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

“Yes,” said I, “absolutely engaged to be married to General Tom Thumb. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”

“Is that so, Lavinia?” asked the Commodore, looking her earnestly in the face.

“That is so,” said Lavinia; “and Mr. Wells has gone to obtain my mother’s consent.”

The Commodore turned pale, and choked a little, as if he was trying to swallow something. Then, turning on his heel, he said, in a broken voice:

“I hope you may be happy.”

As he passed out of the door, a tear rolled down his cheek.

“That is pretty hard,” I said to Lavinia.

“I am very sorry,” she replied, “but I could not help it. That diamond and emerald ring which you bade me present in my name, has caused all this trouble.”

Half an hour after this incident, the Commodore came to my office, and said:

“Mr. Barnum, do you think it would be right for Miss Warren to marry Charley Stratton if her mother should object?”

I saw that the little fellow had still a slight hope to hang on, and I said:

“No, indeed, it would not be right.”

“Well, she says she shall marry him any way; that she gives her mother the chance to consent, but if she objects, she will have her own way and marry him,” said the Commodore.

“On the contrary,” I replied, “I will not permit it. She is engaged to go to Europe for me, and I will not release her, if her mother does not fully consent to her marrying Tom Thumb.”

The Commodore’s eyes glistened with pleasure, as he replied:

“Between you and me, Mr. Barnum, I don’t believe she will give her consent.”

But the next day dissipated his hopes. Mr. Wells returned, saying that Lavinia’s mother at first objected, for she feared it was a contrivance to get them married for the promotion of some pecuniary advantage; but, upon reading the letter from the General, and one still more urgent from Lavinia, and also upon hearing from Mr. Wells that, in case of their marriage, I should cancel all claims I had upon Lavinia’s services, she consented.

After the Commodore had heard the news, I said to him:

“Never mind, Commodore, Minnie Warren is a better match for you; she is a charming little creature, and two years younger than you, while Lavinia is several years your senior.”

“I thank you, sir,” replied the Commodore, pompously, “I would not marry the best woman living; I don’t believe in women, any way.”

I then suggested that he should stand with little Minnie, as groom and bridesmaid, at the approaching wedding.

“No, sir!” replied the Commodore, emphatically; “I won’t do it!”

That idea was therefore abandoned. A few weeks subsequently, when time had reconciled the Commodore, he told me that Tom Thumb had asked him to stand as groom with Minnie, at the wedding, and he was going to do so.

“When I asked you, a few weeks ago, you refused,” I said.

“It was not your business to ask me,” replied the Commodore, pompously. “When the proper person invited me I accepted.”

Of course the approaching wedding was announced. It created an immense excitement. Lavinia’s levees at the Museum were crowded to suffocation, and her photographic pictures were in great demand. For several weeks she sold more than three hundred dollars’ worth of her cartes de visite each day. And the daily receipts at the Museum were frequently over three thousand dollars. I engaged the General to exhibit, and to assist her in the sale of pictures, to which his own photograph, of course, was added. I could afford to give them a fine wedding, and I did so.

The little couple made a personal application to Bishop Potter to perform the nuptial ceremony, and obtained his consent; but the matter became public, and outside pressure from some of the most squeamish of his clergy was brought to bear upon the bishop, and he rescinded his engagement.

This fact of itself, as well as the opposition that caused it, only added to the notoriety of the approaching wedding, and increased the crowds at the Museum. The financial result to me was a piece of good fortune, which I was, of course, quite willing to accept, though in this instance the “advertisement,” so far as the fact of the betrothal of the parties with its preliminaries were concerned, was not of my seeking, as the recital now given shows. But seeing the turn it was taking in crowding the Museum, and pouring money into the treasury, I did not hesitate to seek continued advantage from the notoriety of the prospective marriage. Accordingly, I offered the General and Lavinia fifteen thousand dollars if they would postpone the wedding for a month, and continue their exhibitions at the Museum.

“Not for fifty thousand dollars,” said the General, excitedly.

“Good for you, Charley,” said Lavinia, “only you ought to have said not for a hundred thousand, for I would not!”

They both laughed heartily at what they considered my discomfiture, and such, looked at from a business point of view, it certainly was. The wedding day approached and the public excitement grew. For several days, I might say weeks, the approaching marriage of Tom Thumb was the New York “sensation.” For proof of this I did not need what, however, was

ample, the newspaper paragraphs. A surer index was in the crowds that passed into the Museum, and the dollars that found their way into the ticket office.

