, when such men as respectable Mr. A, and moral Mr. B drink wine under their own roof?” He urged that the higher a man stood in the community, the greater was his influence either for good or for evil. He said to the moderate drinker: “Sir, you either do or you do not consider it a privation and a sacrifice to give up drinking. Which is it? If you say that you can drink or let it alone, that you can quit it forever without considering it a self-denial, then I appeal to you as a man, to do it for the sake of your suffering fellow-beings.” He further argued that if it was a self-denial to give up wine-drinking, then certainly the man should stop, for he was in danger of becoming a drunkard.
What Doctor Chapin said produced a deep impression upon my mind, and after a night of anxious thought, I rose in the morning, took my champagne bottles, knocked off their heads, and poured their contents upon the ground. I then called upon Doctor Chapin, asked him for the teetotal pledge, and signed it. He was greatly surprised in discovering that I was not already a teetotaler. He supposed such was the case, from the fact that I had invited him to lecture, and he little thought, at the time of his delivering it, that his argument to the moderate drinker was at all applicable to me. I felt that I had now a duty to perform,--to save others, as I had been saved, and on the very morning when I signed the pledge, I obtained over twenty signatures in Bridgeport. I talked temperance to all whom I met, and very soon commenced lecturing upon the subject in the adjacent towns and villages. I spent the entire winter and spring of 1851-2 in lecturing through my native State, always travelling at my own expense, and I was glad to know that I aroused many hundreds, perhaps thousands, to the importance of the temperance reform. I also lectured frequently in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, as well as in other towns in the neighboring States.
While in Boston with Jenny Lind, I was earnestly solicited to deliver two temperance lectures in the Tremont Temple, where she gave her concerts. I did so; and though an admission fee was charged for the benefit of a benevolent society, the building on each occasion was crowded. In the course of my tour with Jenny Lind, I was frequently solicited to lecture on temperance on evenings when she did not sing. I always complied when it was in my power. In this way I lectured in Baltimore, Washington, Charleston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and other cities, also in the ladies’ saloon of the steamer Lexington, on Sunday morning. In August, 1853, I lectured in Cleveland, Ohio, and several other towns, and afterwards in Chicago, Illinois, and in Kenosha, Wisconsin. An election was to be held in Wisconsin in October, and the friends of prohibition in that State solicited my services for the ensuing month, and I could not refuse them. I therefore hastened home to transact some business which required my presence for a few days, and then returned, and lectured on my way in Toledo, Norwalk, Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois. I made the tour of the State of Wisconsin, delivering two lectures per day for four consecutive weeks, to crowded and attentive audiences.
My lecture in New Orleans, when I was in that city, was in the great Lyceum Hall, in St. Charles Street, and I lectured by the invitation of Mayor Crossman and several other influential gentlemen. The immense hall contained more than three thousand auditors, including the most respectable portion of the New Orleans public. I was in capital humor, and had warmed myself into a pleasant state of excitement, feeling that the audience was with me. While in the midst of an argument illustrating the poisonous and destructive nature of alcohol to the animal economy, some opponent called out, “How does it affect us, externally or internally?”
“E-ternally,” I replied.
I have scarcely ever heard more tremendous merriment than that which followed this reply, and the applause was so prolonged that it was some minutes before I could proceed.
On the first evening when I lectured in Cleveland, Ohio, (it was in the Baptist Church,) I commenced in this wise: “If there are any ladies or gentlemen present who have never suffered in consequence of the use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, either directly, or in the person of a dear relative or friend, I will thank them to rise.” A man with a tolerably glowing countenance arose. “Had you never a friend who was intemperate?” I asked.
“Never!” was the positive reply.
A giggle ran through the opposition portion of the audience. “Really, my friends,” I said, “I feel constrained to make a proposition which I did not anticipate. I am, as you are all aware, a showman, and I am always on the lookout for curiosities. This gentleman is a stranger to me, but if he will satisfy me to-morrow morning that he is a man of credibility, and that no friend of his was ever intemperate, I will be glad to engage him for ten weeks at $200 per week, to exhibit him in my American Museum in New York, as the greatest curiosity in this country.”
A laugh that was a laugh followed this announcement.
“They may laugh, but it is a fact,” persisted my opponent with a look of dogged tenacity.
“The gentleman still insists that it is a fact,” I replied. “I would like, therefore, to make one simple qualification to my offer, I made it on the supposition that, at some period of his life, he had friends. Now if he never had any friends, I withdraw my offer; otherwise, I will stick to it.”
This, and the shout of laughter that ensued, was too much for the gentleman, and he sat down. I noticed throughout my speech that he paid strict attention, and frequently indulged in a hearty laugh. At the close of the lecture he approached me, and extending his hand, which I readily accepted, he said, “I was particularly green in rising to-night. Having once stood up, I was determined not to be put down, but your last remark fixed me!” He then complimented me very highly on the reasonableness of my arguments, and declared that ever afterwards he would be found on the side of temperance.
Among the most gratifying incidents of my life have been several of a similar nature to the following: After a temperance speech in Philadelphia, a man about thirty years of age came forward, signed the teetotal pledge, and then, giving me his hand, he said, “Mr. Barnum, you have this night saved me from ruin. For the last two years I have been in the habit of tippling, and it has kept me continually under the harrow. This gentleman (pointing to a person at his side) is my partner in business, and I know he is glad I have signed the pledge to-night.”
“Yes, indeed I am, George, and it is the best thing you ever did,” replied his partner, “if you’ll only stick to it.”
“That will I do till the day of my death; and won’t my dear little wife Mary cry for joy to-night, when I tell her what I have done!” he exclaimed in great exultation. At that moment he was a happy man, but he could not have been more so than I was.
Sir William Don--who came to this country and acted in several theatres, afterwards going to Australia, and dying, I believe, soon after his return to England--once heard me lecture, and immediately afterwards came forward and signed the pledge. He kept it for a short period only, although when he signed, he said that strong drink was the bane of his life. It is the one bane of too many brilliant men, who but for this one misfortune might attain almost every desirable success in life.
I may add, that I have lectured in Montreal, Canada, and many towns and cities in the United States, at my own expense. One of the greatest consolations I now enjoy is that of believing I have carried happiness to the bosom of many a family. In the course of my life I have written much for newspapers, on various subjects, and always with earnestness, but in none of these have I felt so deep an interest as in that of the temperance reform. Were it not for this fact, I should be reluctant to mention, that besides numerous articles for the daily and weekly press, I wrote a little tract on “The Liquor Business,” which expresses my practical view of the use and traffic in intoxicating drinks. In every one of my temperance lectures since the beginning of the year 1869, I have regularly read the following report, made by Mr. T. T. Cortis, Overseer of the Poor in Vineland, New Jersey:
Though we have a population of 10,000 people, for the period of six months no settler or citizen of Vineland has required relief at my hands as Overseer of the Poor. Within seventy days, there has only been one case among what we call the floating population, at the expense of $4.00. During the entire year, there has only been but one indictment, and that a trifling case of assault and battery, among our colored population. So few are the fires in Vineland, that we have no need of a fire department. There has only been one house burnt down in a year, and two slight fires, which were soon put out. We practically have no debt, and our taxes are only one per cent on the valuation. The police expenses of Vineland amount to $75.00 per year, the sum paid to me; and our poor expenses a mere trifle. I ascribe this remarkable state of things, so nearly approaching the golden age, to the industry of our people, and the absence of King Alcohol. Let me give you, in contrast to this, the state of things in the town from which I came, in New England. The population of the town was 9,500--a little less than that of Vineland. It maintained forty liquor shops. These kept busy a police judge, city marshal, assistant marshal, four night watchmen, six policemen. Fires were almost continual. That small place maintained a paid fire department, of four companies, of forty men each, at an expense of $3,000.00 per annum. I belonged to this department for six years, and the fires averaged about one every two weeks, and mostly incendiary. The support of the poor cost $2,500.00 per annum. The debt of the township was $120,000.00. The condition of things in this New England town is as favorable in that country as that of many other places where liquor is sold.
It seems to me that there is an amount of overwhelming testimony and unanswerable argument in this one brief extract, that makes it in itself one of the most perfect and powerful temperance lectures ever written.
XLIII. THE NEW MUSEUM
A GIGANTIC AMUSEMENT COMPANY--IMMENSE ADDITIONS TO THE NEW COLLECTION--CURIOSITIES FROM EVERYWHERE--THE GORDON CUMMINGS COLLECTION FROM AFRICA--THE GORILLA--WHAT THE PAPERS SAID ABOUT THE MONSTER--MY PRIVATE VIEW OF THE ANIMAL--AMUSING INTERVIEW WITH PAUL DU CHAILLU--A SUPERB MENAGERIE--THE NEW THEATRE--PROJECT FOR A FREE NATIONAL INSTITUTION--MESSRS. E. D. MORGAN, WILLIAM C. BRYANT, HORACE GREELEY AND OTHERS FAVOR MY PLAN--PRESIDENT JOHNSON INDORSES IT--DESTRUCTION OF MY SECOND MUSEUM BY FIRE--THE ICE-CLAD RUINS--A SAD, YET SPLENDID SPECTACLE--OUT OF THE BUSINESS--FOOT RACES AT THE WHITE MOUNTAINS--HOW I WAS NOT BEATEN--OPENING OF WOOD’S MUSEUM IN NEW YORK--MY ONLY INTEREST IN THE ENTERPRISE.
My new Museum on Broadway was liberally patronized from the start, but I felt that still more attractions were necessary in order to insure constant success. I therefore made arrangements with the renowned Van Amburgh Menagerie Company to unite their entire collection of living wild animals with the Museum. The new company was known as the “Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie Company,” and as such was chartered by the Connecticut Legislature, the New York Legislature having refused us a charter unless I would “see” the “ring” a thousand dollars’ worth, which I declined. I owned forty per cent and the Van Amburgh Company held the remaining sixty per cent in the new enterprise, which comprehended a large travelling menagerie through the country in summer, and the placing of the wild animals in the Museum in winter. The capital of the company was one million of dollars, with the privilege of doubling the amount. As one of the conditions of the new arrangement, it was stipulated that I should withdraw from all active personal attention to the Museum, but should permit my name to be announced as General Manager, and I was also elected President of the company. This arrangement gave me the comparative tranquillity which I now began to desire. I spent most of my time in Bridgeport, except in winter, when I resided in New York. I usually visited the Museum about once a week, but sometimes was absent for several months.
Meanwhile, immense additions were made to the curiosity departments of the new Museum. Every penny of the profits of this Museum and of the two immense travelling menageries of wild animals was expended in procuring additional attractions for our patrons. Among other valuable novelties introduced in this establishment was the famous collection made by the renowned lion-slayer, Gordon Cummings. This was purchased for me by my faithful friend, Mr. George A. Wells, who was then travelling in Great Britain with General Tom Thumb. The collection consisted of many hundreds of skins, tusks, heads and skeletons of nearly every species of African animal, including numerous rare specimens never before exhibited on this continent. It was a great Museum in itself, and as such had attracted much attention in London and elsewhere, but it was a mere addition to our Museum and Menagerie; and was exhibited without extra charge for admission.
In the summer of 1867, I saw in several New York papers a thrilling account of an immense gorilla, which had arrived from Africa in charge of Barnum’s agent, for the Barnum and Van Amburgh Company. The accounts described the removal of the savage animal in a strong iron cage from the ship, and his transportation up Broadway to the museum. His cries and roarings were said to have been terrible, and when he was taken into the menagerie, he was reported to have bent the heavy iron bars of his cage, and in his rage to have seized a poker which was thrust at him, and to have twisted it as if it had been a bit of wire. Nothing so startlingly sensational in the line of zoölogical description had appeared since the Tribune’s famous report of the burning of the American Museum, in 1865.
For several years I had been trying to secure such an animal, and several African travellers had promised to do their best to procure one for me; and I had offered as high as $20,000 for the delivery in New York of a full-grown, healthy gorilla. From the minute description now given by the reporters, I was convinced that, at last, the long-sought prize had been secured. I was greatly elated, and at once wrote from Bridgeport to our manager, Mr. Ferguson, advising him how to exhibit the valuable animal, and particularly how to preserve its precious life as long as might be possible. I have owned many ourang-outangs, and all of them die ultimately of pulmonary disease; indeed, it is difficult to keep specimens of the monkey tribe through the winter in our climate, on account of their tendency to consumption. I therefore advised Mr. Ferguson to have a cage so constructed that no draught of air could pass through it, and I further instructed him in methods of guarding against the gorilla’s taking cold.
A few days later I went to New York expressly to see the gorilla, and on visiting the Museum, I was vexed beyond measure to find that the animal was simply a huge baboon! He was chained down, so that he could not stand erect, nor turn his back to visitors. His keeper could easily irritate him, and when the animal was excited, he would seize the iron bars with both hands, and, uttering horrid screams, would shake the cage so fiercely that it could be heard and “felt” in the adjoining saloons. No doubt many of the visitors recalled Du Chaillu’s accounts of the genuine gorilla, and were convinced that the veritable animal was before them. But I had been too long in the business to be caught by such chaff, and approaching the keeper, I asked him why he did not lengthen the chain, so that the animal could stand up?
“Because, if I do, he will show his tail,” the keeper confidentially whispered in my ear.
The imposition was so silly and transparent that I did not care how soon it was exposed. As usual, however, I looked at the funny side of the matter, and immediately enclosed a ticket to my friend Mr. Paul Du Chaillu, who was then stopping at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, at the same time writing to the great African traveller, that, much as he had done; the Barnum and Van Amburgh Company had done more, since he had only killed gorillas, while we had secured a living one, and brought the monster safely from Africa to America. I informed him, moreover, that all the gorillas he had seen and described were tailless, while our far more remarkable specimen had a tail full four feet long!
Mr. Du Chaillu came into the Museum that afternoon, in great glee, with my open letter in his hand.
“Ah, Mr. Barnum,” he exclaimed, “this is the funniest letter I ever received. Of course, you know your gorilla’ is no gorilla at all, but only a baboon. I will not look at him, for when people ask me about ‘Barnum’s gorilla,’ I prefer to be able to say that I have not seen him.”
“On the contrary,” said I, “I particularly desire that you should see the animal, and expose it. The imposition is too ridiculous.”
“True; but I think your letter is more curious than your animal.”
“Then I give you full leave to read the letter to all who ask you about the ‘gorilla.’”
“Thank you,” said Du Chaillu, “and I wish you would let me read it in my lectures at the West, where I am soon going on a tour.”
I consented that he should do so, and I afterwards heard that he was delighting as well as enlightening western audiences on the subject of Manager Ferguson’s management of the great “gorilla” in the Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie.
The menagerie of living animals was superior in extent to any other similar collection in America, embracing, as it did, almost every description of wild animal ever exhibited, including the smallest African elephant, and the only living giraffe then in the United States. The collection of lions and royal Bengal tigers was superb. There was a cage full of young lions that attracted great attention, and the whole menagerie was an exceedingly valuable one. When I say that to these attractions was added an able dramatic company, which performed every afternoon and evening, and that the admission to the entire establishment was but thirty cents, with no extra charge, except for a few front seats and private boxes, it is no wonder that this immense building, five stories high, and covering ground seventy-five by two hundred feet in area, was thronged “from sunrise to ten P. M.,” and from top to bottom, with country and city visitors, of both sexes and all ages. The public was soon thoroughly convinced of the facts; first, that never before was such an outlay made for so great an assemblage of useful and amusing attractions, combining instruction with amusement, and thrown open to the people at so small a charge for admission; and second, that the surest way of deriving the greatest profit, in the long run, is to give people as much as possible for their money. That these facts were fully impressed upon our patrons is instanced in the monthly returns made to the United States Collector of Internal Revenue for the district, which showed that our receipts were larger than those of Wallack’s Theatre, Niblo’s Garden, or any other theatre or place of amusement in New York, or in America.
