CHAPTER XLIII.
THE NEW MUSEUM.

Table of Contents

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.