It was suggested to me that a small fortune in itself could be easily made out of the excitement. “Let the ceremony take place in the Academy of Music, charge a big price for admission, and the citizens will come in crowds.” I have no manner of doubt that in this way twenty-five thousand dollars could easily have been obtained. But I had no such thought. I had promised to give the couple a genteel and graceful wedding, and I kept my word.

The day arrived, Tuesday, February 10, 1863. The ceremony was to take place in Grace Church, New York. The Rev. Junius Willey, Rector of St. John’s Church in Bridgeport, assisted by the late Rev. Dr. Taylor, of Grace Church, was to officiate. The organ was played by Morgan. I know not what better I could have done, had the wedding of a prince been in contemplation. The church was comfortably filled by a highly select audience of ladies and gentlemen, none being admitted except those having cards of invitation. Among them were governors of several of the States, to whom I had sent cards, and such of those as could not be present in person were represented by friends, to whom they had given their cards. Members of Congress were present, also generals of the army, and many other prominent public men. Numerous applications were made from wealthy and distinguished persons for tickets to witness the ceremony, and as high as sixty dollars was offered for a single admission. But not a ticket was sold; and Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were pronounced “man and wife” before witnesses.

The following entirely authentic correspondence, the only suppression being the name of the person who wrote to Dr. Taylor and to whom Dr. Taylor’s reply is addressed, shows how a certain would-be “witness” was not a witness of the famous wedding. In other particulars, the correspondence speaks for itself.

To the Rev. Dr. Taylor. —Sir: The object of my unwillingly addressing you this note is to inquire what right you had to exclude myself and other owners of pews in Grace Church from entering it yesterday, enforced, too, by a cordon of police for that purpose. If my pew is not my property, I wish to know it; and if it is, I deny your right to prevent me from occupying it whenever the church is open, even at a marriage of mountebanks, which I would not take the trouble to cross the street to witness.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,W*** S***804 Broadway, New York, Feb. 16, 1863.

Mr. W*** S*** —Dear Sir: I am sorry, my valued friend, that you should have written me the peppery letter that is now before me. If the matter of which you complain be so utterly insignificant and contemptible as “a marriage of mountebanks, which you would not take the trouble to cross the street to witness,” it surprises me that you should have made such strenuous, but ill-directed efforts to secure a ticket of admission. And why – permit me to ask in the name of reason and philosophy – do you still suffer it to disturb you so sadly? It would perhaps be a sufficient answer to your letter, to say that your cause of complaint exists only in your imagination. You have never been excluded from your pew. As rector, I am the only custodian of the church, and you will hardly venture to say that you have ever applied to me for permission to enter, and been refused.

Here I might safely rest, and leave you to the comfort of your own reflections in the case. But as you, in common with many other worthy persons, would seem to have very crude notions as to your rights of “property” in pews, you will pardon me for saying that a pew in a church is property only in a peculiar and restricted sense. It is not property, as your house or your horse is property. It vests you with no fee in the soil; you cannot use it in any way, and in every way, and at all times, as your pleasure or caprice may dictate; you cannot put it to any common or unhallowed uses; you cannot remove it, nor injure it, nor destroy it. In short, you hold by purchase, and may sell the right to the undisturbed possession of that little space within the church edifice which you call your pew during the hours of divine service. But even that right must be exercised decorously, and with a decent regard for time and place, or else you may at any moment be ignominiously ejected from it.