Anxious to gather curiosities from every quarter of the globe, I sent Mr. John Greenwood, junior, (who went for me to the isle of Cyprus and to Constantinople, in 1864,) on the “Quaker City” excursion, which left New York June 8, 1867, and returned in the following November. During his absence Mr. Greenwood travelled 17,735 miles, and brought back several interesting relics from the Holy Land, which were duly deposited in the Museum.
Very soon after entering upon the premises, I built a new and larger lecture room, which was one of the most commodious and complete theatres in New York, and I largely increased the dramatic company. Our collection swelled so rapidly that we were obliged to extend our premises by the addition of another building, forty by one hundred feet, adjoining the Museum. This addition gave us several new halls, which were speedily filled with curiosities. The rapid expansion of the establishment, and the immense interest excited in the public mind led me to consider a plan I had long contemplated, of taking some decided steps towards the foundation of a great free institution, which should be similar to and in some respects superior to the British Museum in London. “The Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie Company,” chartered with a capital of $2,000,000 had, in addition to the New York establishment, thirty acres of land in Bridgeport, whereon it was proposed to erect suitable buildings and glass and wire edifices for breeding and acclimating rare animals and birds, and training such of them as were fit for public performances. In time, a new building in New York, covering a whole square, and farther up town, would be needed for the mammoth exhibition, and I was not with out hopes that I might be the means of establishing permanently in the city an extensive zoölogical garden.
It was also my intention ultimately to make my Museum the nucleus of a great free national institution. When the American Museum was burned, and I turned my attention to the collection of fresh curiosities, I felt that I needed other assistance than that of my own agents in America and Europe. It occurred to me that if our government representatives abroad would but use their influence to secure curiosities in the respective countries to which they were delegated, a free public Museum might at once be begun in New York, and I proposed to offer a part of my own establishment rent-free for the deposit and exhibition of such rarities as might be collected in this way. Accordingly, a week after the destruction of the American Museum, a memorial was addressed to the President of the United States, asking him to give his sanction to the new effort to furnish the means of useful information and wholesome amusement, and to give such instructions to public officers abroad as would enable them, without any conflict with their legitimate duties, to give efficiency to this truly national movement for the advancement of the public good, without cost to the government. This memorial was dated July 20, 1865, and was signed by Messrs. E. D. Morgan, Moses Taylor, Abram Wakeman, Simeon Draper, Moses H. Grinnell, Stephen Knapp, Benjamin R. Winthrop, Charles Gould, Wm. C. Bryant, James Wadsworth, Tunis W. Quick, John A. Pitkin, Willis Gaylord, Prosper M. Wetmore, Henry Ward Beecher, and Horace Greeley. This memorial was in due time presented, and was indorsed as follows:
“EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C.
April 27, 1866.
The purpose set forth in this Memorial is highly approved and commended, and our Ministers, Consuls and commercial agents are requested to give whatever influence in carrying out the object within stated they may deem compatible with the duties of their respective positions, and not inconsistent with the public interests.
ANDREW JOHNSON.”
I went to Washington myself, and had interviews with the President, Secretaries Seward, McCulloch and Welles, and also with Assistant Secretary of the Navy, G. V. Fox, who gave me several muskets and other “rebel trophies.” During my stay at the capital I had a pleasant interview with General Grant, who told me he had lately visited my Museum with one of his sons, and had been greatly gratified. Upon my mentioning, among other projects, that I had an idea of collecting the hats of distinguished individuals, he at once offered to send an orderly for the hat he had worn during his principal campaigns. All these gentlemen cordially approved of my plan for the establishment of a National Museum in New York.
But before this plan could be put into effective operation, an event occurred which is now to be narrated: The winter of 1867-68 was one of the coldest that had been known for years, and some thirty severe snowstorms occurred during the season. On Tuesday morning, March 3d, 1868, it was bitter cold. A heavy body of snow was on the ground, and as I sat at the breakfast table with my wife and an esteemed lady guest, the wife of my excellent friend Rev. A. C. Thomas, I read aloud the general news from the morning papers. Leisurely turning to the local columns, I said, “Hallo! Barnum’s Museum is burned.”
“Yes,” said my wife, with an incredulous smile, “I suspect it is.”
“It is a fact,” said I, “just listen; ‘Barnum’s Museum totally destroyed by fire.’”
This was read so coolly, and I showed so little excitement, that both of the ladies supposed I was joking. My wife simply remarked:
“Yes, it was totally destroyed two years ago, but Barnum built another one.”
“Yes, and that is burned,” I replied; “now listen,” and I proceeded very calmly to read the account of the fire. Mrs. Thomas, still believing from my manner that it was a joke, stole slyly behind my chair, and looking over my shoulder at the newspaper, she exclaimed:
“Why, Mrs. Barnum, the Museum is really burned. Here is the whole account of it in this morning’s paper.”
“Of course it is,” I remarked, with a smile, “how could you think I could joke on such a serious subject!”
It was indeed too true, and the subject was no doubt “serious” enough; in fact the pecuniary blow was perhaps even heavier than the loss of the other Museum, especially as there was probably no Bennett around who would give me $200,000 for a lease! But during my whole life I had been so much accustomed to operations of magnitude for or against my interests, that large losses or gains were not apt to disturb my tranquillity. Indeed, my second daughter calling in soon after, and seeing how coolly I took the disaster, said that her husband had remarked that morning, “Your father wont care half so much about it as he would if his pocket had been picked of fifty dollars. That would have vexed him, but he will take this heavier loss as simply the fortune of war.”
And this was very nearly the fact. Yet the loss was a large one, and the complete frustration of our plans for the future was a serious consideration. But worse than all were the sufferings of the poor wild animals which were burned to death in their cages. A very few only of these animals were saved. Even the people who were sleeping in the building barely escaped with their lives, and next to nothing else, so sudden was the fire and so rapid its progress. The papers of the following morning contained full accounts of the fire; and editorial writers, while manifesting much sympathy for the proprietors, also expressed profound regret that so magnificent a collection, especially in the zoölogical department, should be lost to the city.
The cold was so intense that the water froze almost as soon as it left the hose of the fire engines; and when at last everything was destroyed, except the front granite wall of the Museum building, that and the ladder, signs, and lamp-posts in front, were covered in a gorgeous frame-work of transparent ice, which made it altogether one of the most picturesque scenes imaginable. Thousands of persons congregated daily in that locality in order to get a view of the magnificent ruins. By moonlight the ice-coated ruins were still more sublime; and for many days and nights the old Museum was “the observed of all observers,” and photographs were taken by several artists.
When the Museum was burnt, I was nearly ready to bring out a new spectacle, for which a very large extra company had been engaged, and on which a considerable sum of money had been expended in scenery, properties, costumes, and especially in enlarging the stage. I had expended altogether some $78,000 in building the new lecture-room, and in refitting the saloons. The curiosities were inventoried by the manager, Mr. Ferguson, at $288,000. I bought the real estate only a little while before the fire, for $460,000, and there was an insurance on the whole of $160,000; and in June, 1868, I sold the lots on which the building stood for $432,000. The cause of the fire was a defective flue in a restaurant in the basement of the building.
Thus by the destruction of Iranistan, and two Museums, about a million of dollars’ worth of my property had been destroyed by fire, and I was not now long in making up my mind to follow Mr. Greeley’s advice on a former occasion, to “take this fire as a notice to quit, and go a-fishing.”
We all know how difficult it is for a person to stop when he is engaged in business, and how seldom it is that we find a man who thinks he has accumulated money enough, and is willing to cease trying to make more. An active business life, like everything else, becomes a habit, and the strife for success in business, through all the changes of fortune, and ups and downs of trade, becomes an infatuation akin to that which spurs the gambler. Hence, men often pursue their money-getting occupations long after the necessity therefor has ceased. Of course, by wedding themselves to this one ambition they forego many of the higher pleasures of life, and though they have a vague idea of that “good time coming,” when they are going to take things easy and enjoy themselves, that time never comes. Men who are entirely idle are the most miserable creatures in the world; but when by arduous toil they have secured a competence, and especially when they have reached a point in life where they are conscious of a waning of their vital energies, we must admit that they are unwise if they do not slip out of active business, and devote a large portion of their time to intellectual pursuits, social enjoyments, and, if they have not done so through life, to serious reflections on the ends and aims of human existence.
It is, perhaps, possible that notwithstanding the active life I have led, I have after all a lazy streak in my composition; at all events, I confess it was with no small degree of satisfaction that by this last burning of the Museum, notwithstanding the serious pecuniary loss it proved to me, I discovered a way open through which I could retire to a more quiet and tranquil mode of life. I therefore at once dissolved with the Van Amburgh Company, and sold out to them all my interest in the personal property of the concern. I was, however, beset on every side to start another Museum, and men of capital offered to raise a million of dollars if necessary, for that purpose, provided I would undertake its management. My constant reply was, “lead me not into temptation.” I felt that I had enough to live on, and I earnestly believed the doctrine laid down in my lecture on “Money Getting,” in regard to the danger of leaving too much property to children.
As I now had something like real leisure at my disposal, in the summer of 1868 I made my third visit to the White Mountains. To me, the locality and scene are ever fresh and ever wonderful. From the top of Mount Washington, one can see on every side within a radius of forty miles peaks piled on peaks, with smiling valleys here and there between, and, on a very clear day, the Atlantic Ocean off Portland, Maine, is distinctly visible--sixty miles away. Beauty, grandeur, sublimity, and the satisfaction of almost every sense combine to remind one of the ejaculation of that devout English soul who exclaims: “Look around with pleasure, and upward with gratitude.”
At the Profile House, near the Notch, in the Franconia range, I met many acquaintances, some of whom had been there with their families for several weeks. When tired of scenery-hunting and hill-climbing, and thrown entirely upon their own resources, they had invented a “sell” which they perpetrated upon every new-comer. Naturally enough, as I was considered a capital subject for their fun, before I had been there half an hour they had made all the arrangements to take me in. The “sell” consisted in getting up a footrace in which all were to join, and at the word “go” the contestants were to start and run across the open space in front of the hotel to a fence opposite, while the last man who should touch the rail must treat the crowd.
Of course, no one touched the rail at all, except the victim. I suspected no trick, but tried to avoid the race, urging in excuse that I was too old, too corpulent, and besides, as they knew, I was a teetotaler and would not drink their liquor.
“Oh, drink lemonade, if you like,” they said, “but no backing out; and as for corpulence, here is Stephen, our old stage-driver, who weighs three hundred, and he shall run with the rest.”
And in good truth, Stephen, in a warm day especially, would be likely to “run” with the best of them; but I did not know then that Stephen was the stool-pigeon whom they kept to entrap unwary and verdant youths like myself; so looking at his portly form I at once agreed that if Stephen ran I would, as I knew that for a stout man I was pretty quick on my feet. Accordingly, at the word “go,” I started and ran as if the traditional enemy of mankind were in me or after me, but before I had accomplished half the distance, I wondered why at least, one or two of the crowd had not outstripped me, for, in fact, Stephen was the only one whom I expected to beat. Looking back and at once comprehending the “sell,” I decided not to be sold. A correspondent of the New York Sun told how I escaped the trick and the penalty, and how I subsequently paid off the tricksters, in a letter from which I quote the following:
“Barnum threw up his hands before arriving at the railing, and did not touch it at all! It was acknowledged on all sides that the ‘biters were bit.’ ‘But you ran well,’ said those who intended the ‘sell.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Barnum in high glee, ‘I ran better than I did for Congress; but I was not green enough to touch the rail!’ Of course a roar of laughter followed, and the ‘sellers’ resolved to try the game the next morning on some other new-comer; but their luck had evidently deserted them, for the next man also ‘smelt a rat,’ and holding up his hands refused to touch the rail. The two successive failures dampened the ardor of the “sellers,” and they relinquished that trick as a bad job. But the way Barnum sold nearly the whole crowd of ‘sellers,’ in detail, on the following afternoon, by the old ‘sliver trick,’ was a caution to sore sides. So much laughing in one day was probably never before done in that locality. One after another succeeded in extracting from the palm of Barnum’s hand what each at first supposed was a tormenting ‘sliver,’ but which turned out to be a ‘broom splinter’ a foot long which was hidden up B.’s sleeve, except the small point which appeared from under the end of his thumb, apparently protruding from under the skin of his palm. One ‘weak brother’ nearly fainted as he saw come forth some twelve inches of what he at first supposed was a ‘sliver,’ but which he was now thoroughly convinced was one of the nerves from Barnum’s arm. Mr. O’Brien, the Wall Street banker, was the first victim. When asked what he thought upon seeing such a long ‘sliver’ coming from Barnum’s hand, he solemnly replied, ‘I thought he was a dead man!’ It was acknowledged by all that Barnum gave them a world of ‘fun,’ and that he and his friends left the Profile House with flying colors.”
During the year, Mr. George Wood, a most successful and enterprising manager, had been engaged in enlarging and refitting Banvard’s building, at the corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street, for a Museum and theatre; and wishing to avoid my competition in the business, he proposed, that for a consideration, to be governed to some degree by the receipts, I should bind myself to have no other interest in any Museum or place of amusement in New York, and that I should give him the benefit of my experience, influence and information, and thus aid in advancing his interests and in building up and carrying out his enterprise. His proposition fully met my views, and I accepted it. Without incurring risk or responsibility, I could occupy portions of my time, which otherwise, perhaps, might drag heavily on my hands; my mind especially would be employed in matters with which I was familiar, and I might gratify my desire to assist in catering to the healthful, wholesome amusement of the rising generation and the public. I should not rust out; and, moreover, the new museum would afford me a pleasant place to drop into when I felt inclined to do so. Nothing in this arrangement compelled my presence in New York, or even in the United States; I could go when and where I chose, and could continue to be, as I hope to be for the rest of my life, “a man of leisure,” which in my case, and according to my construction, is far from being a man of idleness.
While I was at the White Mountains, I received a telegram from Mr. George Wood, stating that he could not consider his list of curiosities complete unless I would consent to be present at the opening of his Museum, and I accordingly waived all my chances in any intended foot races, and hastened to New York, making at Mr. Wood’s request the opening address in his new establishment, August 31, 1868.
XLIV. CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.--NUMBER THIRTEEN
POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS--UNLUCKY FRIDAY--UNFORTUNATE SATURDAY--RAINY SUNDAYS--TERRIBLE THIRTEEN--THE BRETTELLS OF LONDON--INCIDENTS OF MY WESTERN TRIP--SINGULAR FATALITY--NUMBER THIRTEEN IN EVERY HOTEL--NO ESCAPE FROM THE FRIGHTFUL FIGURE--ADVICE OF A CLERICAL FRIEND--THE THIRTEEN COLONIES--THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER OF CORINTHIANS--THIRTEEN AT MY CHRISTMAS DINNER PARTY--THIRTEEN DOLLARS AT A FAIR--TWO DISASTROUS DAYS--THE THIRTEENTH DAY IN TWO MONTHS--THIRTEEN PAGES OF MANUSCRIPT.
In the summer of 1868, a lady who happened to be at that time an inmate of my family, upon hearing me say that I supposed we must remove into our summer residence on Thursday, because our servants might not like to go on Friday, remarked:
“What nonsense that is! It is astonishing that some persons are so foolish as to think there is any difference in the days. I call it rank heathenism to be so superstitious as to think one day is lucky and another unlucky”; and then, in the most innocent manner possible, she added: “I would not like to remove on a Saturday myself, for they say people who remove on the last day of the week don’t stay long.”
Of course this was too refreshing a case of undoubted superstition to be permitted to pass without a hearty laugh from all who heard it.
