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

“Any man in my line,” I replied, “from Edmund Simpson, manager of the Park Theatre, or William Niblo, to Messrs. Welch, June, Titus, Turner, Angevine, or other circus or menagerie proprietors; also Moses Y. Beach, of the New York Sun.

“Can you get any of them to call on me?” he continued.

I told him that I could, and the next day my friend Niblo rode down and had an interview with Mr. Olmsted, while Mr. Beach and several other gentlemen also called, and the following morning I waited upon him for his decision.

“I don’t like your references, Mr. Barnum,” said Mr. Olmsted, abruptly, as soon as I entered the room.

I was confused, and said “I regretted to hear it.”

“They all speak too well of you,” he added, laughing; “in fact they all talk as if they were partners of yours, and intended to share the profits.”

Nothing could have pleased me better. He then asked me what security I could offer in case he concluded to make the purchase for me, and it was finally agreed that, if he should do so, he should retain the property till it was entirely paid for, and should also appoint a ticket-taker and accountant (at my expense), who should render him a weekly statement. I was further to take an apartment hitherto used as a billiard room in an adjoining building, allowing therefor, $500 a year, making a total rent of $3,000 per annum, on a lease of ten years. He then told me to see the administrator and heirs of the estate, to get their best terms, and to meet him on his return to town a week from that time.

I at once saw Mr. John Heath, the administrator, and his price was $15,000. I offered $10,000, payable in seven annual instalments, with good security. After several interviews, it was finally agreed that I should have it for $12,000, payable as above – possession to be given on the 15th November. Mr. Olmsted assented to this, and a morning was appointed to draw and sign the writings. Mr. Heath appeared, but said he must decline proceeding any farther in my case, as he had sold the collection to the directors of Peale’s Museum (an incorporated institution), for $15,000, and had received $1,000 in advance.

I was shocked, and appealed to Mr. Heath’s honor. He said that he had signed no writing with me; was in no way legally bound, and that it was his duty to do the best he could for the heirs. Mr. Olmsted was sorry, but could not help me; the new tenants would not require him to incur any risk, and my matter was at an end.

Of course, I immediately informed myself as to the character of Peale’s Museum company. It proved to be a band of speculators who had bought Peale’s collection for a few thousand dollars, expecting to join the American Museum with it, issue and sell stock to the amount of $50,000, pocket $30,000 profits, and permit the stockholders to look out for themselves.

I went immediately to several of the editors, including Major M. M. Noah, M. Y. Beach, my good friends West, Herrick and Ropes, of the Atlas, and others, and stated my grievances. “Now,” said I, “if you will grant me the use of your columns, I’ll blow that speculation sky-high.” They all consented, and I wrote a large number of squibs, cautioning the public against buying the Museum stock, ridiculing the idea of a board of broken-down bank directors engaging in the exhibition of stuffed monkey and gander skins; appealing to the case of the Zoölogical Institute, which had failed by adopting such a plan as the one now proposed; and finally I told the public that such a speculation would be infinitely more ridiculous than Dickens’s “Grand United Metropolitan Hot Muffin and Crumpet-baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”

The stock was as “dead as a herring!” I then went to Mr. Heath and asked him when the directors were to pay the other $14,000. “On the 26th day of December, or forfeit the $1,000 already paid,” was the reply. I assured him that they would never pay it, that they could not raise it, and that he would ultimately find himself with the Museum collection on his hands, and if once I started off with an exhibition for the South, I would not touch the Museum at any price. “Now,” said I, “if you will agree with me confidentially, that in case these gentlemen do not pay you on the 26th of December, I may have it on the 27th for $12,000, I will run the risk, and wait in this city until that date.” He readily agreed to the proposition, but said he was sure they would not forfeit their $1,000.

“Very well,” said I; “all I ask of you is, that this arrangement shall not be mentioned.” He assented. “On the 27th day of December, at ten o’clock A. M., I wish you to meet me in Mr. Olmsted’s apartments, prepared to sign the writings, provided this incorporated company do not pay you $14,000 on the 26th.” He agreed to this, and by my request put it in writing.

From that moment I felt that the Museum was mine. I saw Mr. Olmsted, and told him so. He promised secrecy, and agreed to sign the documents if the other parties did not meet their engagement.

This was about November 15th, and I continued my shower of newspaper squibs at the new company, which could not sell a dollar’s worth of its stock. Meanwhile, if any one spoke to me about the Museum, I simply replied that I had lost it.