I regret to be obliged to add that by the law of custom, you may, during those said hours of divine service (but at no other time) sleep in your pew; you must, however, do so noiselessly and never to the disturbance of your sleeping neighbors; your property in your pew has this extent and nothing more. Now, if Mr. W*** S*** were at any time to come to me and say, “Sir, I would that you should grant me the use of Grace Church for a solemn service (a marriage, a baptism, or a funeral, as the case may be), and as it is desirable that the feelings of the parties should be protected as far as possible from the impertinent intrusion and disturbance of a crowd from the streets and lanes of the city, I beg that no one may be admitted within the doors of the church during the very few moments that we expect to be there, but our invited friends only,” – it would certainly, in such a case, be my pleasure to comply with your request, and to meet your wishes in every particular; and I think that even Mr. W*** S*** will agree that all this would be entirely reasonable and proper. Then, tell me, how would such a case differ from the instance of which you complain? Two young persons, whose only crimes would seem to be that they are neither so big, nor so stupid, nor so ill-mannered, nor so inordinately selfish as some other people, come to me and say, sir, we are about to be married, and we wish to throw around our marriage all the solemnities of religion. We are strangers in your city, and as there is no clergymen here standing in a pastoral relation to us, we have ventured to ask the favor of the bishop of New York to marry us, and he has kindly consented to do so; may we then venture a little further, and request the use of your church in which the bishop may perform the marriage service? We assure you, sir, that we are no shams, no cheats, no mountebanks; we are neither monsters nor abortions; it is true we are little, but we are as God made us, perfect in our littleness. Sir, we are simply man and woman of like passions and infirmities with you and other mortals. The arrangements for our marriage are controlled by no “showman,” and we are sincerely desirous that everything should be ordered with a most scrupulous regard to decorum. We hope to invite our relations and intimate friends, together with such persons as may in other years have extended civilities to either of us; but we pledge ourselves to you most sacredly that no invitation can be bought with money. Permit us to say further, that as we would most gladly escape from the insulting jeers, and ribald sneers and coarse ridicule of the unthinking multitude without, we pray you to allow us, at our own proper charges, so to guard the avenues of access from the street, as to prevent all unseemly tumult and disorder.

I tell you, sir, that whenever, and from whomsoever, such an appeal is made to my Christian courtesy, although it should come from the very humblest of the earth, I would go calmly and cheerfully forward to meet their wishes, although as many W*** S***’s as would reach from here to Kamtschatka, clothed in furs and frowns, should rise up to oppose me.

In conclusion, I will say that if the marriage of Charles S. Stratton and Lavinia Warren is to be regarded as a pageant, then it was the most beautiful pageant it has ever been my privilege to witness. If on the contrary, it is rather to be thought of as a solemn ceremony, then it was as touchingly solemn as a wedding can possibly be rendered. It is true the bishop was not present, but Mr. Stratton’s own pastor, the Rev. Mr. Willey, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, read the service with admirable taste and impressiveness, and the bride was given away by her mother’s pastor and her own “next friend,” a venerable congregational clergyman from Massachusetts. Surely, there never was a gathering of so many hundreds of our best people, when everybody appeared so delighted with everything; surely it is no light thing to call forth so much innocent joy in so few moments of passing time; surely it is no light thing, thus to smooth the roughness and sweeten the acerbities which mar our happiness as we advance upon the wearing journey of life. Sir, it was most emphatically a high triumph of “Christian civilization”!

Respectfully submitted, by your obedient servant,Thomas House Taylor.

Several thousand persons attended the reception of Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb the same day at the Metropolitan Hotel. After this they started on a wedding tour, taking Washington in their way. They visited President Lincoln at the White House. After a couple of weeks they returned, and, as they then supposed, retired to private life.

Habit, however, is indeed second nature. The General and his wife had been accustomed to excitement, and after a few months’ retirement they again longed for the peculiar pleasures of a public life, and the public were eager to welcome them once more. They resumed their public career, and have since travelled several years in Europe, and considerably in this country, holding public exhibitions more than half the time, and spending the residue in leisurely viewing such cities and portions of the country as they may happen to be in. Commodore Nutt and Minnie Warren, I should add, usually travel with them.

I met the little Commodore last summer, after his absence in Europe of three years, and said:

“Are you not married yet, Commodore?”

“No, sir; my fruit is plucked,” he replied.

“You don’t mean to say you will never marry,” I remarked.

“No, not exactly,” replied the Commodore, complacently, “but I have concluded not to marry until I am thirty.”

“I suppose you intend to marry one of your size?” I said.

“I am not particular in that respect,” but seeing my jocose mood, he continued, with a comical leer, “I think I should prefer marrying a good, green country girl, to anybody else.”

This was said with a degree of nonchalance, which none can appreciate who do not know him.

To make sure that a lack of memory has not misled me as to any of the facts in regard to the courtship and wedding of Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, I will here say that, after writing out the story, I read it to the parties personally interested, and they give me leave to say that, in all particulars, it is a correct statement of the affair, except that Lavinia remarked:

“Well, Mr. Barnum, your story don’t lose any by the telling”; and the Commodore denies the “rolling tear,” when informed of the engagement of the little pair.