I suppose most of us have certain superstitions, imbibed in our youth, and still lurking more or less faintly in our minds. Many would not like to acknowledge that they had any choice whether they commenced a new enterprise on a Friday or on a Monday, or whether they first saw the new moon over the right or left shoulder. And yet, perhaps, a large portion of these same persons will be apt to observe it when they happen to do anything which popular superstition calls “unlucky.” It is a common occurrence with many to immediately make a secret “wish” if they happen to use the same expression at the same moment when a friend with whom they are conversing makes it; nevertheless these persons would protest against being considered superstitious,--indeed, probably they are not so in the full meaning of the word.
Several years ago an old lady who was a guest at my house, remarked on a rainy Sunday:
“This is the first Sunday in the month, and now it will rain every Sunday in the month; that is a sign which never fails, for I have noticed it many a time.”
“Well,” I remarked, smiling, “watch closely this time, and if it rains on the next three Sundays I will give you a new silk dress.”
She was in high glee, and replied:
“Well, you have lost that dress, as sure as you are born.”
The following Sunday it did indeed rain.
“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the old lady, “what did I tell you? I knew it would rain.”
I smiled, and said, “all right, watch for next Sunday.”
And surely enough the next Sunday it did rain, harder than on either of the preceding Sundays.
“Now, what do you think?” said the old lady, solemnly. “I tell you that sign never fails. It wont do to doubt the ways of Providence,” she added with a sigh, “for His ways are mysterious and past finding out.”
The following Sunday the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and not the slightest appearance of rain was manifested through the day. The old lady was greatly disappointed, and did not like to hear any allusion to the subject; but two years afterwards, when she was once more my guest, it again happened to rain on the first Sunday in the month, and I heard her solemnly predict that it would, every succeeding Sunday in the month, for, she remarked, “it is a sign that never fails.” She had forgotten the failure of two years before; indeed, the continuance and prevalence of many popular superstitions is due to the fact that we notice the “sign” when it happens to be verified, and do not observe it, or we forget it, when it fails. Many persons are exceedingly superstitious in regard to the number “thirteen.” This is particularly the case, I have noticed, in Catholic countries I have visited, and I have been told that superstition originated in the fact of a thirteenth apostle having been chosen, on account of the treachery of Judas. At any rate, I have known numbers of French persons who had quite a horror of this fatal number. Once I knew a French lady who had taken passage in an ocean steamer, and who, on going aboard, and finding her assigned state-room to be “No. 13,” insisted upon it that she would not sail in the ship at all; she had rather forfeit her passage money, though finally she was persuaded to take another room. And a great many people, French, English, and American will not undertake any important enterprise on the thirteenth day of the month, nor sit at table with the full complement of thirteen persons. With regard to this number to which so many superstitions cling, I have some interesting experiences and curious coincidences, which are worth relating as a part of my personal history.
When I was first in England with General Tom Thumb, I well remember dining one Christmas day with my friends, the Brettells, in St. James’s Palace, in London. Just before the dinner was finished (it is a wonder it was not noticed before) it was discovered that the number at table was exactly thirteen.
“How very unfortunate,” remarked one of the guests; “I would not have dined under such circumstances for any consideration, had I known it!”
“Nor I either,” seriously remarked another guest.
“Do you really suppose there is any truth in the old superstition on that subject?” I asked.
“Truth!” solemnly replied an old lady. “Truth! Why I myself have known three instances, and have heard of scores of others, where thirteen persons have eaten at the same table, and in every case one of the number died before the year was out!”
This assertion, made with so much earnestness, evidently affected several of the guests, whose nerves were easily excited. I can truthfully state, however, that I dined at the Palace again the following Christmas, and although there were seventeen persons present, every one of the original thirteen who dined there the preceding Christmas, was among this number, and all in good health; although, of course, it would have been nothing very remarkable if one had happened to have died during the last twelve months.
While I was on my Western lecturing tour in 1866, long before I got out of Illinois, I began to observe that at the various hotels where I stopped my room very frequently was No. 13. Indeed, it seemed as if this number turned up to me as often as four times per week, and so before many days I almost expected to have that number set down to my name wherever I signed it upon the register of the hotel. Still, I laughed to myself, at what I was convinced was simply a coincidence. On one occasion I was travelling from Clinton to Mount Vernon, Iowa, and was to lecture in the college of the latter place that evening. Ordinarily, I should have arrived at two o’clock P. M.; but owing to an accident which had occurred to the train from the West, the conductor informed me that our arrival in Mount Vernon would probably be delayed until after seven o’clock. I telegraphed that fact to the committee who were expecting me, and told them to be patient.
When we had arrived within ten miles of that town it was dark. I sat rather moodily in the car, wishing the train would “hurry up”; and happening for some cause to look back over my left shoulder, I discovered the new moon through the window. This omen struck me as a coincident addition to my ill-luck, and with a pleasant chuckle I muttered to myself, “Well, I hope I wont get room number thirteen to-night, for that will be adding insult to injury.”
I reached Mount Vernon a few minutes before eight, and was met at the depot by the committee, who took me in a carriage and hurried to the Ballard House. The committee told me the hall in the college was already crowded, and they hoped I would defer taking tea until after the lecture. I informed them that I would gladly do so, but simply wished to run to my room a moment for a wash. While wiping my face I happened to think about the new room, and at once stepped outside of my bed-room door to look at the number. It was “number thirteen.”
After the lecture I took tea, and I confess that I began to think “number thirteen” looked a little ominous. There I was, many hundreds of miles from my family; I left my wife sick, and I began to ask myself does “number thirteen” portend anything in particular? Without feeling willing even now to acknowledge that I felt much apprehension on the subject, I must say I began to take a serious view of things in general.
I mentioned the coincidence of my luck in so often having “number thirteen” assigned to me to Mr. Ballard, the proprietor of the hotel, giving him all the particulars to date.
“I will give you another room if you prefer it,” said Mr. Ballard.
“No, I thank you,” I replied with a semi-serious smile; “If it is fate, I will take it as it comes; and if it means anything I shall probably find it out in time.” That same night before retiring to rest I wrote a letter to a clerical friend, then residing in Bridgeport, telling him all my experiences in regard to “number thirteen.” I said to him in closing: “Don’t laugh at me for being superstitious, for I hardly feel so; I think it is simply a series of ‘coincidences’ which appear the more strange because I am sure to notice every one that occurs.” Ten days afterwards I received an answer from my reverend friend, in which he cheerfully said: “It’s all right; go ahead and get ‘number thirteen’ as often as you can. It is a lucky number,” and he added:
“Unbelieving and ungrateful man! What is thirteen but the traditional ‘baker’s dozen,’ indicating ‘good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over,’ as illustrated in your triumphal lecturing tour? By all means insist upon having room No. 13 at every hotel; and if the guests at any meal be less than that charmed complement, send out and compel somebody to come in.
“What do you say respecting the Thirteen Colonies? Any ill luck in the number? Was the patriarch Jacob afraid of it when he adopted Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, so as to complete the magic circle of thirteen?
“Do you not know that chapter thirteen of First Corinthians is the grandest in the Bible, with verse thirteen as the culmination of all religious thought? And can you read verse thirteen of the Fifth chapter of Revelation without the highest rapture?”
But my clerical friend had not heard of a certain curious circumstance which occurred to me after I had mailed my letter to him and before I received his answer.
On leaving Mount Vernon for Cedar Rapids the next morning, the landlord, Mr. Ballard, drove me to the railroad depot. As I was stepping upon the cars, Mr. Ballard shook my hand, and with a laugh exclaimed: “Good-by, friend Barnum, I hope you wont get room number thirteen at Cedar Rapids to-day.” “I hope not!” I replied earnestly, and yet with a smile. I reached Cedar Rapids in an hour. The lecture committee met and took me to the hotel. I entered my name, and the landlord immediately called out to the porter:
“Here John, take Mr. Barnum’s baggage, and show him to ‘number thirteen!’”
I confess that when I heard this I was startled. I remarked to the landlord that it was certainly very singular, but was nevertheless true, that “number thirteen” seemed to be about the only room that I could get in a hotel.
“We have a large meeting of Railroad directors here at present,” he replied, “and ‘number thirteen’ is the only room unoccupied in my house.”
I proceeded to the room, and immediately wrote to Mr. Ballard at Mount Vernon, assuring him that my letter was written in “number thirteen,” and that this was the only room I could get in the hotel. During the remainder of my journey, I was put into “number thirteen” so often in the various hotels at which I stopped that it came to be quite a matter of course, though occasionally I was fortunate enough to secure some other number. Upon returning to New York, I related the foregoing adventures to my family, and told them I was really half afraid of “number thirteen.” Soon afterwards, I telegraphed to my daughter who was boarding at the Atlantic House in Bridgeport, asking her to engage a room for me to lodge there the next night, on my way to Boston. “Mr. Hale,” said she to the landlord, “father is coming up to-day; will you please reserve him a comfortable room?” “Certainly,” replied Mr. Hale, and he instantly ordered a fire in “room thirteen!” I went to Boston and proceeded to Lewiston, Maine, and thence to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the hotel register there has my name booked for “number thirteen.”
My experience with this number has by no means been confined to apartments. In 1867 a church in Bridgeport wanted to raise several thousand dollars in order to get freed from debt. I subscribed one thousand dollars, by aid of which they assured me they would certainly raise enough to pay off the debt. A few weeks subsequently, however, one of the “brethren” wrote me that they were still six hundred dollars short, with but little prospect of getting it. I replied that I would pay one-half of the sum required. The brother soon afterwards wrote me that he had obtained the other half, and I might forward him my subscription of “thirteen” hundred dollars. During the same season I attended a fair in Franklin Hall, Bridgeport, given by a temperance organization. Two of my little granddaughters accompanied me, and telling them to select what articles they desired, I paid the bill, twelve dollars and fifty cents. Whereupon I said to the children, “I am glad you did not make it thirteen dollars, and I will expend no more here to-night.” We sat awhile listening to the music, and finally started for home, and as we were going, a lady at one of the stands near the door, called out: “Mr. Barnum, you have not patronized me. Please take a chance in my lottery.” “Certainly,” I replied; “give me a ticket.” I paid her the price (fifty cents), and after I arrived home, I discovered that in spite of my expressed determination to the contrary, I had expended exactly “thirteen” dollars!
I invited a few friends to a “clam-bake” in the summer of 1868, and being determined the party should not be thirteen, I invited fifteen, and they all agreed to go. Of course, one man and his wife were “disappointed,” and could not go--and my party numbered thirteen. At Christmas, in the same year, my children and grandchildren dined with me, and finding on “counting noses,” that they would number the inevitable thirteen, I expressly arranged to have a high chair placed at the table, and my youngest grandchild, seventeen months old, was placed in it, so that we should number fourteen. After the dinner was over, we discovered that my son-in-law, Thompson, had been detained down town, and the number at dinner table, notwithstanding my extra precautions, was exactly thirteen.
Thirteen was certainly an ominous number to me in 1865, for on the thirteenth day of July, the American Museum was burned to the ground, while the thirteenth day of November saw the opening of “Barnum’s New American Museum,” which was also subsequently destroyed by fire.
Having concluded this veritable history of superstitious coincidences in regard to thirteen, I read it to a clerical friend, who happened to be present; and after reading the manuscript, I paged it, when my friend and I were a little startled to find that the pages numbered exactly thirteen.
XLV. A STORY-CHAPTER
“EVERY MAN TO HIS VOCATION” AND “NATURE WILL ASSERT HERSELF”--REST BY THE WAYSIDE--A HALF-SHAVED PARTY--CONSTERNATION OF A CLERGYMAN--NATIVES IN NEW YORK--DOCTORING A CORN-DOCTOR--RELIGIOUS RAILWAYS--THE BRIGHTON BUGLE BUSINESS--CASH AND CONSCIENCE--CASTLES IN THE AIR--A DELUDED ANTIQUARIAN--GAMBLING AND POLITICS--IRISH WIT--ABOUT CONDUCTORS--DR. CHAPIN AS A PUNSTER--FOWL ATTEMPTS--A PAIR O’ DUCKS--CUTTING A SICK FRIEND--REV. RICHARD VARICK DEY--HIS CRIME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--FORE-ORDINATION--PRACTICAL JOKING BY MY FATHER--A VALUABLE RACE-HORSE--HOW HE WAS LET AND THEN KILLED--AGONY OF THE HORSE-KILLER--THE FINAL “SELL”--FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC FRENCH--COCKNEYISM--WICKED WORDS IN EXETER HALL.
And now as a traveller, when almost home, sits down by the wayside to rest, and meanwhile discourses to his companion about minor matters relating to the journey, or revives reminiscenses of home and foreign lands, so I stop to sum up in this chapter some of the incidents and anecdotes which seem pertinent to my story.
The old adages, “Every man to his vocation,” and “Nature will assert herself” are oftentimes amusingly illustrated. Every one knows the fable of the man who prayed to Jupiter to convert his cat into a woman, and Jupiter kindly gratified him and the man married the woman. This was well enough, till one night the feline female heard a mouse scratching at the door, when she jumped out of bed and began a vigorous hunt, to the consternation of her husband, if not of the mouse. Something almost as absurd and quite as illustrative of “instinct,” or “nature” occurred during my management of the Museum.
I had brought out a play entitled “The Patriot Fathers,” or something of the sort; it was patriotic at any rate, and required a great many people, who had very little to do excepting to dress, group themselves, and go on and off the stage at the proper times demanded by the incidents or situations of the play. One night I suddenly found myself short of supernumeraries to do these subordinate parts, so I sent up to Centre Market for a supply of young men who were willing to be soldiers, Indians, or anything else which the exigencies of Revolutionary times not less than my own immediate necessities demanded.
Now, it fortunately happened that an engine company near by, the famous “Forty” of by-gone days, had just returned from a fire, and my messenger proposed to these men to come down and help me out of my difficulty. The boys wanted no better fun. At least thirty of them came headed by their foreman, Mr. William Racey. They were soon dressed, one as a woman, a mother of the Revolution; others as Indians, British soldiers, Hessian grenadiers, and Continentals. A very little drilling sufficed to put these new recruits in order for presentation on the stage, for they had little to do but to follow directions as to where they must stand, and when they must go on and off. Numbers, not talent, were needed. They were apt pupils, and did excellently well from the start.
But in the very midst of one of those convulsions which threatened the fate of the struggle for Independence, the City Hall bell sounded out the alarm for fire. That was enough. Racey shouted out on the stage:
“Boys, there’s a fire in the Seventh! Put for ‘Forty’”; and the thirty incontinently fled in post haste for “Forty,” and soon after appeared in the street, followed by a jeering, cheering crew, the most motley company that ever dragged a fire engine through the streets of New York. They were in full costume as they left the Museum. The red-coated British troops, the Hessians in their tall bear-skin caps, the Indians in their paint and feathers, and even the “woman” helped to drag the machine, and at the fire these strange people, including the woman, helped to “man” the brakes. It is unnecessary to say that they succeeded in creating in the street, what I hoped they would have done on the stage, a positive sensation.
I confess that I am fond of story-telling as well as fun, and I inherit this I think from my maternal grandfather, whom I have already chronicled in these pages as a “practical joker of the old school.” One of the best illustrations of his peculiar fondness for this amusement appears in the following:
Danbury and Bethel were and still are manufacturing villages. Hats and combs were the principal articles of manufacture. The hatters and comb makers had occasion to go to New York every spring and fall, and they generally managed to go in parties, frequently taking in a few “outsiders,” who merely wished to visit the city for the fun of the thing. They usually took passage on board a sloop at Norwalk, and the length of their passage depended entirely upon the state of the wind. Sometimes the run would be made in eight hours, and at other times nearly as many days were required. It, however, made little difference with the passengers. They went in for a “spree,” and were sure to have a jolly time whether on land or water. They were all fond of practical jokes, and before starting they usually entered into a solemn compact, that any man who got angry at a practical joke should forfeit and pay the sum of twenty dollars. This agreement frequently saved much trouble; for occasionally an unexpected and rather severe trick would be played off, and sadly chafe the temper of the victim.
