Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1891-04-16
p. T. BARNUM is DEAD.
THE SNOWMAN EXPIRES AT HIS
HOME.

without Exception He Was the Worlds
Greatest showman-som OF His Notable
Enterprises-sketch OF HIS Long and Re-
marlkable Career.
Phineas Taylor Barnum. the great
Snowman, died at Marina, Conn after
an illness Of twenty-one weeks. He had
during that whole period firmly insisted
that his sickness was only temporary,
and that he would soon be out again.
Mr.. Barnum was without doubt the
greatest Snowman on earth. Very early
In life he took the measure OF average
human nature and profited by the accu-
racy Of his gauge. He found 1t both
curious and credulous, and he catered to
1t accordingly. Nearly forty years ago
he wrote his autobiography. for he was
even then famous, aud did net scruple to
show the manner In which he had i'm
posed upon q public anxious to see
the marvellous. Artemus Wards pea
green OK, the history of which
he told thirty years ago, was
pale reflection of Barnum's wCOlly horse,
and various other devices with which
he was not unwilling to admit he had
amused the public withaL The Dea-green
OK fell into Jersey canal and lost its
peculiar color, resuming thereafter, as
Ward explained. agricultural pursuits
As he advanced in years Barnum found
IL more profitable to satisfy ordinary
curiosity than TO attempt to play upon
rredulity. The menagerie formed
never-failing source of public interest,
and liking for the hippodrome, the ring
master, the clown, the little lady who in
abbreviated skirts jumped through the
hoops, the intelligent dogs, and the per-
forming elephants never tagged. Bar
mum soon came to look upon himself as
curiosity and as such made in coach and
four the circuit of the ring. Far more
attractive than the footlights, the can
vas yielded an immense fortune TO tho
man who could show what he described
as the greatest aggregation on earth.
Barnum had long been millionaire, and
though he affected public spirit the trail
of the sawdust was over IL all. lie had
no capacity for politics, no real under
standing of great public questions. lie
was evermore the public's obedient SER
want, taking the public's cash at the
box-office. First and last he was show
man, with something bizarre in his char
acter. He was a man of the ring and
the band wagon. No one IN his profess
sion has achieved equal fame or fortune.
sued his profession with undertaking
ardor and profound knowledge of human
kind.
Phlneas Taylor Barnum, the most
widely known, unique, yet thoroughly
| typical American of the time, was born
in the little town of Bethel, Conn, on
the 5th of July. 1870 His grandfather,
| Ephraim Barnum. had been continent
/ T., L.. Int lnf
| his father, Philo Barnum, took turns al
tailoring, innkeeping and farming
Phineas' boyhood passed uneventfully IL
| his native town, where he showed IN
school and on the farm the traits ol
thrift and shrewdness which so strongly
marked his character i'm after life.
About 1880, Mr.. Barnum became
deeply interested in politics, and, pub
lication having been denied certain com
| munications of his TO a Danbury paper
,on the dangers of sectarian interference
in political affairs, with characteristic
determ nation he started, in October
1881, a paper Of his own-the Herald o
Freedom. The vehemence Of his youth
full editorials secured for the paper
large subscription list at once and sew
eral libel suits very shortly, in one o
which he was imprisoned for sixty days
He continued to edit his paper from jail
and the notoriety he acquired still fur
ther swelled its circulation.
1t was in 1885 that =. T. Barnum q
last struck his life's path. He had hear
Of the existence of George Washington
negro nurse, then at the advanced age o
l6l years, and. selling out his busiDes
again, he bought the right to exhibit he
for 81, 600, and commenced his career a
a Snowman. His success was immediat
and electrifying
About this time he obtained control O
the defunct American Museum, NeN
York. Wildly improbable as were tn
promises held out by his advertisement:
indefatigable as he was in devisin
schemes to humbug the public for thei
own amusement and his profit, ther
was never q time when his entertaine
victims did not gladly acknowledge tina
they had "got more than their money
worth out of the show" A list of tn
pranks he played with his patrons, th
undreamed OF monstrositles he exhibited
would read like the catalogue of tn
ships In the Had. Here was to be see
the "elub that killed Captain Cook,
Niagara Falls with real water" th
"woolly horse" the "Feejee mermaid,
the fish with legs, F." mechanical toys an
automatons. He inaugurated the "bab
contests" which since have becom
features I'm fairs the world around. II
placed powerful calcium lights on th
top Of his museum, giving an unheaT
OF illumination of lower Broadway-pr'
cursors of the electric lights OF to day.
OF all the adventures with which tt
name of Barnum was ever connected
the most successful was his engagemer
of Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale
for a series OF concerts I'm America an
Havana in 1s49. For these concerts f
was to pay the cantatrice the then ul
heard of sum of $1,000 a night Ba
NUNS gross receipts from the ninety fly
Jenny Lind concerts amounted to abo'
three quarters of a million dollars
In 1874, during his first visit to En-
land, the great Snowman exhibited TO u
British public sixteen Indians, includiI
squaws, thus antedating the recent epte
prises OF Buffalo Bill.
From that time to the day OF his deaf
| NJ. -..,., lod al riuaia In, ha ho