P. T. Barnum Events

1810 Jul 5 P. T. Barnum Is Born
Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut, the son of inn keeper, tailor and store-keeper Philo Barnum (1778-1826) and second wife Irene Taylor, who had ten children. He was the third great ...
1835 Aug 10 P. T. Barnum Begins Career As Showman
In 1835 P. T. Barnum began as a showman with his purchase and exhibition of a blind and almost completely paralyzed slave woman, Joice Heth, claimed by Barnum to have been the nurse of Ge...
1841 P. T. Barnum Purchases Scudder's American Museum
In 1841 Barnum bought Scudder’s American Museum located across from St. Paul’s on the southeast corner of Broadway and Ann Street. He transformed the five-story exterior into a giant, gau...
1842 Dec 8 Charles Sherwood Stratton, aka 'General Tom Thumb' Performs at Barnum's American Museum
Visiting his home state of Connecticut on a cold November night in 1842, the great showman Phineas T. Barnum thought to track down an amazingly small child he had heard about. The boy, Ch...
1844 P. T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb Tour Europe
They passed through a long corridor to a broad flight of marble steps, which led to the picture gallery, and there the Queen and Prince Albert, the Duchess of Kent, the Duke of Wellington...
1850 Sep 11 P. T. Barnum Arranges American Tour of Swedish Opera Star, Jenny Lind
By 1849, when Lind was in the midst of her third triumphant London season, P. T. Barnum had become aware of her success and the large audiences she attracted. Earlier in 1845 and 1846 Bar...
1853 Josephine Clofullia (The Bearded Lady) Begins Performing at Barnum's American Museum
Madame Clofullia was born Josephine Boisdechene in Switzerland. She was born hairy and reputedly had a two-inch beard at the age of eight. At the age of fourteen she began to tour Europe,...
1853 Sep 20 Elisah Graves Otis Sells His First Elevator
On September 20, 1853, Elisah Graves Otis sold his first "hoist machines," or elevators, featuring an automatic safety brake that he had recently patented. His seemingly simple invention—...
1860 Conjoined Twins Chang And Eng Bunker Appear At Barnum's American Museum
Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins from Siam (now Thailand), came to the U.S. in 1829 and toured the nation and the world over the next four decades. Born in 1811 of Chinese parents, t...
1860 William Henry Johnson, aka 'Zip the Pinhead' Begins Performing at Barnum's American Museum
William Henry Johnson was born to a very poor African-American family. His parents were William and Mahalia Johnson, former slaves. As he grew his body developed normally but his head rem...
1862 Anna Haining Swan Appears at Barnum's American Museum
Anna Haining Bates, born Anna Haining Swan (August 6, 1846 – August 5, 1888), was a Canadian from Mill Brook, New Annan, (near present-day Tatamagouche), Colchester County, Nova Scotia, f...
1862 George Washington Morrison Nutt, aka 'Commodore Nutt' Appears at Barnum's American Museum
When Nutt was 17 years old he was brought to New York City to be exhibited at Barnum's American Museum that stood at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street. The museum, owned by P.T. Barnu...
1865 Isaac W. Sprague, aka 'The Original Living Skeleton' Begins Performing at Barnum's American Museum
Isaac W. Sprague (May 21, 1841, in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts - January 5, 1887, in Chicago, Illinois) was a famous "human skeleton". Although normal for most of his childhood, Sp...
1865 P. T. Barnum Elected To Connecticut Legislature
Though a Democrat for years, Barnum eventually broke from his party -- and declined its invitation to run for the state's governor -- because of the party's pro-slavery stance. He eventua...
1865 Jul 13 Barnum's American Museum Destroyed In Massive Fire
Music has ceased forever in Scudder's balcony, not because of rain but of fire. When Barnum's Museum burned, a few days since, one of the few interesting, and from Halleck's lines we may ...
1871 P. T. Barnum Begins Displaying Cardiff Giant
The Giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument with a fundamentalist minister named Mr. Turk about...
1871 P. T. Barnum Establishes Traveling Circus
Barnum did not enter the circus business until late in his career (he was 61). In Delavan, Wisconsin in 1871 with William Cameron Coup, he established "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Muse...
1879 Arthur James Caley, aka 'The Middlebush Giant' Begins Performing at Barnum's American Museum
Arthur James Caley or Routh Goshen (May 5, 1837 - February 12, 1889) was most commonly known as Colonel Routh Goshen, but this was a stage name that was created by Phineas Taylor Barnum. ...
1880 Hiram and Barney Davis, aka 'The Wild Men of Borneo' Begin Performing at Barnum's American Museum
The Wild Men of Borneo, Waino and Plutano, were a pair of exceptionally strong dwarf brothers who were most famously associated with P. T. Barnum and his freak show exhibitions. Waino ...
1884 Fedor Jeftichew, aka Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, Begins Performing With P. T. Barnum
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1868, Fedor Jeftichew suffered from the medical condition hypertrichosis. He toured with his father, Adrian, who suffered from the same ailment and had p...
1885 Sep 15 Jumbo the Elephant is Killed by a Locomotive
Jumbo's private car was some distance down the main line, and it was while walking to this that a shrill whistle signaled the approach of an oncoming freight train on the Grand Trunk rail...
1891 Apr 7 P. T. Barnum Dies
One of the requests made by Mr. Barnum was that, when all hope was gone, sedatives which would make his passage to the next world more peaceful be administered. About 4 o'clock this morni...
1919 Mar 29 Barnum and Bailey Circus Merges With Ringling Brothers Circus
The Ringlings purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907 and ran the circuses separately until 1919. By that time, Charles Edward Ringling and John Nicholas Ringling were the only remai...