Upon one of these occasions a party of fourteen men started from Bethel on a Monday morning for New York. Among the number were my grandfather, Capt. Noah Ferry, Benjamin Hoyt, Esq., Uncle Samuel Taylor, (as he was called by everybody,) Eleazer Taylor, and Charles Dart. Most of these were proverbial jokers, and it was doubly necessary to adopt the stipulation in regard to the control of temper. It was therefore done in writing, duly signed.
They arrived at Norwalk Monday afternoon. The sloop set sail the same evening, with a fair prospect of reaching New York early the next morning. Several strangers took passage at Norwalk, among the rest a clergyman. He soon found himself in jolly company, and attempted to keep aloof. But they informed him it was of no use, they expected to reach New York the next morning, and were determined to “make a night of it,” so he might as well render himself agreeable, for sleep was out of the question. His “reverence” remonstrated at first, and talked about “his rights”; but he soon learned that he was in a company where the rights of “the majority” were in the ascendant; so he put a smooth face upon affairs, and making up his mind not to retire that night, he soon engaged in conversation with several of his fellow-passengers.
The clergyman was a slim, spare man, standing over six feet high in his stockings; of light complexion, sandy hair, and wearing a huge pair of reddish-brown whiskers. Some of the passengers joked him upon the superfluity of hair upon his face, but he replied that nature had placed it there, and although he thought proper, in accordance with modern custom, to shave off a portion of his beard, he considered it neither unmanly nor unclerical to wear whiskers. It seemed to be conceded that the clergyman had the best of the argument, and the subject was changed.
Expectation of a speedy run to New York was most sadly disappointed. The vessel appeared scarcely to move, and through long weary hours of day and night, there was not a ripple on the surface of the water. Nevertheless there was merriment on board the sloop, each voyager contributing good humor to beguile the tediousness of time.
Friday morning came, but the calm continued. Five days from home, and no prospect of reaching New York! We may judge the appearance of the beards of the passengers. There was but one razor in the company; it was owned by my grandfather, and he refused to use it, or to suffer it to be used. “We shall all be shaved in New York,” said he.
On Saturday morning “all hands” appeared upon deck, and the sloop was becalmed opposite Sawpits (now Port Chester)!
This tried the patience of the passengers sadly.
“I expected to start for home to-day,” said one.
“I supposed all my combs would have been sold at auction on Wednesday, and yet here they are on board,” said another.
“I intended to have sold my hats surely this week, for I have a note to pay in New-Haven on Monday,” added a third.
“I have an appointment to preach in New York this evening and to-morrow,” said the clergyman, whose huge sandy whiskers overshadowed a face now completely covered with a bright red beard a quarter of an inch long.
“Well, there is no use crying, gentlemen,” replied the captain; “it is lucky for us that we have chickens and eggs on freight, or we might have to be put upon allowance.”
After breakfast the passengers, who now began to look like barbarians, again solicited the loan of my grandfather’s razor.
“No, gentlemen,” he replied; “I insist that shaving is unhealthy and contrary to nature, and I am determined neither to shave myself nor loan my razor until we reach New York.”
Night came, and yet no wind. Sunday morning found them in the same position. Their patience was well nigh exhausted, but after breakfast a slight ripple appeared. It gradually increased, and the passengers were soon delighted in seeing the anchor weighed and the sails again set. The sloop glided finely through the water, and smiles of satisfaction forced themselves through the swamps of bristles which covered the faces of the passengers.
“What time shall we reach New York if this breeze continues?” was the anxious inquiry of half a dozen passengers.
“About two o’clock this afternoon,” replied the good-natured captain, who now felt assured that no calm would further blight his prospects.
“Alas! that will be too late to get shaved,” exclaimed several voices--“the barber shops close at twelve.”
“And I shall barely be in time to preach my afternoon sermon,” responded the red-bearded clergyman. “Mr. Taylor, do be so kind as to loan me your shaving utensils,” he continued, addressing my grandfather.
The old gentleman then went to his trunk, and unlocking it, he drew forth his razor, lather-box and strop. The passengers pressed around him, as all were now doubly anxious for a chance to shave themselves.
“Now, gentlemen,” said my grandfather, “I will be fair with you. I did not intend to lend my razor, but as we shall arrive too late for the barbers, you shall all use it. But it is evident we cannot all have time to be shaved with one razor before we reach New York, and as it would be hard for half of us to walk on shore with clean faces, and leave the rest on board waiting for their turn to shave themselves, I have hit upon a plan which I am sure you will all say is just and equitable.”
“What is it?” was the anxious inquiry.
“It is that each man shall shave one half of his face, and pass the razor over to the next, and when we are all half shaved we shall go on in rotation and shave the other half.”
They all agreed to this except the clergyman. He objected to appearing so ridiculous upon the Lord’s day, whereupon several declared that any man with such enormous reddish whiskers must necessarily always look ridiculous, and they insisted that if the clergyman used the razor at all he should shave off his whiskers.
My grandfather assented to this proposal, and said: “Now, gentlemen, as I own the razor, I will begin, and as our reverend friend is in a hurry he shall be next--but off shall come one of his whiskers on the first turn, or he positively shall not use my razor at all.”
The clergyman seeing there was no use in parleying, reluctantly agreed to the proposition.
In the course of ten minutes one side of my grandfather’s face and chin, in a straight line from the middle of his nose, was shaved as close as the back of his hand, while the other looked like a thick brush fence in a country swamp. The passengers burst into a roar of laughter, in which the clergyman irresistibly joined, and my grandfather handed the razor to the clerical gentleman.
The clergyman had already well lathered one half of his face and passed the brush to the next customer. In a short time the razor had performed its work, and the clergyman was denuded of one whisker. The left side of his face was as naked as that of an infant, while from the other cheek four inches of a huge red whisker stood out in powerful contrast. Nothing more ludicrous could well be conceived. A deafening burst of laughter ensued, and the poor clergyman slunk quietly away to wait an hour until his turn should arrive to shave the other portion of his face.
The next man went through the same operation, and all the rest followed; a new laugh breaking forth as each customer handed over the razor to the next in turn. In the course of an hour and a quarter every passenger on board was half shaved. It was then proposed that all should go upon deck and take a drink before operations were commenced on the other side of their faces. When they all gathered upon the deck, the scene was most ludicrous. The whole party burst again into loud merriment, each man being convulsed by the ridiculous appearance of the rest.
“Now, gentlemen,” said my grandfather, “I will go into the cabin and shave off the other side. You can all remain on deck. As soon as I have finished, I will come up and give the clergyman the next chance.”
“You must hurry or you will not all be finished when we arrive,” remarked the captain; “for we shall touch Peck Slip wharf in half an hour.”
My grandfather entered the cabin, and in ten minutes he appeared upon deck, razor in hand. He was smoothly shaved.
“Now,” said the clergyman, “it is my turn.”
“Certainly,” said my grandfather. “You are next, but wait a moment, let me draw the razor across the strop once or twice.”
Putting his foot upon the side rail of the deck, and placing one end of the strop upon his leg, he drew the razor several times across it. Then, as if by mistake, the razor flew from his hand, and dropped into the water! My grandfather, with well-feigned surprise, exclaimed in a voice of terror, “Good heavens! the razor has fallen overboard!”
Such a picture of consternation as covered one-half of all the passengers’ faces, was never before witnessed. At first they were perfectly silent as if petrified with astonishment. But in a few minutes murmurs began to be heard, and soon swelled into exclamations. “An infernal hog!” said one. “The meanest thing I ever knew,” remarked another. “He ought to be thrown overboard himself,” cried several others; but all remembered that every man who got angry was to pay a fine of twenty dollars, and they did not repeat their remarks. Presently all eyes were turned upon the clergyman. He was the most forlorn picture of despair that could be imagined.
“Oh, this is dreadful!” he drawled, in a tone which seemed as if every word broke a heart-string.
This was too much, and the whole crowd broke into another roar. Tranquillity was restored! The joke, though a hard one, was swallowed. The sloop soon touched the dock. The half-shaved passengers now agreed that my grandfather, who was the only person on board who appeared like a civilized being, should take the lead for the Walton House, in Franklin Square, and all the rest should follow in “Indian file.” He reminded them that they would excite much attention in the streets, and enjoined them not to smile. They agreed, and away they started. They attracted a crowd of persons before they reached the corner of Pearl Street and Peck Slip, but they all marched with as much solemnity as if they were going to the grave. The door of the Walton House was open. Old Backus, the landlord, was quietly enjoying his cigar, while a dozen or two persons were engaged in reading the papers, etc. In marched the file of nondescripts, with the rabble at their heels. Mr. Backus and his customers started to their feet in astonishment. My grandfather marched solemnly up to the bar--the passengers followed, and formed double rows behind him. “Santa Cruz rum for nineteen,” exclaimed my grandfather to the barkeeper. The astonished liquor-seller produced bottles and tumblers in double-quick time, and when Backus discovered that the nondescripts were old friends and customers, he was excited to uncontrollable merriment.
“What in the name of decency has happened,” he exclaimed, “that you should all appear here half shaved?”
“Nothing at all, Mr. Backus,” said my grandfather, with apparent seriousness. “These gentlemen choose to wear their beards according to the prevailing fashion in the place they came from; and I think it is very hard that they should be stared at and insulted by you Yorkers because your fashion happens to differ a trifle from theirs.”
Backus half believed my grandfather in earnest, and the bystanders were quite convinced such was the fact, for not a smile appeared upon one of the half-shaved countenances.
After sitting a few minutes the passengers were shown to their rooms, and at tea-time every man appeared at the table precisely as he came from the sloop. The ladies looked astonished, the waiters winked and laughed, but the subjects of this merriment were as grave as judges. In the evening they maintained the same gravity in the bar-room, and at ten o’clock they retired to bed with all due solemnity. In the morning, however, bright and early, they were in the barber’s shop, undergoing an operation that soon placed them upon a footing with the rest of mankind.
It is hardly necessary to explain that the clergyman did not appear in that singular procession of Sunday afternoon. He tied a handkerchief over his face, and taking his valise in his hand, started for Market Street, where it is presumed he found a good brother and a good razor in season to fill his appointment.
Let me give an illustration of a “practical joke,” which is quite professional as well as practical with the operator, and in nine cases out of ten, no doubt, profitable withal. When I was in Paris in 1845, there came one day to my room in the Hotel Bedford, where I was staying, a smart little Frenchman with a case of instruments under his arm. He announced himself as a chiropodist who could instantly remove the worst corns, not only without pain, but he promised by means of a mysterious liniment in his possession to immediately heal the spot from which he removed the corn.
Now I had not a corn on my feet, but willing to test his wonderful powers, I told him to examine my left foot, and to remove a troublesome corn on the little toe. Surely enough he did remove and exhibit such a corn as I am sure would have prevented my walking, had I known that I was so grievously afflicted. He then poured some of his red oil on the toe and triumphantly showed me that the place had already entirely healed. Pretending to be delighted with his skill, I held out another toe for “operation,” and watching him carefully I saw him slip a manufactured corn into his oil bottle, which, after fumbling awhile and pretending to pare the unoffending toe, he “extracted.” More delighted than ever, I rang the bell, and told the servant to send up the landlord, as I wished him to witness the extraordinary skill of the corn-doctor. The landlord arrived, and, after a few words of eulogy upon the chiropodist, I submitted another healthy toe, and forth came another monstrous corn; for the same process of extraction, with the same results, could have been performed on the foot of a marble statue.
It was now my turn, to “operate,” so I rose and bolted the door and took off my coat, telling the “doctor” that I greatly admired his gold mounted instruments and the brazen impudence with which he swindled the public, but that this time he had “caught a Tartar,” and that he could not leave the room till he had been searched.
The quack bristled up in grand style at what he termed my ungentlemanly behavior, and threatened if I touched him to bring me before the “Tribunal.” I remarked that I rather thought the “Tribunal” was the last place on earth at which he desired to appear, and then assuring the landlord that the fellow was an arrant imposter, and that if he would assist me in searching him I would prove it and warrant that no harm should come to the searchers, he consented, and collared the chiropodist. The fellow seeing that we were resolved, quietly submitted. We first searched his pockets and found nothing; but upon examining his morocco instrument case, we discovered a drawer in which were eighty ready-made corns and a small piece of horn which furnished the raw material for the manufacture! Fortunately, my right foot was not bare, and I forthwith gave the chiropodist a lesson in the shape of a warm visitation of shoe-leather, which sent him flying down stairs, where the dose was doubled by an attentive servant till the chiropodist reached the street. He did not call at the Hotel Bedford again during my stay.
I was a good deal amused when I was in Brighton, England, during the same year, to see how some people manage to reconcile cash and conscience. Every one knows that Brighton is a fashionable watering-place, frequented by all sorts of people; but the actual residents, many of whom are very wealthy, are supposed to be quite removed from the fashionable and other follies of the visitors from abroad during the “season.” The millionnaires of Brighton, when I was there, were great church-goers, and at the same time were extensive owners in the stock of the railway which brought so many visitors to the place. It was therefore for their interest that trains should run on Sundays, as well as on other days, but as such a course would clash with their religious professions, it was necessary that some plan should be devised by which a compromise could be effected between profits and profession, cash and conscience,--for the idea of ever sacrificing interest to principle never enters the minds of those whose religion may be in their heads while it never reaches their hearts. The compromise between the duty and the dividends of the Brighton railway shareholders was effected as follows:
After a great deal of talk pro and con on the subject, the trains on Sunday were permitted to arrive and depart on the following conditions. But little noise and confusion was manifest and there were fewer porters employed about the station than on week-days, obliging the arriving and departing passengers not only to look after, but to lift their baggage, and as bell-ringing, that is, locomotive bell-ringing, would disturb the sanctity of the Sabbath, a bugle gave notice of the incoming and outgoing of the trains. But even this was not enough; it was expressly stipulated that the bugle-player should play nothing but sacred music! Thus trains came in to “Old Hundred,” or some similar Psalm tune, and went out to the air of “Dismission” common to the hymn commencing, “Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing.” I do not know that this custom is still kept up at Brighton, but it certainly was so when I was there in 1845; and it was gravely recommended to others who favored a very strict observance of Sunday, and yet liked their dividends, or were eager for Sunday mails. In common phrase, it was whipping the Evil One round the stump in a curious way.
It reminded me of the good old deacon in Connecticut who was in the habit of selling milk to his neighbors on all days in the week. One Sunday, however, his parson came home with him to tea, and while they were at the table a little girl came in for a quart of milk. The deacon was afraid of being scandalized in the presence of the parson, and so he told the girl he did not sell milk on Sunday. The girl, who had been accustomed to buy on that day as on other days, was much surprised and turned to go away, when the sixpence in her hand was too much of a temptation for the deacon, who called out:
“Here, little girl! you can leave the money now, and call and get the milk to-morrow!”
During my journeyings abroad I was not wholly free from the usual infirmity of travellers, viz, a desire to look at the old castles of feudal times, whether in preservation or in ruins; but there was one of our party, Mr. H. G. Sherman, who had a peculiar and irresistible taste for the antique. He gathered trunks full of stone and timber mementos from every place of note which we visited; and, if there was anything which he admired more than all else, it was an old castle. He spent many hours in clambering the broken walls of Kenilworth, in viewing the towers and dungeons of Warwick, and climbing the precipices of Dumbarton. When travelling by coach, Sherman always secured an outside seat, and, if possible, next to the coachman, so as to be able to make inquiries regarding everything which he might happen to see.
On our journey from Belfast to Drogheda, Sherman occupied his usual seat beside the driver, and asked him a thousand questions. The coachman was a regular wag, with genuine Irish wit, and he determined to have a little bit of fun at the expense of the inquisitive Yankee. As we came within eight miles of Drogheda, the watchful eye of Sherman caught the glimpse of a large stone pile, appearing like a castle, looming up among some trees in a field half a mile from the roadside.