In June 1869, the report was started, for the third or fourth time, in the newspapers, that Commodore Nutt and Miss Minnie Warren were married – this time at West Haven, in Connecticut. The story was wholly untrue, nor do I think that such a wedding is likely to take place, for, on the principle that people like their opposites, Minnie and the Commodore are likely to marry persons whom they can literally “look up to” – that is, if either of them marries at all it will be a tall partner.

Soon after the wedding of General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren, a lady came to my office and called my attention to a little six-paged pamphlet which she said she had written, entitled “Priests and Pigmies,” and requested me to read it. I glanced at the title, and at once estimating the character of the publication, I promptly declined to devote any portion of my valuable time to its perusal.

“But you had better look at it, Mr. Barnum; it deeply interests you, and you may think it worth your while to buy it.”

“Certainly, I will buy it, if you desire,” said I, tendering her a sixpence, which I supposed to be the price of the little pamphlet.

“Oh! you quite misunderstand me; I mean buy the copyright and the entire edition, with the view of suppressing the work. It says some frightful things, I assure you,” urged the author.

I lay back in my chair and fairly roared at this exceedingly feeble attempt at black-mail.

“But,” persisted the lady, “suppose it says that your Museum and Grace Church are all one, what then?”

“My dear madam,” I replied, “you may say what you please about me or about my Museum; you may print a hundred thousand copies of a pamphlet stating that I stole the communion service, after the wedding from Grace Church altar, or anything else you choose to write; only have the kindness to say something about me, and then come to me and I will properly estimate the money value of your services to me as an advertising agent. Good morning, madam,” – and she departed.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

POLITICAL AND PERSONAL

MY POLITICAL PRINCIPLES – REASONS FOR MY CHANGE OF PARTIES – KANSAS AND SECESSION – WIDE-AWAKES – GRAND ILLUMINATION OF LINDENCROFT – JOKE ON A DEMOCRATIC NEIGHBOR – PEACE MEETINGS – THE STEPNEY EXCITEMENT – TEARING DOWN A PEACE FLAG – A LOYAL MEETING – RECEPTION IN BRIDGEPORT – DESTRUCTION OF THE “FARMER” OFFICE – ELIAS HOWE, JR. – SAINT PETER AND SALTPETRE – DRAFT RIOTS – BURGLARS AT LINDENCROFT – MY ELECTION TO THE LEGISLATURE – BEGINNING OF MY WAR ON RAILROAD MONOPOLIES – WIRE-PULLING – THE XIV. AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION – STRIKING THE WORD “WHITE” FROM THE CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION – MY SPEECH.

I BEGAN my political life as a Democrat, and my newspaper, the Herald of Freedom, was a Jackson-Democratic journal. While always taking an active interest in political matters, I had no desire for personal preferment, and, up to a late period, steadily declined to run for office. Nevertheless, in 1852 or 1853, prominent members of the party with which I voted, urged the submission of my name to the State Convention, as a candidate for the office of Governor, and although the party was then in the ascendancy, and a nomination would have been equivalent to an election, I peremptorily refused; in spite of this refusal, which was generally known, several votes were cast for me in the Convention. The Kansas strifes, in 1854, shook my faith in my party, though I continued to call myself a Democrat, often declaring that if I thought there was a drop of blood in me that was not democratic, I would let it out if I had to cut the jugular vein. When, however, secession threatened in 1860, I thought it was time for a “new departure,” and I identified myself with the Republican party.

During the active and exciting political campaign of 1860, which resulted in Mr. Lincoln’s first election to the presidency, it will be remembered that “Wide-Awake” associations, with their uniforms, torches and processions, were organized in nearly every city, town and village throughout the North. Arriving at Bridgeport from New York at five o’clock one afternoon, I was informed that the Wide-Awakes were to parade that evening and intended to march out to Lindencroft. So I ordered two boxes of sperm candles, and prepared for a general illumination of every window in the front of my house. Many of my neighbors, including several Democrats, came to Lindencroft in the evening to witness the illumination and see the Wide-Awake procession. My nearest neighbor, Mr. T., was a strong Democrat, and before he came to my house, he ordered his servants to stay in the basement, and not to show a light above ground, thus intending to prove his Democratic convictions and conclusions by the darkness of his “premises”; and so, while Lindencroft was all ablaze with a flood of light, the next house was as black as a coal-hole.

