Barnum - Barnums Own Story

Barnum Musem

The Autobiography of P. T. BARNUM Combined & condensed from the various editions published during his lifetime by Waldo R. Browne

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published by The Viking Press, Inc., in 1927. Barnums Own Story represents an editing and condensation, in one volume, of the following two books by P. T. Barnum: The Life of P.T. Barnum, published by Redfield in 1855, and various editions of Struggles and Triumphs; or, Forty Years Recollections of P. T Barnum that appeared from 1869 to 1888.

This Dover edition also includes forty-eight pages of illustrations not included in the 1927 edition. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Miss Elizabeth Sterling Seeley, Curator of the Barnum Museum, Bridgeport, Connecticut, and to the Museum of the City of New York for permission to reproduce illustrations in their collections.

Illustrations within the text are from the following sources: , Loan Collection of Elizabeth Sterling Seeley.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-81187-1

ISBN-10: 0-486-81187-5

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

811875012017

www.doverpublications.com

To

THE UNIVERSAL YANKEE NATION

of which I Am Proud to Be One

I Dedicate These Pages

P. T. Barnum

Barnums autobiography first appeared in 1855 as The Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. In his preface, the author wrote: In these pages I have given the true history of my many adventures, and the numerous enterprises in which I have been engaged. It will be seen that I have not covered up my so-called humbugs, but have given a full account even of such schemes as Joice Heth, the Fejee Mermaid, and the Woolly Horse. Though a portion of my confessions may by some be considered injudicious, I prefer frankly to acknowledge the corn wherever I have had a hand in plucking it. But as he grew older and more prominent, this feeling about acknowledging the corn underwent a decided change. The plates used in his Life of 1855 were purchased and destroyed; and in 1869 he published a new and independent autobiography under the title, Struggles and Triumphs; or, Forty Years Recollections of P. T. Barnum, Written by Himself. An atmosphere of pompous self-satisfaction altogether lacking in the Life of 1855 makes itself felt in this later work; the story of his early career is much condensed, and the franker details either omitted altogether or so toned down as to appear innocent and respectable. This denaturing process was continued in several later editions, partially revised and with additional chapters or appendices, which appeared at intervals up to 1888, three years before the authors death.

The present volume is a composite reprint of the 1855 Life and the various editions of Struggles and Triumphs published from 1869 to 1888. The chief aim has been to present Barnums own story as he himself first set it down, without regard to the qualms and tremors of respectability which gradually overcame the franker side of his nature. At the same time, the book has been subjected to a vigorous process of condensation, by the omission of many irrelevant or trivial anecdotes, public speeches, letters, laudatory press comments, and other extraneous matter which clutters up the original.

In 1888 Barnum stated that the various editions of his autobiography had sold to the extent of about half a million copies. The work has long been out of print in any form. It is hoped that the present reprint, restoring as it does the salt and savor of the original narrative and also divesting it of a heavy load of superfluous material, will be welcomed by many thousands of readers among a newer generation, to whom the name of the great showman is still a household word and his career one of the most picturesque and romantic in American life.

CHAPTER

I WAS born in the town of Bethel, in the State of Connecticut, July 5, 1810. My name, Phineas Taylor, is derived from my maternal grandfather, who was a great wag in his way, and who, as I was his first grandchild, gravely handed over to my mother at my christening a gift-deed, in my behalf, of five acres of land situated in that part of the parish of Bethel known as the Plum Trees. I was thus a real estate owner almost at my very birth; and of my property, Ivy Island, something shall be said anon.

I think I can remember when I was not more than two years old, and the first person I recollect having seen was my grandfather. As I was his pet, and spent probably the larger half of my waking hours in his arms, during the first six years of my life, my good mother estimates that the amount of lump sugar which I swallowed from his hands, during that period, could not have been less than two barrels. My grandfather would go farther, wait longer, work harder and contrive deeper, to carry out a practical joke, than for anything else under heaven. In this one particular, as well as in many others, I am almost sorry to say I am his counterpart; for although nothing that I can conceive of delights me so much as playing off one of those dangerous things, and although I have enjoyed more hearty laughs in planning and executing them than from any one source in the world, and have generally tried to avoid giving offence, yet I have many times done so, and as often have I regretted this propensity, which was born in me, and will doubtless continue until dust returns to dust

My paternal grandfather was Captain Ephraim Barnum, of Bethela captain in the militia in the Revolutionary War. His son Philo was my father. He too was of a lively turn of mind, and relished a joke better than the average of mankind. These historical facts I state as some palliation for my own inclination that way. What is bred in the bone, etc.

I am not aware that my advent created any peculiar commotion in the village, though my good mother declares that I made a great deal of noise the first hour I saw the light, and that she has never been able to discover any cessation since.

I must pass by the first seven years of my lifeduring which my grandfather crammed me with sugar and loaded me with pennies, to buy raisins and candies, which he always instructed me to solicit from the store-keeper at the lowest cash priceand proceed to talk of later events.

I commenced going to school at the age of about six years. The first date which I recollect inscribing upon my writing-book was 1818. I was generally accounted a pretty apt scholar, and as I increased in years there were but two or three in school who were considered my superiors. In arithmetic I was unusually quick, and I recollect, at the age of twelve years, being called out of bed one night by my teacher, who had laid a small wager with a neighbor that I could figure up and give the correct number of feet in a load of wood in five minutes. The neighbor stated the dimensions, and as I had no slate in the house I marked them on the stove pipe, and thereon also figured my calculations, and gave the result in less than two minutes, to the great delight of my teacher, my mother, and myself, and to the no small astonishment of our incredulous neighbor.

My father was a tailor, a farmer, and sometimes a tavernkeeper; so I was often kept out of school, and never had any advantages except at the common district school, and one summer at the Academy in Danbury, a distance of three miles, which I marched and countermarched six times per week. Like most farmers boys, I was obliged to drive and fetch the cows, carry in firewood, shell corn, weed beets and cabbages, and, as I grew larger, I rode horse for ploughing, turned and raked hay, and in due time handled the shovel and the hoe, as well as the plough; but I never really liked to work.