“Oh, look here! what do you call that?” exclaimed Sherman, giving the coachman an elbowing in the ribs which was anything but pleasant.
“Faith,” replied the coachman, “you may well ask what we call that, for divil a call do we know what to call it. That is a castle, sir, beyond all question the oldest in Ireland; indade, none of the old books nor journals contain any account of it. It is known, however, that Brian Borrhoime inhabited it some time, though it is supposed to have been built centuries before his day.”
“I’ll give you half-a-crown to stop the coach long enough for me to run and bring a scrap of it away,” said Sherman.
“Sure, and isn’t this the royal mail coach? and I would not dare detain it for half the Bank of Ireland,” replied the honest coachman.
“How far is it to Drogheda?” inquired Sherman.
“About eight miles, more or less,” answered the coachman.
“Stop your coach, and let me down then,” replied Sherman; “I’ll walk to Drogheda, and would sooner walk three times the distance than not have a nearer view, and carry off a portion of the oldest castle in Ireland.”
With that Sherman dismounted, and, raising his umbrella to protect him from the cold rain which was falling in torrents, he marched off in the mud, calling out to me that I might expect him in Dublin by the next train to that which would take us from Drogheda, the railroad being then completed only to that point from Dublin.
We arrived in Dublin about five o’clock, cold and uncomfortable; but warm apartments and good fires were in waiting for us, and in a few hours we had partaken of an excellent supper, and were as happy as lords. About nine o’clock in the evening, the door of our parlor was opened, and who should come in but poor Sherman, drenched to the skin with cold rain,--the legs of his boots pulled over the bottoms of his pantaloons, and covered with thick mud to the very tops, and himself looking like a half-famished, weary and frozen traveller.
“For Heaven’s sake, let me get to the fire!” exclaimed Sherman, and we were too much struck with his suffering appearance not to heed it.
“Well, Sherman,” I remarked, “that must have been a tedious walk for you,--eight long Irish miles through the rain and mud.”
“I guess you would have thought so if you had walked it yourself,” replied Sherman, doggedly.
“I hope you have brought away trophies enough from the castle to pay you for all this trouble,” I continued.
“Oh, curse the castle!” exclaimed Sherman.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, in astonishment.
“Oh, you need not look surprised,” replied Sherman; “for I have no doubt that you and that bog-trotting Irish coachman have had fun enough at my expense before this time.”
I assured him that I positively had not heard the coachman speak on the subject, and begged him to tell me what had occurred to vex him in this manner.
“Why, if you don’t already know,” replied Sherman, “I would not have you know for twenty pounds, for you would be sure to publish it. However, now your curiosity is excited, you would be certain to find it all out, if you had to hire a post-chaise, and ride there on purpose; so I may as well tell you.”
“Do tell me,” I replied, “for I confess my curiosity is excited, and I am unable to guess why you are so angry; for I know you love to see castles, and that pleasure you surely have enjoyed, for I caught a glimpse of one myself.”
“No, you have not seen a castle to-day, nor I either!” exclaimed Sherman.
“What on earth was it, then?” I asked.
“A thundering old lime-kiln!” exclaimed Sherman; “and I only wish I could pitch that infernal Irish coachman into it while it was under full blast!”
It was many a long day before Sherman heard the last of the lime-kiln; in fact, this trick of the Irish coachman rendered him cautious in making inquiries of strangers.
One day we rode to Donnybrook, the place so much celebrated for its fairs and its black eyes; for it would be quite out of character for Pat to attend a fair without having a flourish of the shillelah, and a scrimmage which would result in a few broken heads and bloody noses.
Near Donnybrook we saw something on the summit of a hill which appeared like a round stone tower. It was probably sixty feet in circumference and twenty-five feet high.
“I would like to know what that is,” said Sherman.
I advised him to inquire of the first coachman that came along, but, with a forced smile, he declined my advice.
“It can’t be a lime-kiln, at any rate,” continued Sherman; “it must be a castle of some description.”
The more we looked at it the more mysterious did it appear to us, and Sherman’s castle-hunting propensities momentarily increased. At last he exclaimed: “A man who travels with a tongue in his head is a fool if he don’t use it; and I am not going within a hundred rods of what may be the greatest curiosity in Ireland, without knowing it.”
With that he turned our horse’s head towards a fine-looking mansion on our right, where we halted. Sherman jumped from the carriage, opened the small gate, proceeded up the alley of the lawn fronting the house, and rang the bell. A servant appeared at the door; but Sherman, knowing the stupidity of Irish servants, was determined to apply at head-quarters for the information he so much desired.
“Is your master in?” asked Sherman.
“I will see, sir. What name, if you plaze?”
“A stranger from the United States of America!” replied Sherman.
The servant departed, and in a minute returned and invited Sherman to enter the parlor. He found the gentleman of the mansion sitting by a pleasant fire, near which were also his lady and several visitors and members of the family. Sherman was not troubled with diffidence. Being seated, he hoped he would be excused for having called without an invitation; but the fact was, he was an American traveller, desirous of picking up all important information that might fall in his way.
The gentleman politely replied that no apology was necessary, that he was most happy to see him, and that any information which he could impart regarding that or any other portion of the country should be given with pleasure.
“Thank you,” replied Sherman; “I will not trouble you except on a single point. I have seen all that is important in Dublin and its vicinity, and in and about Donnybrook; there is but one thing respecting which I want information, and that is the stone tower or castle which we see standing on the hill, about a quarter of a mile south of your house. If you could give me the name and history of that pile, I shall feel extremely obliged.”
“Oh, nothing is easier,” replied the gentleman, with a smile. “That ‘pile,’ as you call it, was built some forty years ago by my father; and it was a lucky ‘pile’ for him, for it was the only windmill in these parts, and always had plenty to do: but a few years ago a hurricane carried off the wings of the mill, and ever since that it has stood as it now does, a memorial of its former usefulness. Is there any other important information that I can give you?” asked the gentleman, with a smile.
“Not any,” replied Sherman, rising to depart: “but perhaps I can give you some; and that is, that Ireland is, beyond all dispute, the meanest country I ever travelled in. The only two objects worthy of note that I have seen in all Ireland are a lime-kiln and the foundation for a windmill!”
Upon resuming his seat in the carriage, Sherman laughed immoderately, although he evidently felt somewhat chagrined by this second mistake in searching for ancient castles.
Calling one day in one of the principal hotels in Dublin, I noticed among the “rules” framed and hung in the coffee-room for the warning, instruction, or entertainment of the guests of the house, the following:
“No Gambling or Politics will be allowed to take place in this house, by any parties whatever.”
How politics could “take place” in an Irish hotel, or elsewhere, would have been a mystery to me, if I did not remember that the “scrimmages” and rows, which often follow the mere discussion of politics, seemed to warrant the landlord in classing politics with gambling, or any other dangerous amusement which might take place in the coffee-room of an Irish inn.
Speaking of Irishmen, I am reminded of an illustration of ready Irish wit, which is located on the line of the Boston and Fitchburg Railroad. Some years ago, the Reverend Thomas Whittemore, a wealthy Universalist minister, who was a large stockholder in the road, was appointed president of the company; and, as he was exceedingly conscientious in the discharge of his duty, he once took upon himself to walk over every foot of the route, to see if every part of the road was in complete order. Walking along in this way and alone, he came to a place where a loose rail lay alongside of the track; and, seeing an Irishman near by, who was apparently employed on the road, Mr. Whittemore called out to him:
“Here, Pat, pick up this rail, and lay it alongside of the fence out of the way, till it is wanted.”
It never occurred to Mr. Whittemore that every man whom he met did not know him and his official position; but Pat, not dreaming that his virtual employer, the president of the railroad company, was giving him an order, sharply answered:
“Jist go to the divil, will ye?”
“My dear friend,” said the smiling Whittemore, who instantly comprehended “the situation”--that is, that Pat did not know him, and no particular wonder, either--“‘go to the devil?’ why, that is the last place I should desire to go to!”
“An’ faith, an’ I think it’s the last place you will be goin’ to,” responded Pat.
Of railroads and railroad travel and employees I have heard and told no end of stories; but one of the latest and best, I think, is told of a man in a town “down East,” who had some difficulty with a conductor, and vowed that not another cent of his money should ever go into the treasury of that company.
“But,” said the conductor of the road, “you own property in one place on the line, and do business in another place, and are obliged to go back and forth almost every day: how are you going to help paying something to the company?”
“Oh! hereafter I shall pay my fare to you in the cars,” was the reply.
It may be a joke, but conductors themselves, that is, some of them, are more or less facetious on the subject of what in the vernacular is known as “knocking down.” Soon after the conductors on the New York and New Haven Railroad were put in costume while on duty, and were obliged to wear a badge bearing the initials of the company, my friend Rev. Dr. Chapin was accompanying me over the road to my Bridgeport home, when along came a conductor, whom we both knew well, to collect our fares.
“Ah, I see,” said Dr. Chapin, pointing to the letters on the new badge, “N. H., N. Y.,--‘Neither Here, Nor Yonder.”
“No,” whispered the conductor confidentially in the Doctor’s ear; “it means, ‘New House, Next Year.’”
It is scarcely necessary to tell the thousands who know Dr. Chapin that he is a man of most ready wit, and an inveterate punster. One day, when we were dining together, I was carving a chicken, which the Doctor pronounced a “hen-ous offence,” when, having some difficulty with a tough wing, I exclaimed:
“How shall I get the thing off, anyhow?”
“Pullet,” gravely answered the Doctor.
“Eggsactly,” said I.
Then began what the Doctor called a “battle of the spurs,”--I trying to “crow” over the Doctor, and he endeavoring to upset my “cackle-ations”; urging me meanwhile to “scratch away,” till at last I told him, if he made another pun on that “lay,” he would knock me off the roost.
“Oh, then,” said the Doctor, finally feathering his nest, “Sha’n’t I clear?!”
An equally fowl pun of the Doctor’s was perpetrated in cold blood, or rather in very cold water, down at Rockport, Massachusetts. Thither every summer season were wont to congregate, for their vacation, such celebrated clergymen as Starr King, Dr. Chapin, and others, mainly for the fine sea-bathing there. One season Dr. Chapin arrived at least a fortnight behind the rest; and, when they went down bathing together, the acclimated visitors pronounced the water to be “delightful,” “just right,” and so on.
“But isn’t it cold?” asked Dr. Chapin.
“Oh, no,” replied Starr King; “you have only to go down and up twice, and you are warm enough.”
“Ah, I see how it is,” said Dr. Chapin, who tried the experiment and came up half frozen; “you are warm after down and up twice? Why, that’s a pair o’ ducks!”
Fowls naturally suggest the market, and this brings to mind a neighbor of mine in New York who keeps two things,--a boarding-house, and “bad hours.” His wife justly suspected him of gambling; but he generally managed to get in before midnight, and always had money enough in his pocket to go to market with in the morning. On one occasion, however, after gambling all night, he did not come home till six o’clock in the morning, when, after a sound scolding from his wife for staying out all night and “gambling,” as she insisted, he was sent to market to get something for breakfast. Returning, he was again berated by his wife for gambling, he protesting all the while that he had been “spending the night with a sick friend.”
His wife might have believed him, if he had not sat down at the head of the table, half asleep, and solemnly passed the bread to the nearest boarder with the exclamation,--
“Cut!”
“That’s your ‘sick friend!’” exclaimed the wife, while a general roar around the table woke the host to the fact that he was passing bread, and not a pack of cards.
This story-telling carries me back to my boyhood days at Bethel, and brings to mind an old clerical acquaintance whom I knew long before I met Dr. Chapin. The Rev. Richard Varick Dey, who resided at Greenfield, Connecticut, was in the habit of coming to Bethel to preach on Sabbath evenings. He was a very eloquent preacher, and an eccentric man. He possessed fine talents; his sermons were rich in pathos and wit; and he was exceedingly popular with the world’s people. The more straight-laced, however, were afraid of him. His remarks both in and out of the pulpit would frequently rub hard against some popular dogma, or knock in the head some favorite religious tenet. Mr. Dey was therefore frequently in hot water with the church, and was either “suspended,” or about to be brought to trial for some alleged breach of ministerial duty, or some suspected heresy. While thus debarred from preaching, he felt that he must do something to support his family. With this view he visited Bethel, Danbury, and other towns, and delivered “Lectures,” at the termination of which, contributions for his benefit were taken up. I remember his lecturing in Bethel on “Charity.” This discourse overflowed with eloquence and pathos, and terminated in a contribution of more than fifty dollars.
It was said that on one occasion Mr. Dey was about to be tried before an ecclesiastical body at Middletown. There being no railroads in those days, many persons travelled on horseback. Two days before the trial was to take place, Mr. Dey started for Middletown alone, and on horseback. His valise was fastened behind the saddle; and, putting on his large great-coat surmounted with a half a dozen broad “capes,” as was the fashion of that period, and donning a broad-brimmed hat, he mounted his horse and started for the scene of trial.
On the second day of his journey, and some ten miles before reaching Middletown, he overtook a brother clergyman, also on horseback, who was wending his way to the Consociation.
He was a man perhaps sixty years of age, and his silvered locks stood out like porcupine quills. His iron visage, which seemed never to have worn a smile, his sinister expression, small, keen, selfish-looking eyes, and compressed lips, convinced Mr. Dey that he had no hope of mercy from that man as one of his judges. The reverend gentlemen soon fell into conversation. The sanctimonious clergyman gave his name and residence, and inquired those of Mr. Dey.
“My name is Mr. Richard,” replied Rev. Richard V. Dey, “and my residence is Fairfield.” (Greenfield is a parish in the town of Fairfield.)
“Ah,” exclaimed the other clergyman; “then you live near Mr. Dey: do you know him?”
“Perfectly well,” responded the eccentric Richard.
“Well, what do you think of him?” inquired the anxious brother.
“He is a wide-awake, cunning fellow, one whom I should be sorry to offend, for I would not like to fall into his clutches; but, if compelled to do so, I could divulge some things which would astonish our Consociation.”
“Is it possible? Well, of course your duty to the Church and the Redeemer’s cause will prompt you to make a clean breast of it, and divulge everything you know against the accused,” responded the excited clergyman.
“It is hard to destroy a brother’s reputation and break up the peace of his family,” answered the meek Mr. Richard.
“It is the duty of the elect to expose and punish the reprobates,” replied the sturdy Puritan.
“But had I not better first tell our brother his fault, and give him an opportunity to confess and be forgiven?”
“Our brother, as you call him, is undoubtedly a heretic, and the true faith is wounded by his presence amongst us. The Church must be purged from unbelief. We must beware of those who would introduce damnable heresies.”
“Are you sure that Mr. Dey is an unbeliever?” inquired the modest Mr. Richard.
“I have heard that he throws doubt upon the Trinity,--shrugs his shoulders at some portions of the Saybrook Platform, and has said that even reprobates may sincerely repent, pray for forgiveness, and be saved; ay, that he even doubts the damnation of unregenerate infants!”
“Horrible!” ejaculated Mr. Richard.
“Yes, horrible indeed! But I trust that our Consociation will excommunicate him at once and forever. But what do you know concerning his belief?”
“I know nothing specially against his belief,” responded Mr. Richard; “but I have witnessed some of his acts, which I should be almost sorry to expose.”
“A mistaken charity. It is your duty to tell the Consociation all you know regarding the culprit, and I shall insist upon your doing so.”
“I certainly desire to do that which is right and just; and, as I am but young in the ministry, I shall defer to your judgment, founded on age and experience. But I would prefer at first to state to you what I know, and then will be guided by your advice in regard to giving my testimony before the Consociation.”
“A very proper course. You can state the facts to me, and I will give you my counsel. Now what do you know?”
