Red Devils - 3 - Meeting with Phineas Barnum

Saturday arrived and Cora Sue and I dressed in our school clothes (dark skirts, white blouses and ties) thinking that it would be better to look like scholars since we were on an official project. We set out walking to Mr. Barnum’s house, Waldenese, which is about a mile away, right on the sea front.

I could hardly believe it when we arrived. It is huge. It has towers at the top and the whole grounds stretch half a block at least. It looks like a fairy castle.

One of the servants answered the door and ushered us into the parlor, where we saw him and his young wife, Nancy, sitting by a roaring fire and drinking coffee. We had seen Mr. Barnum (pictured above)  from a distance in the town, but close up he looked even more rotund and jolly. His hairline was very much receded, but he didn’t seem old at all. His wife is very pretty and not even as old as Aunt Lillie.

He asked us to be seated, and told his servant, who was Irish and, whom he called Kate, to bring us coffee, and then said: “Well girls, I am all yours. What do you want to know about me?”

“Well, I suppose we should start at the beginning. Could you tell us something about where you were born and your parents and your childhood?” asked Cora Sue. I knew that she already had copied a lot about him from  library books, but it would be interesting to hear the details from him in person.

“My father was called Philo Barnum, and he had lots of jobs: a tailor, a farmer, a storekeeper, and a country tavern keeper. My mother was called Irena Taylor, and after they married they lived at Bethel, Connecticut, and there, on July 5, 1810, their first child (which was me) was born and named Phineas Taylor Barnum, after his maternal grandfather. And at my christening, this same grandfather gave me a gift of some land which I will tell you more about later.

“In my early days I drove the cows to and from the pasture, shelled corn, weeded the garden, and did chores. As I grew older I rode the horse in plowing corn, raked hay, wielded the shovel and the hoe, and chopped wood. At six years old I began to go to school. The birch-rod was very active in those days and I certainly made its acquaintance. However, I enjoyed school and found I easily excelled in mathematics. Do you girls like mathematics?”

“Not as much as English,” I said for us both.

“From very early on, I liked acquiring things. Before I was five I had begun to hoard pennies and at six I was able to exchange my copper bits for a whole silver dollar, the possession of which made me feel richer than I ever felt afterward in all my life. Nor did I lay the dollar away in a napkin, but used it in business to gain more. I got ten cents a day for riding a horse before the plow, and I would add it to my capital. On holidays other boys spent all their savings, but not me. Do you girls believe in saving money?”

“We are orphans taken in by our aunt and her husband, so we don’t really have much money, but we do get $50 a month from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, which we always try to save a part of,” said Cora Sue.

“And how did you get to be such good friends with Gordon-Bennett?”

“Our Pa was a reporter for him, and he was massacred at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.”

“You mean your Pa was Mark Kellogg?”

We nodded eagerly.

“Well, I’ll be darned. To think that I would have the privilege of meeting two such lovely ladies and then find out who their father was and what he did. Well, I am so pleased to make your acquaintance once again. Anyway, getting back to me again, I didn’t spend my savings during the vacation times, but whenever there was a fair I would peddle candy and cakes, and by the end of the day I would be a dollar or two richer. By the time I was 12, I was the owner of a sheep and a calf, but then my father kindly permitted me to purchase my own clothing, which somewhat reduced my little store.

“When I was about 10, I wanted to know more about the land my grandfather had given me as a Christening present - five acres on a place called Ivy Island, but I had never yet seen it. So one day when we were getting some hay near Ivy Island, and while my father was mowing an adjacent meadow, I went to visit my property with the hired man, Edmund, during the nooning. Do you know what that is, Mattie?”

“I expect it is the noon lunch break, Mr. Barnum.”

“That’s right. Then my mother said, 'Now, Taylor, don't become so excited when you see your property as to let your joy make you sick, for remember, rich as you are, that it will be eleven years before you can come into possession of your fortune.'

“We started, and as we approached the north end of the meadow we found the ground swampy and wet and were soon obliged to leap from bog to bog on our route. A misstep brought me up to my middle in water, and to add to the dilemma a swarm of hornets attacked me. Attaining the altitude of another bog I was cheered by the assurance that there was only a quarter of a mile of this kind of travel to the edge of my property. I waded on. In about fifteen minutes more, after floundering through the morass, I found myself half-drowned, hornet-stung, mud covered, and out of breath, on comparatively dry land.

“'Never mind, my boy,' said Edmund, 'we have only to cross this little creek, and ye'll be upon your own valuable property.'

"We were on the margin of a stream, the banks of which were thickly covered with alders. I now discovered the use of Edmund's axe, for he felled a small oak to form a temporary bridge to my 'Island' property. Crossing over, I proceeded to the center of my domain. I saw nothing but a few stunted ivies and straggling trees. The truth flashed upon me. I had been the laughing-stock of the family and neighborhood for years. My valuable 'Ivy Island' was an almost inaccessible, worthless bit of barren land, and while I stood deploring my sudden downfall, a huge black snake (one of my tenants) approached me with upraised head. I gave one shriek and rushed for the bridge.

“My father asked me how I liked my property? and I responded that I would sell it pretty cheap.