CHAPTER VIII

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

A TRAP SET FOR ME – I CATCH THE TRAPPERS – I BECOME PROPRIETOR OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM – HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT – HARD WORK AND COLD DINNERS – ADDITIONS TO THE MUSEUM – EXTRAORDINARY ADVERTISING – BARNUM’S BRICK-MAN – EXCITING PUBLIC CURIOSITY – INCIDENTS AND ANECDOTES – A DRUNKEN ACTOR – IMITATIONS OF THE ELDER BOOTH – PLEASING MY PATRONS – SECURING TRANSIENT NOVELTIES – LIVING CURIOSITIES – MAKING PEOPLE TALK – A WILDERNESS OF WONDERS – NIAGARA FALLS WITH REAL WATER – THE CLUB THAT KILLED COOK – SELLING LOUIS GAYLORD CLARK – THE FISH WITH LEGS – THE FEJEE MERMAID – HOW IT CAME INTO MY POSSESSION – THE TRUE STORY OF THAT CURIOSITY – JAPANESE MANUFACTURE OF FABULOUS ANIMALS – THE USE I MADE OF THE MERMAID – WHOLESALE ADVERTISING AGAIN – THE BALCONY BAND – DRUMMOND LIGHTS.

MY newspaper squib war against the Peale combination was vigorously kept up; when one morning, about the first of December, I received a letter from the Secretary of that company (now calling itself the “New York Museum Company,”) requesting me to meet the directors at the Museum on the following Monday morning. I went, and found the directors in session. The venerable president of the board, who was also the ex-president of a broken bank, blandly proposed to hire me to manage the united museums, and though I saw that he merely meant to buy my silence, I professed to entertain the proposition, and in reply to an inquiry as to what salary I should expect, I specified the sum of $3,000 a year. This was at once acceded to, the salary to begin January 1, 1842, and after complimenting me on my ability, the president remarked: “Of course, Mr. Barnum, we shall have no more of your squibs through the newspapers” – to which I replied that I should “ever try to serve the interests of my employers,” and I took my leave.

It was as clear to me as noonday that after buying my silence so as to appreciate their stock, these directors meant to sell out to whom they could, leaving me to look to future stockholders for my salary. They thought, no doubt, that they had nicely entrapped me, but I knew I had caught them.

For, supposing me to be out of the way, and having no other rival purchaser, these directors postponed the advertisement of their stock to give people time to forget the attacks I had made on it, and they also took their own time for paying the money promised to Mr. Heath, December 26th – indeed, they did not even call on him at the appointed time. But on the following morning, as agreed, I was promptly and hopefully at Mr. Olmstead’s apartments with my legal adviser, at half-past nine o’clock; Mr. Heath came with his lawyer at ten, and before two o’clock that day I was in formal possession of the American Museum. My first managerial act was to write and despatch the following complimentary note:

    American Museum, New York, Dec. 27, 1841.

To the President and Directors of the New York Museum:

Gentlemen: – It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you are placed upon the Free List of this establishment until further notice.

    P. T. Barnum, Proprietor.

It is unnecessary to say that the “President of the New York Museum” was astounded, and when he called upon Mr. Heath, and learned that I had bought and was really in possession of the American Museum, he was indignant. He talked of prosecution, and demanded the $1,000 paid on his agreement, but he did not prosecute, and he justly forfeited his deposit money.

And now that I was proprietor and manager of the American Museum I had reached a new epoch in my career which I felt was the beginning of better days, though the full significance of this important step I did not see. I was still in the show business, but in a settled, substantial phase of it, that invited industry and enterprise, and called for ever earnest and ever heroic endeavor. Whether I should sink or swim depended wholly upon my own energy. I must pay for the establishment within a stipulated time, or forfeit it with whatever I had paid on account. I meant to make it my own, and brains, hands and every effort were devoted to the interests of the Museum.

The nucleus of this establishment, Scudder’s Museum, was formed in 1810, the year in which I was born. It was begun in Chatham Street, and was afterwards transferred to the old City Hall, and from small beginnings, by purchases, and to a considerable degree by presents, it had grown to be a large and valuable collection. People in all parts of the country had sent in relics and rare curiosities; sea captains, for years, had brought and deposited strange things from foreign lands; and besides all these gifts, I have no doubt that the previous proprietor had actually expended, as was stated, $50,000 in making the collection. No one could go through the halls, as they were when they came under my proprietorship, and see one-half there was worth seeing in a single day; and then, as I always justly boasted afterwards, no one could visit my Museum and go away without feeling that he had received the full worth of his money. In looking over the immense collection, the accumulation of so many years, I saw that it was only necessary to properly present its merits to the public, to make it the most attractive and popular place of resort and entertainment in the United States.