“I know that on more than one occasion I have caught him in the act of kissing my wife,” replied the injured Mr. Richard.
“I am not at all astonished,” responded the clergyman; “such conduct coincides exactly with the opinion I had formed of the man. I commiserate you, sir, but I honor your sense of duty in divulging such important facts, even at the expense of exposing serious troubles in your domestic relations. But, sir, justice must have its course. These facts must be testified to before the Consociation. Do you know anything else against the delinquent?”
“I know something more; but it is of a nature so delicate, and concerns me personally so seriously, that I must decline divulging it.”
“Sir, you cannot do that. I will not permit it, but will insist on your telling the whole truth before our Consociation, though your heart-strings were to break in consequence. I repeat, sir, that I sympathize with you personally, but personal feelings must be swallowed up in the promotion of public good. No sympathy for an individual can be permitted to clash with the interests of the true Church. You had better tell me, sir, all you know.”
“Since you say that duty requires it, I will do so. I have caught him, under very suspicious circumstances, in my wife’s bedroom,” said the unfortunate Mr. Richard.
“Was your wife in bed?” inquired the man with the iron face.
“She was,” faintly lisped the almost swooning Mr. Richard.
“Enough, enough,” was the response. “Our Consociation will soon dispose of the Rev. Richard V. Dey.”
The two clergymen had now arrived at Middletown. The Rev. Mr. Vinegarface rode to the parsonage while Mr. Dey, alias “Mr. Richard,” went to a small and obscure inn.
The Consociation commenced the next day. This ecclesiastical body was soon organized, and, after disposing of several minor questions, it was proposed to take up the charges of heresy against the Rev. Mr. Dey. The accused, with a most demure countenance, was conversing with his quondam travelling companion of the day previous, who upon hearing this proposition instantly sprang to his feet, and informed the reverend Chairman that providentially he had been put in possession of facts which must necessarily result in the immediate expulsion of the culprit from the Church, and save the necessity of examining testimony on the question of heresy. “In fact,” continued he, “I am prepared to prove that the Rev. Richard V. Dey has frequently kissed the wife of one of our brethren, and has also been caught in a situation which affords strong evidence of his being guilty of the crime of adultery!”
A thrill of horror and surprise ran through the assembly. Every eye was turned to Mr. Dey, who was seated so closely to the last speaker that he touched him as he resumed his seat. Mr. Dey’s countenance was as placid as a May morning, and it required keen vision to detect the lurking smile of satisfaction that peeped from a corner of his eye. A few minutes of dead silence elapsed.
“Produce your witnesses,” finally said the Chairman, in an almost sepulchral voice.
“I call on the Rev. Mr. Richard, of Fairfield, to corroborate under oath the charges which I have made,” responded the hard-visaged Puritan.
Not a person moved. Mr, Dey looked as unconcerned as if he was an utter stranger to all present, and understood not the language which they were speaking.
“Where is the Rev. Mr. Richard?” inquired the venerable Chairman.
“Here he is,” responded the accuser, familiarly tapping Mr. Dey on the shoulder.
The whole audience burst into such a roar of laughter as probably never was heard in a like Consociation before.
The accuser was almost petrified with astonishment at such inconceivable conduct on the part of that sedate religious assembly.
Mr. Dey alone maintained the utmost gravity.
“That, sir, is the Rev. Richard V. Dey,” replied the Chairman, when order was restored.
The look of utter dismay which instantly marked the countenance of the accuser threw the assembly into another convulsion of laughter, during which Mr. Dey’s victim withdrew, and was not seen again in Middletown. The charges of heresy were then brought forward. After a brief investigation, they were dismissed for want of proof, and Mr. Dey returned to Greenfield triumphant.
I have often heard Mr. Dey relate the following anecdote. A young couple called on him one day at his house in Greenfield. They informed him that they were from the southern portion of the State, and desired to be married. They were well dressed, made considerable display of jewelry, and altogether wore an air of respectability. Mr. Dey felt confident that all was right, and, calling in several witnesses, he proceeded to unite them in the holy bonds of wedlock.
After the ceremonies were concluded, Mr. Dey invited the happy pair (as was usual in those days) to partake of some cake and wine. They thus spent a social half-hour together, and, on rising to depart, the bridegroom handed Mr. Dey a twenty-dollar bank note; remarking that this was the smallest bill he had, but, if he would be so good as to pay their hotel bill (they had merely dined and fed their horse at the hotel), he could retain the balance of the money for his services. Mr. Dey thanked him for his liberality, and went at once to the hotel with the lady and gentleman, and informed the landlord that he would settle their bill. They proceeded on their journey, and the next day it was discovered that the bank-note was a counterfeit, and that Mr. Dey had to pay nearly three dollars for the privilege of marrying this loving couple.
The newspapers in various parts of the State subsequently published facts which showed that the affectionate pair got married in every town they passed through,--thus paying their expenses and fleecing the clergymen by means of counterfeits.
One of the deacons of Mr. Dey’s church asked him if he usually kissed the bride at weddings. “Always,” was the reply.
“How do you manage when the happy pair are negroes?” was the deacon’s next question. “In all such cases,” replied Mr. Dey, “the duty of kissing is appointed to the deacons.”
My grandfather was a Universalist, and for various reasons, fancied or real, he was bitterly opposed to the Presbyterians in doctrinal views, though personally some of them were his warmest and most intimate friends. Being much attached to Mr. Dey, he induced that gentleman to deliver a series of Sunday evening sermons in Bethel; and my grandfather was not only on all these occasions one of the most prominent and attentive hearers, but Mr. Dey was always his guest. He would generally stop over Monday and Tuesday with my grandfather, and, as several of the most social neighbors were called in, they usually had a jolly time of it. Occasionally “mine host” would attack Mr. Dey good-naturedly on theological points, and would generally come off second best; but he delighted, although vanquished, to repeat the sharp answers with which Mr. Dey met his objections to the “Confession of Faith.”
One day, when a dozen or more of the neighbors were present, and enjoying themselves in passing around the bottle, relating anecdotes, and cracking jokes, my grandfather called out in a loud tone of voice, which at once arrested the attention of all present:
“Friend Dey, I believe you pretend to believe in foreordination?”
“To be sure I do,” replied Mr. Dey.
“Well, now, suppose I should spit in your face, what would you do?” inquired my grandfather.
“I hope that is not a supposable case,” responded Mr. Dey, “for I should probably knock you down.”
“That would be very inconsistent,” replied my grandfather, exultingly; “for if I spat in your face it would be because it was foreordained I should do so: why then would you be so unreasonable as to knock me down?”
“Because it would be foreordained that I should knock you down,” replied Mr. Dey, with a smile.
The company burst into a laugh, in which my grandfather heartily joined.
My father, as well as my grandfather, was very fond of a practical joke, and he lost no occasion which offered for playing off one upon his friends and neighbors. In addition to his store, tavern, and freight-wagon business to Norwalk, he kept a small livery-stable; and on one occasion, a young man named Nelson Beers applied to him for the use of a horse to ride to Danbury, a distance of three miles. Nelson was an apprentice to the shoe-making business, nearly out of his time, was not over-stocked with brains, and lived a mile and a half east of our village. My father thought that it would be better for Nelson to make his short journey on foot than to be at the expense of hiring a horse, but he did not tell him so.
We had an old horse named “Bob.” Having reached an age beyond his teens, he was turned out in a bog lot near our house to die. He was literally a “living skeleton,”--much in the same condition of the Yankee’s nag, which was so weak his owner had to hire his neighbor’s horse to help him draw his last breath. My father, in reply to Nelson’s application, told him that the livery horses were all out, and he had none at home except a famous “race-horse,” which he was keeping in low flesh in order to have him in proper trim to win a great race soon to come off.
“Oh, do let me have him, Uncle Phile” (my father’s name was Philo; but, as it was the custom in that region to call everybody uncle, or aunt, or squire, or deacon, or colonel, or captain, my father’s general title among his acquaintances was “Uncle Phile”). “I will ride him very carefully, and not injure him in the least; besides, I will have him rubbed down and fed in Danbury,” said Nelson Beers.
“He is too valuable an animal to risk in the hands of a young man like you,” responded my father.
Nelson continued to importune, and my father to play off, until it was finally agreed that the horse could be had on the condition that he should in no case be ridden faster than a walk or slow trot, and that he should be fed four quarts of oats at Danbury.
Nelson started on his Rosinante, looking for all the world as if he was on a mission to the carrion crows; but he felt every inch a man, for he fancied himself astride of the greatest race-horse in the country, and realized that a heavy responsibility was resting on his shoulders, for the last words of my father to him were: “Now, Nelson, if any accident should happen to this animal while under your charge, you could not pay the damage in a lifetime of labor.”
Old “Bob” was duly oated and watered at Danbury, and at the end of several hours Mr. Beers mounted him and started for Bethel. He concluded to take the “great pasture” road home, that being the name of a new road cut through swamps and meadows as a shorter route to our village. Nelson, for the nonce forgetting his responsibility, probably tried the speed of his race-horse and soon broke him down. At all events something occurred to weaken old Bob’s nerves, for he came to a stand-still and Nelson was forced to dismount. The horse trembled with weakness and Nelson Beers trembled with fright. A small brook was running through the bogs at the roadside, and Beers, thinking that perhaps his “race-horse” needed a drink, led him into the stream. Poor old “Bob” stuck fast in the mud, and, not having strength to withdraw his feet, quietly closed his eyes, and, like a patriarch as he was, he dropped into the soft bed that was awaiting him, and died without a single kick.
No language can describe the consternation of poor Beers. He could not believe his eyes, and vainly tried to open those of his horse. He placed his ear at the mouth of poor old Bob, but took it away again in utter dismay. The breath had ceased.
At last Nelson, groaning as he thought of meeting my father, and wondering whether eternity added to time would be long enough for him to earn the value of the horse, took the bridle from the “dead-head,” and unbuckling the girth, drew off the saddle, placed it on his own back, and trudged gloomily towards our village.
It was about sundown when my father espied his victim coming up the street with the saddle and bridle thrown across his shoulders, his face wearing a look of the most complete despair. My father was certain that old Bob had departed this life, and he chuckled inwardly and quietly, but instantly assumed a most serious countenance. Poor Beers approached more slowly and mournfully than if he was following a dear friend to the grave.
When he came within hailing distance my father called out, “Why, Beers, is it possible you have been so careless as to let that race-horse run away from you?”
“Oh, worse than that,--worse than that, Uncle Phile,” groaned Nelson.
“Worse than that! Then he has been stolen by some judge of valuable horses. Oh, what a fool I was to intrust him to anybody!” exclaimed my father, with well-feigned sorrow.
“No, he ain’t stolen, Uncle Phile,” said Nelson.
“Not stolen! Well, I am glad of that, for I shall recover him again; but where is he? I am afraid you have lamed him.”
“Worse than that,” drawled the unfortunate Nelson.
“Well, what is the matter? where is he? what ails him?” asked my father.
“Oh, I can’t tell you,--I can’t tell you!” said Beers with a groan.
“But you must tell me,” returned my father.
“It will break your heart,” groaned Beers.
“To be sure it will if he is seriously injured,” replied my father; “but where is he?”
“He is dead!” said Beers, as he nerved himself up for the announcement, and then, closing his eyes, sank into a chair completely overcome with fright.
My father groaned in a way that started Nelson to his feet again. All the sensations of horror, intense agony, and despair were depicted to the life on my father’s countenance.
“Oh, Uncle Phile, Uncle Phile, don’t be too hard with me; I wouldn’t have had it happen for all the world,” said Beers.
“You can never recompense me for that horse,” replied my father.
“I know it, I know it, Uncle Phile; I can only work for you as long as I live, but you shall have my services till you are satisfied after my apprenticeship is finished,” returned Beers.
After a short time my father became more calm, and, although apparently not reconciled to his loss, he asked Nelson how much he supposed he ought to owe him.
“Oh, I don’t know; I am no judge of the value of blood horses, but I have been told they are worth fortunes sometimes,” replied Beers.
“And mine was one of the best in the world,” said my father, “and in such perfect condition for running,--all bone and muscle.”
“Oh, yes, I saw that,” said Beers, despondingly, but with a frankness that showed he did not wish to deny the great claims of the horse and his owner.
“Well,” said my father, with a sigh, “as I have no desire to go to law on the subject, we had better try to agree upon the value of the horse. You may mark on a slip of paper what sum you think you ought to owe me for him, and I will do the same; we can then compare notes, and see how far we differ.”
“I will mark,” said Beers, “but, Uncle Phile, don’t be too hard with me.”
“I will be as easy as I can, and endeavor to make some allowance for your situation,” said my father; “but, Nelson, when I think how valuable that horse was, of course I must mark something in the neighborhood of the amount of cash I could have received for him. I believe, however, Nelson, that you are an honest young man, and are willing to do what you think is about right. I therefore wish to caution you not to mark down one cent more than you really think, under the circumstances, you ought to pay me when you are able, and for which you are now willing to give me your note of hand. You will recollect that I told you, when you applied for the horse, that I did not wish to let him go.”
Nelson gave my father a grateful look, and assented to all he said. At least a dozen of our joke-loving neighbors were witnessing the scene with great apparent solemnity. Two slips of paper were prepared; my father marked on one, and after much hesitation, Beers wrote on the other.
“Well, let us see what you have marked,” said my father.
“I suppose you will think it is too low,” replied Beers, handing my father the slip of paper.
“Only three hundred and seventy-five dollars!” exclaimed my father, reading the paper; “well, there is a pretty specimen of gratitude for you!”
Nelson was humbled, and could not muster sufficient courage to ask my father what he had marked. Finally one of our neighbors asked my father to show his paper--he did so. He had marked, “Six and a quarter cents.” Our neighbor read it aloud, and a shock of mirth ensued, which fairly lifted Beers to his feet. It was some time before he could comprehend the joke, and when he became fully aware that no harm was done, he was the happiest fellow I have ever seen.
I might fill a volume with these reminiscences of my younger days, but turning once more to my foreign notebooks, I find material there which seems to claim a place in this story-chapter. I am never tired of telling and laughing at some of my mishaps and adventures in trying to use the French language, when I first went abroad. It was no unusual thing to travel half a day in a “diligence,” or in the cars, with some Englishman, as I would afterwards discover, both of us doing our best to make ourselves intelligible to each other in French, till at last, in despair, one or the other would utter the conventional conundrum:
“Parlez-vous Anglais?”
“Why, of course; I am an American” (or an Englishman); and then a mutual roar would follow.
American, or English, or Dutch French is generally quite a different thing from “French French.” Thus I could always understand the Dutchmen who spoke to me in French in Amsterdam, and I may add, they could perfectly understand me. We spoke the same patois. I wrote to my wife, I remember, from Amsterdam, that I found they spoke much purer French in that city than in Paris!
Once on arriving in Paris at the station of the Northern Railway, I, with other passengers, was in the room devoted to the examination of baggage. Among the rest, was a party consisting of a New York merchant and his wife, with their daughter, a young lady of eighteen, who was at once volatile and voluble. Undoubtedly, she had spoken the best Madison-Avenue school French for five years or more; and with this she fairly overwhelmed the official interpreter who was present. After hearing her for full five minutes, the interpreter gravely asked:
“Do you speak English, Miss?”
“Certainly,” was the reply.
“Well, speak English then, if you please, for I can understand your English better than I can your French.”
I was one evening at the house of my friend, Mr. John Nimmo, in Paris, and while waiting for him and his family to return from the theatre, was entertained for an hour or more by two very agreeable young ladies, to whom I made such reply in French, from time to time, as I could. At last came the inevitable inquiry as to the capacity of the young ladies in the English language:
“Why, bless us, Mr. Barnum,” was the reply; “we are Scotch governesses, who are here in Paris simply to learn French!”
