Recollections and Reflections of a Retired Gymnast

“Out of the business now,” said the speaker, “although I have turned my hand to almost every branch of it in my time.”

A wicked press agent, one Harry Cordova, who had come from the malarial plagued-spot of Missouri, crippled up like a scarred veteran at the end of a war campaign, made a casual allusion to 1492, a date well recollected in connection with the history of this country. Frank Donaldson made a good natured retort about “the natural effect of bile and circus bill writing” and then went on:

“I’ve got a record in the circus business that I’m not ashamed of and I have been a good deal in pantomime and burnt cork and my wife was one of the first, if not the very first, to give a dramatic performance in Texas. I will tell you all about it sometime. What is the business coming to?” asked the ancient gymnast, just as the critic of today prates of the decline of the drama.

No one seemed ready with a satisfactory answer to the conundrum, whereupon he renewed:

“The big fish have eaten up the little ones and the public are no longer satisfied unless they can see acres of canvas and a procession a mile long. The tent shows have grown in size but the performer has been ignored. Performers! Are we going to have any more, any more American performers?”

Charley Noyes, forgetting for the moment the twinges of his rheumatism, exclaimed:

“Yes, with your meddlesome Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, so called. Ask my apprentices today if they do not thank me ten thousand times for teaching them the business. Ask Wooda Cook which he had rather do, measure tape at ten dollars a week behind a dry goods counter or somersault on the back of a horse as he does at one hundred?”

The profoundness of Mr. Noyes’ argument was substantiated by the old time gymnast, who brushed the somewhat disturbed nap of his tile and waxed eloquent:

“Look at the Robinsons, the Melvilles, Stickneys and Carrolls. The idea that Robert Stickney cannot teach his own son the calling his father taught him! Many’s the man who envies Bob his two hundred dollars or more a week and a fat bank account in Cincinnati. If there had existed such a society in Bob Stickney’s boyhood, Sir Robert might today be engaged in the lowest but humble vocation of opening oysters or sawing wood. Why don’t the society expend its energies in putting shoes on barefooted newsboys and line their stomachs with warm meals instead of making raids that give them a little notoriety in the newspapers?

“Speaking about 1492, there’s plenty of old timers yet living that could spin some very interesting yarns, such men as ‘Old’ John Robinson, Doctor Spalding, Rogers, Levi North, Lent, Dan Gardner and Barney Carroll. They could tell you some mighty interesting facts in regard to ring performances in America; for while the stage and minstrelsy have their historians, but very little has been done in the way of chronicling the rise and progress of arenic amusements on this continent. Although, on the other side of the ‘pond’, they have got it down as fine as silk, from Astley up to Hengler and Sanger.”

At the earnest solicitation of a number of circus folk present, Mr. Donaldson turned back in memory the pages of his life book and, while all listened with great interest, said:

“The first circus I ever saw was in 1838. It was Rockwell’s company. And I became enamored with the business. And from that moment my highest ambition was to become a circus performer, a desire I was not able to gratify until 1842 when I met Aaron Turner in Cherryville, Pennsylvania, and entered his employ as a posturer at twelve dollars a week. I well recollect giving him a sample of my abilities in a barn. Jim Myers, who is now a successful manager abroad, Mike Lipman, still living in Cincinnati, and Tom Withe were apprentices with the show. Tim Turner was riding a principal act; Nat Turner, four horses; and Jim Myers was doing the slack rope and just beginning to play clown.

“It was about a forty-horse show and our menagerie consisted of one elephant and something like six cages of animals. The prices of admission were twenty-five and twelve and a half cents and the canvas [was] a one hundred foot round-top. The sideshows, as well as dressing rooms, are quite that size nowadays. Hotel rates were thirty-seven and a half cents a day and it was no uncommon thing to see liquors placed upon the table free of charge and the performers, upon leaving the table, presented by the landlord with a ‘choice Principee’ two-for-a-cent, and good cigars they were, too.