“One evening, late in January,1822, Daniel Brown, a cattle-drover, of Southbury, Connecticut, arrived at Bethel and stopped for the night at my father’s tavern. He had with him some fat cattle, which he was driving to the New York markets; and he wanted both to add to his drove of cattle and to get a boy to help him drive them. I jumped at the chance and my parents said it was okay.

“We arrived at New York in three or four days, and put up at the Bull's Head Tavern, where we were to stay a week while the drover disposed of his cattle. It was an eventful week for me. Before I left home my mother had given me a dollar, which I supposed she thought would supply every want that heart could wish. First I bought oranges.

I was told they were four pence apiece, and as four pence in Connecticut was six cents, I offered ten cents for two oranges, which was, of course, readily taken; and thus, instead of saving two cents, as I thought, I actually paid two cents more than the price demanded.

“I then bought two more oranges, reducing my capital to eighty cents. Thirty-one cents was the charge for a small gun which would go off and send a stick some little distance, and this gun I bought. Amusing myself with this toy in the bar-room of the Bull's Head, the arrow happened to hit the bar-keeper, who forthwith came from behind the counter and shook me, and soundly boxed my ears, telling me to put that gun out of the way or he would put it into the fire. I sneaked to my room, put my treasure under the pillow, and went out for another visit to the toy shop. There I invested six cents in torpedoes, with which I intended to astonish my schoolmates in Bethel. I could not refrain, however, from experimenting upon the guests of the hotel, which I did when they were going in to dinner. I threw two of the torpedoes against the wall of the hall through which the guests were passing, and the immediate results were as follows: two loud reports - astonished guests- irate landlord- discovery of the culprit, and summary punishment- for the landlord immediately floored me with a single blow with his open hand, and said: 'There, you little greenhorn, see if that will teach you better than to explode your infernal fire-crackers in my house again.'

"The lesson was sufficient if not entirely satisfactory. I deposited the balance of the torpedoes with my gun, and as a solace for my wounded feelings I again visited the toy shop, where I bought a watch, breast pin and top, leaving but eleven cents of my original dollar.

"The following morning found me again at the fascinating toy shop, where I saw a beautiful knife with two blades, a gimlet, and a corkscrew - a whole carpenter shop in miniature, and all for thirty-one cents. But, alas! I had only eleven cents. Have that knife I must, however, and so I proposed to the shop-woman to take back the top and breast pin at a slight deduction, and with my eleven cents to let me have the knife. The kind creature consented, and this makes memorable my first swap.

“Some fine and nearly white molasses candy then caught my eye, and I proposed to trade the watch for its equivalent in candy. The transaction was made, and the candy was so delicious that before night my gun was absorbed in the same way. The next morning the torpedoes went off in the same direction, and before night even my beloved knife was similarly exchanged. My money and my goods all gone, I traded two pocket-handkerchiefs and an extra pair of stockings I was sure I should not want for nine more rolls of molasses candy, and then wandered about the city disconsolate, sighing because there was no more molasses candy to conquer.

“When I got home, my friends asked me a thousand questions about the great city. Which reminds me, have you girls ever been to New York City?”

“No sir, but we hope to go to visit our Pa’s friend, Mr. Bennett, soon. We wrote and asked if we could go and get some information from his newspaper about the Indians that killed our Pa.”

“My goodness me. And what are you going to do when you find that out?”

“It is my project to write about General Custer but I also want to put in things about our Pa and about the Indians, because I really want to know what the whole thing was about and why they killed him like they did. And what happened to them afterwards.”

“Well, bless my soul, that is a huge ambition, and I do hope when you have had your visit that you will come back and tell me what you found out. I have had some Indians in my show over the years, did you know that? And some of the Indians that were involved in that uprising might just be going into something called the Wild West Show with Buffalo Bill Cody. He’s thinking of having Sitting Bull and a few others of the Indian Chiefs riding around for him. Have you heard of him?”

We nodded our heads.

“Are you saying that those Red Devils who killed our Pa are going to make money out of being in a show now?” demanded Cora Sue, looking very upset.

“Well, I expect you will find out more about that situation when you are in New York, but I do think the Indians have had a lot of punishment - and maybe it would be nice to find out a bit more about them, like your sister is planning to do.

“Well, I can tell you some real stories about my Indians, and such like if you want, but I suppose I had better get back to what you were asking me about. Where was I?”

“You were saying how your friends thought you so important for having gone to New York?”

“Yes but at home my brothers and sisters were disappointed because I brought them nothing, and my mother, discovering that during my journey I had lost two handkerchiefs and a pair of stockings, gave me a spanking and put me to bed.

“As I grew older, I tried to avoid manual labor whenever I could and my father thought I was just plain lazy. So he gave up the farm, and opened a store with dry goods, hardware and groceries, hoping that I would be happier to take on those sorts of duties, as he made me a clerk. I soon learned to drive sharp bargains with women who brought butter, eggs, beeswax and feathers to exchange for dry goods, and with men who wanted to trade oats, corn, buckwheat, axe helves, hats and other commodities for ten-penny nails, molasses or New England rum. I sure didn’t like the other jobs I had to do like taking down the shutters, sweeping the store and making the fire. I got a small salary and whatever profit I could make from purchasing candies to sell to the younger customers, but he also told me I had to buy my own clothes.”

Mrs. Barnum interrupted us, to say that luncheon was about to be served in the dining room, but we could hardly wait to hear more about Mr. Barnum’s fascinating life.