The last time I went from France to England, arriving late at night, I stopped in Dover, at the hotel nearest the custom-house, so as to look after my luggage next day. Ringing my bell early in the morning, for shaving-water, half asleep I called out to the serving-maid for “l’eau chaude.”
“Please, sir,” was the reply, “I do not speak French.”
“Nor I, either,” said I, promptly; “just bring me some hot water, if you please.”
But some of the English have a queer way of speaking their own language, and the cockney’s management of what he would call the “haspirate” is sufficiently familiar. Crowding into Exeter Hall, London, at an entertainment, one evening, I heard the usher just before me shouting out seats, as he looked at the checks, in this fashion:
“Letter Ha, first row; letter Hef, sixth row; letter He, fifth row; letter Hi, ninth row”; and so on. Seeing that my own check was “L,” I showed it to him, and quietly inquired:
“Where do I go to, usher?”
“You go to Hell,” was the prompt response; which was not intended to be either profane or impolite.
But I must bring this story-telling chapter--an episode in the narrative of graver events in my autobiography--to a close, and discourse of Sea-side Park and Waldemere.
XLVI. SEA-SIDE PARK
INTEREST IN PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS--OLD PARK PROJECTS--OPPOSITION OF OLD FOGIES--THE SOUND SHORE AT BRIDGEPORT--INACCESSIBLE PROPERTY--THE EYE OF FAITH--TALKING TO THE FARMERS--REACHING THE PUBLIC THROUGH THE PAPERS--HOW THE LAND WAS SECURED FOR A GREAT PLEASURE-GROUND--GIFTS TO THE PEOPLE--OPENING OF SEA-SIDE PARK--THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GROUND BETWEEN NEW YORK AND BOSTON--MAGNIFICENT DRIVES--THE ADVANTAGES OF THE LOCATION--MUSIC FOR THE MILLION--BY THE SEA-SIDE--FUTURE OF THE PARK--A PERPETUAL BLESSING TO POSTERITY.
From the time when I first settled in Bridgeport and turned my attention to opening and beautifying new avenues, and doing whatever lay in my power to extend and improve that charming city, I was exceedingly anxious that public parks should be established, especially one where good drive-ways, and an opportunity for the display of the many fine equipages for which Bridgeport is celebrated, could be afforded. Mr. Noble and I began the movement by presenting to the city the beautiful ground in East Bridgeport now known as Washington Park,--a most attractive promenade and breathing place and a continual resort for citizens on both sides of the river, particularly in the summer evenings, when one of the city bands is an additional attraction to the pleasant spot. Thus our new city was far in advance of Bridgeport proper in providing a prime necessity for the health and amusement of the people.
Our park projects in the city date as far back as the year 1850. At that time, by an arrangement with Deacon David Sherwood, who lived in Fairfield, a few rods west of the Bridgeport line, and who owned land adjoining mine, we agreed to throw open a large plot of ground free to the public, provided State Street, in Bridgeport, was continued west so as to pass through this land. But a few “old fogies” through whose land the street would pass, thereby improving their property thousands of dollars in value, stupidly opposed the project in the Fairfield town-meeting, and the measure was defeated. Seventeen years afterwards, in 1867, after a long sleep, these same old fogies managed to awake, as did the citizens of Fairfield generally, and then State Street was extended without opposition; but property, to some extent, had changed hands and had largely increased in value, so that the chance of having a free park in that locality was forever lost, and the town was actually obliged to pay Deacon Sherwood for the privilege of continuing the highway through his land. How many similar opportunities for benefiting the public and posterity in all coming time are carelessly thrown away in every town, through the mere stupidity of mole-eyed land-owners, who stand as stumbling-blocks not only in the way of public improvements, but directly in opposition to their individual interests, and thus for scores of years rob the community of the pleasures to be derived from broad avenues lined with shade-trees and from open and free public grounds.
Up to the year 1865, the shore of Bridgeport west of the public wharves, and washed by the waters of Long Island Sound, was inaccessible to carriages, or even to horsemen, and almost impossible for pedestrianism. The shore edge in fact was strewn with rocks and boulders, which made it, like “Jordan” in the song, an exceedingly “hard road to travel.” A narrow lane reaching down to the shore enabled parties to drive near to the water for the purpose of clamming, and occasionally bathing; but it was all claimed as private property by the land proprietors, whose farms extended down to the water’s edge. On several occasions at low tide, I endeavored to ride along the shore on horseback for the purpose of examining “the lay of the land,” in the hope of finding it feasible to get a public drive along the water’s edge. On one occasion, in 1863, I succeeded in getting my horse around from the foot of Broad Street in Bridgeport to a lane over the Fairfield line, a few rods west of “Iranistan Avenue,” a grand street which I have since opened at my own expense, and through my own land. From the observations I made that day, I was satisfied that a most lovely park and public drive might be, and ought to be opened along the whole water-front as far as the western boundary line of Bridgeport, and even extending over the Fairfield line.
Foreseeing that in a few years such an improvement would be too late, and having in mind the failure of the attempt in 1850 to provide a park for the people of Bridgeport, I immediately began to agitate the subject in the Bridgeport papers, and also in daily conversations with such of my fellow-citizens as I thought would take an earnest and immediate interest in the enterprise. I urged that such an improvement would increase the taxable value of property in that vicinity many thousands of dollars, and thus enrich the city treasury; that it would improve the value of real estate generally in the city; that it would be an additional attraction to strangers who came to spend the summer with us, and to those who might be induced from other considerations to make the city their permanent residence; that the improvement would throw into market some of the most beautiful building-sites that could be found anywhere in Connecticut; and I dwelt upon the absurdity, almost criminality, that a beautiful city like Bridgeport, lying on the shore of a broad expanse of salt water, should so cage itself in, that not an inhabitant could approach the beach. With these and like arguments and entreaties I plied the people day in and day out, till some of them began to be familiarized with the idea that a public park close upon the shore of the Sound was at least a possible if not probable thing.
But certain “conservatives,” as they are called, said: “Barnum is a hair-brained fellow, who thinks he can open and people a New-York Broadway through a Connecticut wilderness”; and the “old fogies” added: “Yes, he is trying to start another chestnut-wood fire for the city to blow forever; but the city or town of Bridgeport will not pay out money to lay out or to purchase public parks. If people want to see green grass and trees, they have only to walk or drive half a mile either way from the city limits, and they will come to farms where they can see either or both for nothing; and, if they are anxious to see salt water, and to get a breath of the Sound breeze, they can take boats at the wharves, and sail or row till they are entirely satisfied.”
Thus talked the conservatives and the “old fogies,” who unhappily, even if they are in a minority, are always a force in all communities. I soon saw that it was of no use to expect to get the city to pay for a park. The next thing was to see if the land could not be procured free of charge, or at a nominal cost, provided the city would improve and maintain it as a public park. I 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.’ Such trials of patience as I underwent in a twelvemonth, in the endeavor to carry this point, few persons who have not undertaken like almost hopeless labor can comprehend. At last I enlisted the attention of Messrs. Nathaniel Wheeler, James Loomis, Francis Ives, Frederick Wood, and a few more gentlemen, and persuaded them to walk with me over the ground, which to me seemed in every way practicable for a park. These gentlemen, who were men of taste as well as of enterprise and public spirit, very soon coincided in my ideas as to the feasibility of the plan and the advantages of the site; and some of them went with me to talk with the land-owners, adding their own pleas to the arguments I had already advanced. At last, after much pressing and persuading, we 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 the small Mallett 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, I bought it for about $12,000, and then presented the required front to the park. I did not want this land or any portion of it for my own purposes or profit, and I offered a thousand dollars to any one who would take my place in the transaction; but no one accepted, and I was quite willing to contribute so much of the land as was needed for so noble an object. Indeed, besides this, I gave $1,400 towards purchasing other land and improving the park; and, after months of persistent and personal effort, I 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 I had the pleasure of naming this new and great public improvement, “Sea-side Park.”
Public journals are generally exponents of public opinion; and how the people viewed the new purchase, now their own property, may be judged by the following extracts from the leading local newspapers, when the land for the new enterprise was finally secured:
OUR SEA-SIDE PARK.
[From the “Bridgeport Standard,” August 21, 1865.]
Bridgeport has taken another broad stride of which she may well be proud. The Sea-side Park is a fixed fact. Yesterday Messrs. P. T. Barnum, Captain John Brooks, Mr. George Bailey, Captain Burr Knapp, and Henry Wheeler generously donated to this city sufficient land for the Park, with the exception of seven or eight acres, which have been purchased by private subscriptions. Last night the Common Council appointed excellent Park Commissioners, and work on the sea-wall and the avenues surrounding the Park will be commenced at once. Besides securing the most lovely location for a park to be found between New York and Boston, which for all time will be a source of pride to our city and State, there is no estimating the pecuniary advantage which this great improvement will eventually prove to our citizens. Plans are on foot and enterprises are agitated in regard to a park hotel, sea-side cottages, horse railroad branch, and other features, which, when consummated, will serve to amaze our citizens to think that such a delightful sea-side frontage has been permitted to lie so long unimproved. To Mr. P. T. Barnum, we believe, is awarded the credit of originating this beautiful improvement, and certainly to his untiring, constant, and persevering personal efforts are we indebted for its being finally consummated. Hon. James C. Loomis was the first man who heartily joined with Barnum in pressing the plan of a sea-side park upon the attention of our citizens, but it is due to our citizens themselves to say that, with an extraordinary unanimity, they have not only voted to appropriate $10,000 from the city treasury to making the avenues around the Park, and otherwise improving it, but they have also generously aided by private contributions in purchasing such land as was not freely given for the Park. Of course, we shall not only, at an early day, publish the names of such citizens as have subscribed money for this purpose, but they will also be handed down to posterity, as they will richly deserve, in the publication of the Park Commissioners.
[From the “Bridgeport Standard,” August 21, 1865.]
The names of P. T. Barnum, Capt. John Brooks, Mr. George Bailey, Capt. Burr Knapp and Henry Wheeler have gone into history as the generous contributors to the best enterprise ever attempted for the benefit of our city; and the city has accepted the trust with the most commendable promptness, and appointed its commissioners, who have already entered upon their duties. We shall watch now with eager interest the unfolding and development of such a park as can nowhere be found on either side of the Sound, and one which shall be “a thing of beauty and a joy forever” to our city.
It needs but the hand of skilful art, assisted by a proper public spirit, to render the Sea-side Park a charmed spot of delightful resort for public drives or private walks. The commissioners chosen to superintend the inauguration of the laying out and improvements of the grounds are men of correct taste, of good judgment and of liberal and comprehensive views as to the wants and demands of a growing city like Bridgeport. They understand that Nature is here to be made so attractive by Art, that all classes shall be drawn hither not merely for the pleasure of enjoying a favorite resort but also for the profit which comes to the nobler impulses of our nature, by the contemplation of cunning handicraft upon the landscape, as God left it for man to adorn and beautify. Here will be planted trees of every variety that will endure the temperature of this latitude, and flowers of every hue and perfume; here will walks serpentine through shady groves, and anon lead out to behold the broad expanse of the beautiful Sound.
Some one has aptly said, that one work of art was worth a thousand lectures on art. Here, then, let the statues of the artist be placed, to educate the masses by their silent teachings, and win them to higher ideas and better views of life by their mute eloquence. One feature of American parks is especially worthy of mention: they are essentially and emphatically democratic. They are made for the people, and are in turn appreciated by the people. They are open alike to the millionnaire with his coach-and-six, and the poor pedestrian without a penny. The advantages possessed by Bridgeport as a manufacturing city are becoming daily more and more appreciated by business-men from various portions of the country. There is no city in the State which can compare with ours in the recent erection of large and permanent manufacturing establishments. This fact brings into our midst a large industrial population, for which, even now, the supply of dwellings is inadequate to the demand. This population, commingling and combining with our own, and possessing energy, enterprise, business tact and intelligence, will rapidly develop the resources of our city and its surroundings for mechanical pursuits, and the productions of the various manufacturing establishments already erected, or in process of erection. To such a class, the benefits of a Park, possessing such facilities for recreation and improvement as the Sea-side Park will present, will be incalculable, in fostering the health, promoting the happiness, and elevating the taste of all who can avail themselves of its beneficial influences.
To the public-spirited gentlemen who have so generously donated to the city the land for the Sea-side Park, Bridgeport owes a debt of gratitude which she can never repay. Their names will descend to posterity, and be remembered with pride and exultation as among the noblest of public benefactors, so long as the flowers bloom and the waves wash the margin of the Sea-side Park. No citizen of Bridgeport, identified with her growth and prosperity, and having the future welfare of the city at heart, should fail to contribute, in such a manner as best he may, to such a grand improvement. Let our citizens take hold of this noble enterprise with that large and liberal spirit in which it has been conceived and thus far consummated, and Bridgeport will ere long possess an attraction which will draw hither for permanent residence much of the wealth and intelligence, refinement and virtue of the great metropolis, which now sequesters itself along the banks of the Hudson, or among the sand-knolls of New Jersey.
Thus was my long-cherished plan at length fulfilled; nor did my efforts end here, for I aided and advised in all important matters in the laying out and progress of the new park; and in July, 1869, I gave to the city several acres of land, worth at the lowest valuation $5,000, which were added to and included in this public pleasure-ground, and now make the west end of the park.
At the beginning, the park on paper and the park in reality were two quite different things. The inaccessibility of the site was remedied by approaches which permitted the hundreds of workmen to begin to grade the grounds, and to lay out the walks and drives. The rocks and boulders over which I had more than once attempted to make my way on foot and on horseback were devoted to the building of a substantial sea-wall, under the able superintendence of Mr. David W. Sherwood. Paths were opened, shade-trees were planted; and fortunately there was in the very centre of the ground a beautiful grove of full growth, which is one of the most attractive features of this now charming spot; and a broad and magnificent drive follows the curves of the shore and encircles the entire park. Although work is constantly going on and much remains to be done, yet a considerable portion of the park presents a finished appearance: a large covered music-stand has been built; and, on a rising piece of the ground, a substantial foundation has been built for a Soldiers’ Monument. The corner-stone of this monument was laid with impressive ceremonies and a military display, in the presence of a large concourse of citizens and soldiers, among whom were Major-General Alfred H. Terry, U. S. A.; Major-General and Governor Joseph H. Hawley; Adjutant-General Charles T. Stanton; Quartermaster-General Julius S. Gilman; Surgeon-General Philo G. Rockwell; Paymaster-General William B. Wooster; Aides-de-Camp and Colonel John H. Burnham, Alford P. Rockwell, William H. Mallory, Charles M. Coit, General S. W. Kellogg, of the First Brigade; Colonel S. E. Merwin, jr., Colonel Crawford, and other officers of the Governor’s staff, and of the Connecticut State Militia.
The branch horse-railroad already reaches one of the main entrances, and brings down crowds of people every day and evening, and especially on the evenings in which the band plays. At such times the avenues are not only thronged with superb equipages and crowds of people, but the whole harbor is alive with row-boats, sail-boats and yachts. The views on all sides are charming. In the rear is the city, with its roofs and spires; Black Rock and Stratford lights are in plain sight; to the eastward and southward stretches “Old Long Island’s sea-girt shore”; and between lies the broad expanse of the salt water, with its ever “fresh” breezes, and the perpetual panorama of sails and steamers. I do not believe that a million dollars to-day would compensate the city of Bridgeport for the loss of what is confessed to be the most delightful public pleasure-ground between New York and Boston.
For these magnificent results, accomplished in so short a time, the people of Bridgeport are indebted to the park commissioners, and especially to Mr. Nathaniel Wheeler, whose untiring energy and exquisite taste have been mainly instrumental in bringing this work forward to its present state of completion.