“I was sorry to read the other day of the death of one of the Carlo Brothers. I recollect their father well, Felix Carlo, as pantomimist and gymnast. About ‘55, he lived in Forsyth Street and there projected and practiced an act for which he secured an opening at Frank Rivers’ Varieties. (35) He constructed a revolving globe of huge proportions on which he was to do a brother act with two of his boys. Well, you know how the globes are made, common boards sawed out in a circular form, glued and nailed together and then covered with cloth and fancifully painted. Carlo worked away like a beaver on the act and it promised to be a big thing. But he made no attempt to move the globe to the theatre till the Monday he was to open. Imagine his chagrin when he found that there was no means of getting the globe out of the house. It could be got through neither window nor door. And the engagement was lost.

“I have in my time been either the originator of several acts or the first to perform them in this country or participate in their production jointly with others. The first double-perch was done in Cincinnati with Wesley Barmore‘s circus, exhibiting on Vine Street where the Palace Varieties afterwards stood. This was in 1853. For the first two days, E. L. Libby held the perch and the mounters were George Dunbar and Frank Donaldson. For the balance of the season, Dunbar held the perch and Oliver Dodge and myself did the mounting. It was afterwards long performed by Henry Magilton, Dunbar and myself. And I am glad to say all this trio are living today.

“In June, 1854, I was traveling with Spalding & Rogers. The VanAmburgh party was running two shows that season and we played against their English show, an importation, at Greenville, Indiana. There, George Dunbar held the perch and for the first time, I believe anywhere, there were four mounters: Henry Magilton, Nat Rogers, Charles Crosby, and Frank Donaldson. I shall never forget the expression of surprise of our English cousins who had come into the canvas to see the ‘blarsted American performers,’ as one after the other of the quartet of mounters took position. ‘By jove! The bloody Yankee is going to take up the whole company!’

“By the way, my old partners and comrades in the ring, Henry Magilton and George Dunbar, were the first in America to do ‘The Two Comics, or Motley Brothers.’ Magilton and Mons. LaThorne afterwards did the act. The ladder perch was the first time performed about ‘56 at L. B. Lent’s circus, Philadelphia, [with] Dunbar holding and Magilton and Donaldson performing.

“The winter of the exhibition of the Crystal Palace in New York, (36) Henry Magilton and myself did a double trapeze act at VanEpps Amphitheatre, Mobile, being the first to perform the act. Francois Siegrist, the same season at Franconi’s Hippodrome, New York, performed a single-trapeze.

“Yes, I have done ‘Pete Jenkins‘ to oblige a manager but there has been only one ‘Pete Jenkins’ and that was poor Charley Sherwood. Speaking of him, did you ever know the origin of the phrase ‘red hot?’ In ‘59, Uncle John Tryon put a circus into Purdy’s National Theatre in Chatham Street. Sherwood was a member of the company and ‘Pete Jenkins’ was in the bill. I don’t know whether you know it or not but Sherwood, in the early days of negro minstrelsy, was known as Master Champion and was a rattling good jig dancer. And many’s the jig I have danced in public myself as well. Sherwood had given the b’hoys a touch of the jig and every night they would call on ‘Pete’ for a jig. And Sherwood would step it right lively on the boards between the footlights of the stage and the curb of the ring, never failing to receive as a reward a shower of pennies. One night some wretch heated a large, old-fashioned copper cent in a gas jet by the aid of a crotched stick and threw it to the interpreter of the rural and obfuscated ‘Jenkins.’ No sooner had the copper struck the stage than Sherwood pounced upon it and, almost at the same instant, dropped it as he exclaimed, ‘Red hot!’

“From that day to this, ‘red hot’ has been a popular expression and the phrase was used over and over again by Sherwood until it became a saying of the day.

“That was a pretty good spec of Charley’s picking up the shower of pennies and, as salaries were not forthcoming, the ‘Original Pete Jenkins’ was the only man in the company who had spending money. But, as an insurance against ‘red hot’ coppers, Sherwood used to go on every night with gloved hands and pick up the heated coppers ‘mid cries from his admirers of ‘Red hot! red hot!’

“I recollect the coming to this country of the Siegrist Brothers, Francois and Auguste. They were the first to do ‘Mons. and Madame Dennie‘. This was in ‘53 in Levi North’s circus in Philadelphia, where the Continental Hotel now stands. But the act was too Frenchified and did not take. I Americanized it and it made a hit. George Dunbar in the amended version played Mons. Dennie; Charles Brown, since deceased, was the Madame; and I acted the Servant.