Valuable as the collection was when I bought it, it was only the beginning of the American Museum as I made it. In my long proprietorship I considerably more than doubled the permanent attractions and curiosities of the establishment. In 1842, I bought and added to my collection the entire contents of Peale’s Museum; in 1850, I purchased the large Peale collection in Philadelphia; and year after year, I bought genuine curiosities, regardless of cost, wherever I could find them, in Europe or America.

At the very outset, I was determined to deserve success. My plan of economy included the intention to support my family in New York on $600 a year, and my treasure of a wife not only gladly assented, but was willing to reduce the sum to $400, if necessary. Some six months after I had bought the Museum, Mr. Olmsted happened in at my ticket-office at noon and found me eating a frugal dinner of cold corned beef and bread, which I had brought from home.

“Is this the way you eat your dinner?” he asked.

“I have not eaten a warm dinner, except on Sundays,” I replied, “since I bought the Museum, and I never intend to, on a week day, till I am out of debt.”

“Ah!” said he, clapping me on the shoulder, “you are safe, and will pay for the Museum before the year is out.”

And he was right, for within twelve months I was in full possession of the property as my own and it was entirely paid for from the profits of the business.

In 1865, the space occupied for my Museum purposes was more than double what it was in 1842. The Lecture Room, originally narrow, ill-contrived and inconvenient, was so enlarged and improved that it became one of the most commodious and beautiful amusement halls in the City of New York. At first, my attractions and inducements were merely the collection of curiosities by day, and an evening entertainment, consisting of such variety performances as were current in ordinary shows. Then Saturday afternoons, and, soon afterwards, Wednesday afternoons were devoted to entertainments and the popularity of the Museum grew so rapidly that I presently found it expedient and profitable to open the great Lecture Room every afternoon, as well as every evening, on every week-day in the year. The first experiments in this direction, more than justified my expectations, for the day exhibitions were always more thronged than those of the evening. Of course I made the most of the holidays, advertising extensively and presenting extra inducements; nor did attractions elsewhere seem to keep the crowd from coming to the Museum. On great holidays, I gave as many as twelve performances to as many different audiences.

By degrees the character of the stage performances was changed. The transient attractions of the Museum were constantly diversified, and educated dogs, industrious fleas, automatons, jugglers, ventriloquists, living statuary, tableaux, gipsies, Albinoes, fat boys, giants, dwarfs, rope-dancers, live “Yankees,” pantomime, instrumental music, singing and dancing in great variety, dioramas, panoramas, models of Niagara, Dublin, Paris, and Jerusalem; Hannington’s dioramas of the Creation, the Deluge, Fairy Grotto, Storm at Sea; the first English Punch and Judy in this country, Italian Fantoccini, mechanical figures, fancy glass-blowing, knitting machines and other triumphs in the mechanical arts; dissolving views, American Indians, who enacted their warlike and religious ceremonies on the stage, – these, among others, were all exceedingly successful.

I thoroughly understood the art of advertising, not merely by means of printer’s ink, which I have always used freely, and to which I confess myself so much indebted for my success, but by turning every possible circumstance to my account. It was my monomania to make the Museum the town wonder and town talk. I often seized upon an opportunity by instinct, even before I had a very definite conception as to how it should be used, and it seemed, somehow, to mature itself and serve my purpose. As an illustration, one morning a stout, hearty-looking man, came into my ticket-office and begged some money. I asked him why he did not work and earn his living? He replied that he could get nothing to do and that he would be glad of any job at a dollar a day. I handed him a quarter of a dollar, told him to go and get his breakfast and return, and I would employ him at light labor at a dollar and a half a day. When he returned I gave him five common bricks.

“Now,” said I, “go and lay a brick on the sidewalk at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street; another close by the Museum; a third diagonally across the way at the corner of Broadway and Vesey Street, by the Astor House: put down the fourth on the sidewalk in front of St Paul’s Church, opposite; then, with the fifth brick in hand, take up a rapid march from one point to the other, making the circuit, exchanging your brick at every point, and say nothing to any one.”

“What is the object of this?” inquired the man.

“No matter,” I replied; “all you need to know is that it brings you fifteen cents wages per hour. It is a bit of my fun, and to assist me properly you must seem to be as deaf as a post; wear a serious countenance; answer no questions; pay no attention to any one; but attend faithfully to the work and at the end of every hour by St. Paul’s clock show this ticket at the Museum door; enter, walking solemnly through every hall in the building; pass out, and resumé your work.”