My neighbor, Mr. James D. Johnson, was also a Democrat, but I knew he would not spoil a good joke for the sake of politics, and I asked him to engage the attention of Mr. and Mrs. T., and to keep their faces turned towards Bridgeport and the approaching procession, the light of whose torches could already be seen in the distance, while another Democratic friend, Mr. George A. Wells, and I, ran over and illuminated Mr T.’s house. This we did with great success, completing our work five minutes before the procession arrived. As the Wide-Awakes turned into my grounds and saw that the house of Mr. T. was brilliantly illuminated, they concluded that he had become a sudden convert to Republicanism, and gave three rousing cheers for him. Hearing his name thus cheered and wondering at the cause, he happened to turn and see that his house was lighted up from basement to attic, and uttering a single profane ejaculation, he rushed for home. He was not able, however, to put out the lights till the Wide-Awakes had gone on their way rejoicing under the impression that one more Republican had been added to their ranks.

When the rebellion broke out in 1861, I was too old to go to the field, but I supplied four substitutes, and contributed liberally from my means for the cause of the Union. After the defeat at Bull Run, July 21, 1861, “peace meetings” began to be held in different parts of the Northern States, and especially in Fairfield and Litchfield Counties, in Connecticut. It was usual in these assemblages to display a white flag, bearing the word “Peace” above the National flag, and to make and listen to harangues denunciatory of the war. One of these meetings was advertised to be held, August 24th, at Stepney, ten miles north of Bridgeport. On the morning of that day, I met Elias Howe, Jr., who proposed to me that we should drive up to Stepney, attend the Peace meeting, and hear for ourselves whether the addresses were disloyal or not. We agreed to meet at the post-office, at twelve o’clock at noon, and I went home for my carriage. On the way I met several gentlemen to whom I communicated my intention, asking them to go also; and as Mr. Howe invited several of his friends to accompany us, when we met at noon, at least twenty gentlemen were at the place of rendezvous with their carriages, ready to start for Stepney. I am quite confident that not one of us had any other intention in going to this meeting, than to quietly listen to the harangues, and if they were found to be in opposition to the government, and calculated to create disturbance or disaffection in the community, and deter enlistments, it would be best to represent the matter to the government at Washington, and ask that measures might be taken to suppress such gatherings.

As we turned into Main Street, we discovered two large omnibuses filled with soldiers, who were at home on furlough, and who were going to Stepney. Our lighter carriages outran them, and so arrived at Stepney in time to see the white peace flag run up over the stars and stripes, when we quietly stood in the crowd while the meeting was organized. It was a very large gathering, and some fifty ladies were on the seats in front of the platform, on which were the officers and speakers of the meeting. A “preacher,” – Mr. Charles Smith, – was invited to open the proceedings with prayer, and “The Military and Civil History of Connecticut, during the War of 1861-65,” by W. A. Croffut and John M. Morris, thus continues the record of this extraordinary gathering:

“He (Smith) had not, however, progressed far in his supplication, when he slightly opened his eyes, and beheld, to his horror, the Bridgeport omnibuses coming over the hill, garnished with Union banners, and vocal with loyal cheers. This was the signal for a panic; Bull Run, on a small scale was re-enacted. The devout Smith, and the undelivered orators, it is alleged, took refuge in a field of corn. The procession drove straight to the pole unresisted, the hostile crowd parting to let them pass; and a tall man, – John Platt, – amid some mutterings, climbed the pole, reached the halliards, and the mongrel banners were on the ground. Some of the peace-men, rallying, drew weapons on ‘the invaders,’ and a musket and a revolver were taken from them by soldiers at the very instant of firing. Another of the defenders fired a revolver, and was chased into the fields. Still others, waxing belligerent, were disarmed, and a number of loaded muskets found stored in an adjacent shed were seized. The stars and stripes were hoisted upon the pole, and wildly cheered. P. T. Barnum was then taken on the shoulders of the boys in blue, and put on the platform, where he made a speech full of patriotism, spiced with the humor of the occasion. Captain James E. Dunham also said a few words to the point… ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was then sung in chorus, and a series of resolutions passed, declaring that ‘loyal men are the rightful custodians of the peace of Connecticut.’ Elias Howe, Jr., chairman, made his speech, when the crowd threatened to shoot the speakers: ‘If they fire a gun, boys, burn the whole town, and I’ll pay for it!’ After giving the citizens wholesome advice concerning the substituted flag, and their duty to the government, the procession returned to Bridgeport, with the white flag trailing in the mud behind an omnibus… They were received at Bridgeport by approving crowds, and were greeted with continuous cheers as they passed along.”