“The first double-ladders in this country were performed while I was with Levi North in Philadelphia by Dunbar, Magilton, Hankins and Donaldson. We first learned of the act from the Siegrists, who explained it to Dunbar and wanted him to practice it for six weeks and then produce it in public. Our four went to work immediately upon it and, after three or four days of work, to the amazement of the Siegrists and the management as well, successfully performed the feat in public. This goes to show how ready is American wit and energy to ‘pick up’ business supposed by foreign artists to require a prolonged apprenticeship or arduous practice. The double-ladders were afterwards performed in England with Howes & Cushing’s United States Circus under the title of ‘The Rocky Mountain Wonders.’ George Ware, who has since visited this country as a vocalist and has some considerable reputation as a song writer, wrote up a bill wherein he described ‘The Rocky Mountain Wonders leaping from tree to tree in the barren sands of the great American desert.’ That was a great bill. And it created a big laugh among the American performers, as John Murray and Burnell Runnells will tell you to this day. And I’ll warrant you that Col. Joseph Cushing, the hale and hearty farmer ‘way down in Dover, New Hampshire,’ has not forgotten it himself.

“Yes, sir, the boys were not slow those days in picking up an act. When Hiram Franklin did the first doublesomersault at Niblo’s Garden on a Saturday night, Buck Gardner, the following Monday, duplicated the feat in the Bowery. (37)

“I have seen a heap of the world since I joined Turner in ‘42 and many is the thousands of miles I have traveled by roadway, rail and sea. I have had seasons of prosperity and reverse. But, in looking back, [I] can recall the triumphs of my profession and [I can] let its struggles, hardships and annoyances sink out of sight. There is many a comical incident to recall or laughable adventure to refer to. And that which was at the time the most provoking of occurrences has since come to be an amusing affair.

“I recollect that in ‘57 in Philadelphia with Lent I was in the pantomime of ‘The Magic Banjo,’ in which Joe Pentland appeared as the clown. As the curtain fell I was left in the tableau, almost up to the flies. And in this instance I was left without any means of getting down, to say nothing of escaping from the theatre. No sooner was the show out than douse went the gas and everyone raced out of the building. At last, after bellowing myself hoarse, I was released by the night watchman, who chanced to hear my cries. After that, I provided myself with a rope and [thus] managed to get to the stage about as soon as the curtain roll.

“It is getting late and is about time for me to go. I had no idea of remaining half the time but when one runs back to 1842 it takes time. One more and I’m off. In 1845 there was a little English clown playing with Welsh, Mann & Delevan. Jack Wells was his name and I presume many of you have heard of him. He used to do an act called ‘The Magic Ladder.’ He would, once at the top, dispose of one upright and the rounds and balance himself on his head on the sole remaining upright and, in that reverse position, drink a glass of brandy. That is, the genuine brandy was supposed to finish the act and Jack would not accept a substitute. When a colored liquid was provided, Jack dashed it aside and stoically remained upside down without apparent inconvenience, vowing his intention of ‘hanging up there all night’ unless the genuine cognac was brought. Many is the night Jack remained aloft, refusing to come down till a property man ran ‘round the corner to the nearest saloon and got a glass of brandy.”

Footnotes

35. Frank Rivers was a former circus performer whose injury led to opening the Melodeon Concert Hall, 539 Broadway, in the summer of 1859. This influenced a decided turn toward respectability for such places, for Rivers’ offered a changing program of high-class singers, dancers and variety acts, competitive with other entertainment palaces along Broadway and appealing to the frequenters of the dramatic houses and the popular minstrel halls.
36. The New York Crystal Palace Exhibition opened in the summer of 1853.
37. Odell quotes from the New York Herald of January 31, 1844, which describes Franklin as “the beautiful, fearless rider and unsurpassed vaulter.” It goes on to say that “his double somersault and his wild gallop on his bare-back steed are feats of the most extraordinary interest which can be conceived.” By this time, the double-somersault must have been a regular part of Franklin’s performance. Franklin was at the Bowery Amphitheatre, 37 Bowery, with June, Titus, Angevine & Co. for the season of 1840-41. Gardner was at the Bowery Theatre at this time as well. This may be the period of Donaldson’s reference.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.