With the remark that it was “all one to him, so long as he could earn his living,” the man placed his bricks and began his round. Half an hour afterwards, at least five hundred people were watching his mysterious movements. He had assumed a military step and bearing, and looking as sober as a judge, he made no response whatever to the constant inquiries as to the object of his singular conduct. At the end of the first hour, the sidewalks in the vicinity were packed with people all anxious to solve the mystery. The man, as directed, then went into the Museum, devoting fifteen minutes to a solemn survey of the halls, and afterwards returning to his round. This was repeated every hour till sundown and whenever the man went into the Museum a dozen or more persons would buy tickets and follow him, hoping to gratify their curiosity in regard to the purpose of his movements. This was continued for several days – the curious people who followed the man into the Museum considerably more than paying his wages – till finally the policeman, to whom I had imparted my object, complained that the obstruction of the sidewalk by crowds had become so serious that I must call in my “brick man.” This trivial incident excited considerable talk and amusement; it advertised me; and it materially advanced my purpose of making a lively corner near the Museum.

I am tempted to relate some of the incidents and anecdotes which attended my career as owner and manager of the Museum. The stories illustrating merely my introduction of novelties would more than fill this book, but I must make room for a few of them.

An actor, named La Rue, presented himself as an imitator of celebrated histrionic personages, including Macready, Forrest, Kemble, the elder Booth, Kean, Hamblin, and others. Taking him into the green-room for a private rehearsal, and finding his imitations excellent, I engaged him. For three nights he gave great satisfaction, but early in the fourth evening he staggered into the Museum so drunk that he could hardly stand, and in half an hour he must be on the stage! Calling an assistant, we took La Rue between us, and marched him up Broadway as far as Chambers Street, and back to the lower end of the Park, hoping to sober him. At this point we put his head under a pump, and gave him a good ducking, with visible beneficial effect, – then a walk around the Park, and another ducking, – when he assured me that he should be able to give his imitations “to a charm.”

“You drunken brute,” said I, “if you fail, and disappoint my audience, I will throw you out of the window.”

He declared that he was “all right,” and I led him behind the scenes, where I waited with considerable trepidation to watch his movements on the stage. He began by saying:

“Ladies and gentlemen: I will now give you an imitation of Mr. Booth, the eminent tragedian.”

His tongue was thick, his language somewhat incoherent, and I had great misgivings as he proceeded; but as no token of disapprobation came from the audience, I began to hope he would go through with his parts without exciting suspicion of his condition. But before he had half finished his representation of Booth, in the soliloquy in the opening act of Richard III., the house discovered that he was very drunk, and began to hiss. This only seemed to stimulate him to make an effort to appear sober, which, as is usual in such cases, only made matters worse, and the hissing increased. I lost all patience, and going on the stage and taking the drunken fellow by the collar, I apologized to the audience, assuring them that he should not appear before them again. I was about to march him off, when he stepped to the front, and said:

“Ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Booth often appeared on the stage in a state of inebriety, and I was simply giving you a truthful representation of him on such occasions. I beg to be permitted to proceed with my imitations.”

The audience at once supposed it was all right, and cried out, “go on, go on”; which he did, and at every imitation of Booth, whether as Richard, Shylock, or Sir Giles Overreach, he received a hearty round of applause. I was quite delighted with his success; but when he came to imitate Forrest and Hamblin, necessarily representing them as drunk also, the audience could be no longer deluded; the hissing was almost deafening, and I was forced to lead the actor off. It was his last appearance on my stage.

From the first, it was my study to give my patrons a superfluity of novelties, and for this I make no special claim to generosity, for it was strictly a business transaction. To send away my visitors more than doubly satisfied, was to induce them to come again and to bring their friends. I meant to make people talk about my Museum; to exclaim over its wonders; to have men and women all over the country say: “There is not another place in the United States where so much can be seen for twenty-five cents as in Barnum’s American Museum.” It was the best advertisement I could possibly have, and one for which I could afford to pay. I knew, too, that it was an honorable advertisement, because it was as deserved as it was spontaneous. And so, in addition to the permanent collection and the ordinary attractions of the stage, I labored to keep the Museum well supplied with transient novelties; I exhibited such living curiosities as a rhinoceros, giraffes, grizzly bears, ourang-outangs, great serpents, and whatever else of the kind money would buy or enterprise secure.