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

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.

CHAPTER 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.