There is easy and cheap access to this ground by means of the horse-railroad from East Bridgeport and Fairfield, and numerous avenues open directly upon the park from Bridgeport. It is the daily resort of thousands, who go to inhale the salt sea-air; and the main drive is already, on a lesser scale, to the citizens of Bridgeport, what the grand avenue in Central Park is to the people of New York; with this priceless advantage, however, in favor of Sea-side Park, of a frontage on the Sound, and a shore on which the waves are ever breaking, and sounding the grand, unending story of the mysteries of the great deep.
On the western and northern margins of this public ground, in sight of the Sound and in full view of every part of the park, will hereafter be built the villas and mansions of the wealthiest citizens, and, when the hand that now pens these lines is stilled forever, and thousands look from these sea-side residences across the water to Long-Island shore, and over the groves and lawns and walks and drives of the beautiful ground at their feet, it may be a source of gratification and pride to my posterity to hear the expressions of gratitude that possibly will be expressed to the memory of their ancestor who secured to all future generations the benefits and blessings of Sea-side Park.
XLVII. WALDEMERE
MY PRIVATE LIFE--PLANS FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT IN BRIDGEPORT--OPENING AVENUES--PLANTING SHADE-TREES--OLD FOGIES--CONSERVATISM A CURSE TO CITIES--BENEFITING BARNUM’S PROPERTY--SALE OF LINDENCROFT--LIVING IN A FARM-HOUSE--BY THE SEA-SHORE--ANOTHER NEW HOME--WALDEMERE--HOW IT CAME TO BE BUILT--MAGIC AND MONEY--WAVEWOOD AND THE PETREL’S NEST--MY FARM--THE HOLLAND BLANKET CATTLE--MY CITY RESIDENCE--COMFORTS OF CITY LIFE--BEGGING LETTERS--MY FAMILY--RELIGIOUS REFLECTIONS--MY FIFTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY--THE END OF THE RECORD.
What I can call, without undue display of egotism or vanity, my “public life,” may be said to have closed with my formal and final retirement from the managerial profession, when my second Museum was destroyed by fire, March 3, 1868. But he must have been a careless reader of these pages, which record the acts and aspirations of a long and industrious career, who does not see that what, in opposition to my “public life,” may be considered my “private life,” has also been largely devoted to the comfort, convenience, and permanent prosperity of the community with which so many of my hopes and happiest days are thoroughly identified. I speak of these things, I trust, with becoming modesty, and yet with less reluctance than I should do, if my fellow-citizens of Bridgeport had not generally and generously awarded me sometimes, perhaps, more than my need of praise for my unremitting and earnest efforts to promote whatever would conduce to the growth and improvement of our charming city.
When I first selected Bridgeport as a permanent residence for my family, its nearness to New York and the facilities for daily transit to and from the metropolis were present and partial considerations only in the general advantages the location seemed to offer. Nowhere, 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.
Consequently, and quite naturally, when I projected and established my first residence in Bridgeport, I was exceedingly desirous that all the surroundings of Iranistan should accord with the beauty and completeness of that place. I was never a victim to that mania which possesses many men of even moderate means to “own everything that joins them,” and I knew that Iranistan would so increase the value of surrounding property that none but first-class residences would be possible in the vicinity. But there was other work to do, which, while affording advantageous approaches to my property, would at the same time be a lasting benefit to the public; and so I opened Iranistan Avenue, and other broad and beautiful streets, through land which I freely purchased and as freely gave to the public, and these highways are now the most convenient as well as charming in the city.
To have opened all these new avenues, in their entire length, at my own cost, and through my own ground, would have required a confirmation of Miss Lavinia Warren’s opinion, that what little of the city of Bridgeport and the adjacent town of Fairfield was not owned by General Tom Thumb, belonged to P. T. Barnum. It is true that, apart from my East Bridgeport property, I became a very large owner of real estate on the other side of the river, in Bridgeport proper and in Fairfield, my purchases in Fairfield lying on and so near to the boundary line--Division Street--as virtually to be in Bridgeport. Everywhere through my own lands I laid out and threw open to the public, streets of the generous width which distinguished the old “King’s roads” in the colonies, before grasping farmers and others encroached upon, and fenced in as private property, land that really belonged to the public forever; and on both sides of every avenue I laid out and planted a profusion of elms and other trees. In this way, I have opened miles of new streets, and have planted thousands of shade-trees in Bridgeport; for I think there is much wisdom in the advice of the Laird of Dumbiedikes, in Scott’s “Heart of Mid-Lothian,” who sensibly says: “When ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing when ye’re sleeping.” But, in establishing new streets, too often, when I had gone through my own land, the project came literally to an end; some “old fogy” blocked the way,--my way, his own way, and the highway,--and all I could do would be to jump over his field, and continue my new street through land I might own on the other side, till I reached the desired terminus in the end or continuation of some other street; or till, unhappily, I came to a dead stand-still at the ground of some other “old fogy,” who, like the original owners of what is now the shore-front of Sea-side Park, “did not believe there was money to be made by giving away their property.”
And this is the manner in which these old fogies talked: “We don’t believe in these improvements of Barnum’s. What’s the use of them? We can get to the city by the old road or street, as we have done for forty years. The new street will cut the pasture or mowing-lot in two, and make a checkerboard of the farm. It was bad enough to have the railroad go through, and we would have prevented that if we could; but this new street business is all bosh!” And then, singularly enough, every old fogy would wind up with: “I declare, I believe the whole thing is only to benefit Barnum, so that he can sell land, which he bought anywhere from sixty to two hundred dollars an acre, at the rate of five thousand dollars an acre in building-lots, as he is actually doing to-day.”
It is strange indeed that these men, who could see the benefit to “Barnum’s property” by opening new streets which would immediately convert cheap farm and pasture land into choice and high-priced building-lots, should not see that precisely the same thing would proportionately increase the value of their own property. Conservatism 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 annoyances 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.
In the summer of 1867, the health of my wife continuing to decline, her physician directed that she should remove nearer to the sea-shore; and, as she felt that the care of a large establishment like Lindencroft was more than she could bear, I sold that place. I have already spoken of my building of this residence. It was emphatically a labor of love. All that taste and money could do was fairly lavished upon Lindencroft; so that, when all was finished, it was not only a complete house in all respects, but it was a perfect home. And a home I meant it to be, in every and the best sense of the word, for my declining years. Consequently, from basement to attic, everything was constructed, by days’ work, in the most perfect manner possible. Convenience and comfort were first consulted, and thereafter, with no attempt at ostentation, elegance, pure and simple, predominated and permeated everywhere. No first-class house in the metropolis was more replete with all that goes to constitute a complete dwelling-place. Under this new roof I gathered my library, my pictures, my souvenirs of travel in other lands, and assembled my household “gods”; while the surrounding grounds, adorned with statuary and fountains, displayed also, in the walks, the arbors, the lawns, the garden, the piled-up rocks even, the profusion of trees and shrubbery, and the wealth of rare and beautiful flowers, my wife’s exquisite taste, which in times past had made the grounds of our loved and lost Iranistan so celebrated as well as charming. It was hard indeed to tear ourselves from this fascinating spot, but there are times when even the charms of home must be sacrificed to the claims of health.
Lindencroft was sold July 1, 1867, and we immediately removed for a summer’s sojourn to a small farm-house adjoining Sea-side Park. During the hot days of the next three months we found the delightful sea-breeze so bracing and refreshing that the season passed like a happy dream, and we resolved that our future summers should be spent on the very shore of Long Island Sound. I did not, however, perfect my arrangements in time to prepare my own summer residence for the ensuing season; and during the hot months of 1868 we resided in a new and very pretty house I had just completed on State Street, in Bridgeport, and which I subsequently sold, as I intended doing when I built it. But, towards the end of the summer, I added by purchase to the Mallett farm, adjoining Sea-side Park, a large and beautiful hickory grove, which seemed to be all that was needed to make the site exactly what I desired for a summer residence. It will be remembered that I bought this Mallett farm, not for myself, but so that a portion of it could be devoted to the public park; and, a generous slice having been thus given away, there were several acres remaining which were admirably adapted to one or more residences, and the purchase of the grove property made the location nearly perfect.
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. I planned a house which should combine the greatest convenience with the highest comfort, keeping in mind always that houses are 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 my own 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 we moved into the completed house in June following, in 1869.
It required a regiment of faithful laborers and mechanics, and a very considerable expenditure of money, to accomplish so much in so short a space of time. Those who saw a comparatively barren waste thus suddenly converted to a blooming garden, and, by the successful transplanting and judicious placing of very large and full-grown forest trees, made to seem like a long-settled place, considered the creation of my new summer home almost a work of magic; but there is no magic when determination and dollars combine to achieve a work. When we moved into this new residence, we formally christened the place “Waldemere,”--literally, but not so euphoniously, “Waldammeer,” “Woods-by-the-Sea,”--for I preferred to give this native child of my own conception an American name of my own creation.
On the same estate, and fronting the new avenue I opened between my own property and the public park, I built at the same time two beautiful cottages, one of which is known as the “Petrel’s Nest,” and the other, occupied by my eldest daughter, Mrs. Thompson, and my youngest daughter, Mrs. Seeley, as a summer residence, is called “Wavewood.” From the east front of Waldemere, across the sloping lawn, and through the reaches of the grove, these cottages are in sight, and before the three residences stretches the broad Sound, with nothing to cut off the view, and nothing intervening but the western portion of Sea-side Park. Sea-side and sea-breezes, however, do not include the sum of rural felicities in summer; and so I still keep possession of the fine farm which, years ago, was the scene of the elephant-plowing feats. On this property, which is in charge of a judicious farmer, I have some very fine imported stock, including several head of the celebrated white-blanket “Dutch cattle,” which excite the curiosity and attract the attention of all who see them. These cattle are black, with a distinctly defined white “blanket” around their bodies, giving them a very unique appearance; and when they struck my fancy in Holland, some years ago, I imported several of them: nor is their singular appearance their best recommendation, for they are excellent milkers, and my dairy and farm products keep my table constantly supplied with fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, and that choicest of country luxuries, pure cream.
Amid such comforts, advantages, and luxuries the summer months speed swiftly and sweetly by. My well-supplied stables afford the means of enjoying the numberless delightful drives which abound in the vicinity; and my salt-water-loving friend, Mr. George A. Wells, is always ready to minister to the pleasure of myself or my guests by tendering the use of anything in his Sound fleet, from a row-boat to a yacht. The five months in the year which I devote to rural rest seem all too short for the enjoyment which is necessarily compressed in the twenty weeks. But I can feel at the end of the season that it is a consolidation as well as compression, not only of pleasure, but of capital, in the way of health and vigor for the winter’s campaign of city living and metropolitan excitement.
For, at my time of life, and especially for a man who has had so much to do with the metropolitan million as I have done, I am convinced that the city is the most congenial residence during the cooler season of the year. No matter how active may have been one’s life, as a man grows older, if he does not become a little lazy, he at least learns to crave for comfortable ease and seeks for quiet. To such a man, the city in winter extends numberless pleasures. There is a sense of satisfaction even in the well-cleared sidewalks after a snow-storm, and an almost selfish happiness in looking out upon a storm from a well-warmed library or parlor window. One loves to find the morning papers, fresh from the press, lying upon the breakfast-table; and the city is the centre of attractions in the way of operas, concerts, picture-galleries, libraries, the best music, the best preaching, the best of everything in æsthetical enjoyments. Having made up my mind to spend seven months of every year in the city, in the summer of 1867 I purchased the elegant and most eligibly situated mansion, No. 438 Fifth Avenue, corner of Thirty-ninth Street, at the crowning point of Murray Hill, in New York, and moved into it in November. My residence therein in the winter season has fully confirmed my impressions in its favor. The house is replete with all that can constitute a pleasant home, and the location is so near to Central Park that we spend hours of every fine day in that great pleasure-ground. While I am in town, it is scarcely more than once or twice a week that I take pains to ascertain by personal observation that I am living on the edge of a toiling, excited city of a million inhabitants. My pecuniary interests in Connecticut and in New York occupy my attention sufficiently to keep me from ennui, and an extended correspondence--for which I do not yet feel the need of a private secretary--employs an hour or more of every day. I have had letters from New Zealand, and other remote quarters of the globe, respecting curiosities, and addressed simply to “Mr. Barnum, America,” and the post-office officials, knowing of no other Barnum who would be likely to receive letters from such out-of-the-way places, regularly put these vaguely addressed letters in my New York box.
Yet I suppose that not less than two-thirds of all the letters I receive are earnest petitions for pecuniary aid. This begging-letter business began to persecute me as long ago as the time of the Jenny Lind engagement, and even before. Many of these letters ask money as a free gift, and some of them demand assistance; while others request temporary loans, or invite me to furnish the capital for enterprises which are certain to bring the richest returns to all concerned therein. When I was travelling with Jenny Lind, I received a letter from a woman in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, who informed me that she had named her just-born boy-and-girl twins “P. T. Barnum” and “Jenny Lind,” coolly adding that we might send $5,000 for their immediate wants, and make such provision for their future education and support as might be determined upon at the proper time! In some of these letters, the amusement afforded by the orthography and grammar was almost a compensation for the annoyance and impudence of the requests. One very bad speller, referring me to a former employer of the letter-writer, wrote: “I Can rePhurr you too Him”; another, urging his petition, declared; “god Nose I am Poore”; and not long ago I received a communication from an old man who claimed to be too decrepid to earn a support, but he urged that he was a religious man, and added: “I tak grait pleshur in Readin my bibel, speshily the Proffits”; and it did look a little as if he had a sharp eye to the “Proffits.”
I have said but little in these pages of the immediate circle which is nearest and dearest to me. My wife, with whom I have lived so many happy years, and who has been my support in adversity and my solace in prosperity, still survives. Our children are all daughters: Caroline C., the eldest, was married to Mr. David W. Thompson, October 19, 1852; Helen M., my second daughter, was married to Mr. Samuel H. Hurd, October 20, 1857; Frances J., the third daughter, was born May 1, 1842, and died April 11, 1844; and Pauline T., the fourth daughter, was married on her birthday, March 1, 1866, to Mr. Nathan Seeley. For my eldest daughter I built and furnished a beautiful house on ground near Iranistan, and she moved into it immediately after her marriage, though of late years she has resided in New-York in winter and in Bridgeport in summer. For Helen and Pauline, I bought and furnished handsome houses in Lexington Avenue, in New-York, within a short distance of my own city residence in Fifth Avenue. A fine young rising generation of my grandchildren is growing up around them and me.
I have written as little as might be, too, about my religious principles and profession, because I agree with the man who, in answer to the pressing inquiry, declared that he had “no religion to speak of”; and I believe with him that true religion is more a matter of work than of words. When I am in the city, I regularly attend the services and preaching of the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin, and I usually go to the meetings of the same denomination in Bridgeport. “He builds too low who builds beneath the skies”; and I can truly say that I have always felt my entire dependence upon Him who is the dispenser of all adversity, as well as the giver of all good. With a natural proclivity to look upon the bright side of things, I am sure that under some of the burdens--the Jerome entanglement, for instance--which have borne so heavily upon me, I should have been tempted, as others have been, to suicide, if I had supposed that my troubles were brought upon me by mere blind chance. I knew that I deserved what I received; I had placed too much confidence in mere money and my own personal efforts; I was too much concerned in material prosperity; and I felt that the blow was wisely intended for my ultimate benefit,--a chastening, which, like the husks to the prodigal son, should cause me to “come to myself,” and teach me the lesson that there is something infinitely better than money or position or worldly prosperity in our “Father’s house.”
And I should be ungrateful indeed, if on my birthday, this fifth of July, 1869, when I enter upon my sixtieth year in full health and vigor, with the possibility of many happy days to come, I did not reverently recognize the beneficent Hand that has crowned me with so many comforts, and surrounded me with so many blessings. It is on this day, in my own beautiful home of Waldemere, that I write these concluding lines, which record a long and busy career, with the sincere hope that my experiences, if not my example, will benefit my fellow-men.
(844th page, including engravings.)