Circus Managers

Circus Managers, Some of the Old Time Sawdust Magnates, Showmen Who Have Visited New England, Reminiscences of Veterans. Providence Sunday Telegram, May 17, 1885.

In writing of the circus magnates who have toured New England in the past and given pleasure to the lovers of the sawdust circle, I cannot begin with a nobler Roman than Lewis B. Lent, now living in retirement in New York. For many a year, Lent was a synonym of a first-class arenic entertainment. Mr. Lent was a first-class manager of a firstclass show. The bills read “The New York Circus, L. B. Lent, director” and they told the exact truth. He directed.

In the minutest detail, manager Lent controlled. He dictated the space to be occupied in newspapers, ordered every sheet of printing, and fixed even the weight of paper for his programs. Every woodcut was drawn to a nicety and cut to a hair. Agents acted under written orders; they had just so much to do, no more, no less. They moved through the country in time-table order. His representatives were machines. He gave the orders. All he required was their execution to the letter and woe be tide the individual who did anything on his “own hook” not set down in the instructions. L. B. Lent may be called the Hengler of America. His entertainments “on the road” and in New York were clean and models of excellence.

Circuses under the management of the “Flatfoots“ have been given in Providence. Avery Smith, a leading spirit in active manage-ment, always remained in the background as far as the use of his name was concerned; and it is said that at the time of his death at Newark, N.J., many of his long-time neighbors learned for the first time that he was a “circus man.” John J. Nathans, a “Flatfoot,” has not been engaged in management since his retirement from the Barnum show some years since. Mr. Nathans was in the early days an equestrian and his many successful ventures have made him very wealthy. George F. Bailey was the manager of the Barnum show during the “Flatfoot” regime and has all the worldly goods he cares about. Mr. Bailey, it may be said, married into the circus business. His wife was a Miss Turner and the Turners were the “Pilgrim fathers” who “struck out” in the circus business at Danbury, Conn., when this century was young. Lewis June bettered his fortune by association and investment with Smith, Nathans, and Bailey and takes it easy at Ridgefield, Conn., with nothing else to do but cut the coupons off his bonds and he has to have the shears sharpened pretty often, too, at that.

Stone, Rosston & Murray were very popular in the Down East country. They were all professionals and got their start by a bold incursion into Vermont in the face of a law forbidding the exhibition of circuses in that state. Den Stone was a native of the Green Mountain domain, his father being the late Judge Stone and Den was named after Judge Dennison, a legal luminary of much prominence where snow and maple sugar grow. Den was designed for the bar but he ran away from home and became a circus clown. Stone had sufficient influence to “fix things” and the S., R. & M. show glided through Vermont and gathered in a “barrel of money.”

Den Stone is “alive and well,” at present the equestrian director of VanAmburgh, Charles Reich & Brother Co. Frank Rosston, one of the finest equestrian directors that ever handled a whip, died some years since, leaving his family well provided for. John H. Murray succeeded to the business of the firm and for a while prospered but the days of big shows came and he was forced to succumb. Ruined! Broke! That is a word, slangy though it be, that tells it best. Murray, proud and plucky, persevered and just as he was getting a foothold he was called away. His son, George H., a manly, handsome fellow, a living photograph of his father, is a successful and capable theatrical advance agent.

S. O. Wheeler is an eccentric character, who for a time existed and will be principally remembered for the large diamonds and very dirty shirts he wore.

James Kelley, a son-in-law of Daniel Drew, was long a factor in the tent show business. He made plenty of money in the show business but an ambition to be recognized as a banker proved his ruin. Kelley, Daniel Drew, and the Bull’s Head Bank of New York all went down together. Mr. Kelley does not by any means seem to be suffering from any of the necessities of luxuries of life but the circus world in America lost one of its most capable managers when he withdrew of the control of tights and spangles. James Kelley was another manager who preferred to keep his own name in the background. Two of his best known ventures were the Central Park show and the London. He was in the possession of the London when he met with his reverses.

The elder of your readers will recollect Spalding & Rogers. They became interested in theatrical management in New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis, and Mobile and acquired large fortunes. Spalding, familiarly called Doctor because he was once a druggist, has “gone over to the majority.” Charles J. Rogers is enjoying the fruits of his labors in elegant ease. I think he is the best informed man living as to the early circus history of this country, although L. B. Lent remembers a good deal that other people have forgotten.

Levi J. North, the first man who ever turned a somersault on the back of a [running] horse, is also poor, very poor indeed, and living in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Rivers and Derious are both living; both, I am happy to state, well to do. Mr. Derious is very aged and resembles, with his flowing white beard, one of the ancient patriarchs.

George K. Goodwin combined pawn broking on a large scale and exhibitions of panoramas and circus management. At the time of his demise he was the manager of the Walnut Street Theatre, a dapper, natty gentleman, the Beau Brummel of the profession.

Some Middletown capitalists embarked in the show business a few years ago, resulting in the existence of the North American for two years. Mr. Stow, the manager, has since cut his way to fortune in wood engraving.

The Oriental, backed by a Boston horseman and managed by James Cameron of Providence lasted but part of a season and fell apart at Halifax, N.S.

Old John Robinson once made a “trial trip” into New England with an unusually fine company but the financial result was bad and he went West faster than any pioneer ever did looking for the promised land.

For years Adam Forepaugh fought shy of New England. He tried it once in the long back and oh! how he suffered. He was running a wagon show magnificently equipped but he flew by rail to Albany and landed, in spite of early reverses, over $100,000 to good business during the balance of the season. My friend of Philadelphia kept away from “Down East” many seasons, except an occasional drop into Vermont at the end of a Canadian tour. His movements and that of the Barnum show have been for several seasons by mutual arrangement.

Dan Rice‘s last tour of New England was made under the management of Adam Forepaugh, Adam paying the bignosed jester $26,000 for twenty-six weeks’ services. Daniel amused himself day after day by abusing his employer in the ring when he chose to put in an appearance, which was not often as he had a peculiarly drawn contract of which he took advantage. Rice made Forepaugh very tired of him before the termination of their relationship and Adam, who is a muscular Christian, wound up the engagement by threshing Dan’s groom (a big, bulky brute), after which he drubbed Mr. Rice in a way that would have done honor to John L. Sullivan.

Adam Forepaugh was a butcher, a drover, and a horse trader and grew up in the Quaker City when a young man of spirit was frequently called upon to put up his hands. Only a few years ago, while the writer was in A. F.’s employ, he was grossly insulted by the pilot of a coal cart, who said very bad words at the showman. Adam got out of his carriage and whipped the fellow right then and there to the delight of those who had listened to the provocation.

“Well done, Adam. If you hadn’t done it, I should have got out and helped you myself,” said a white-whiskered gentleman in a carriage, an officer of one of the great trust companies who used to chum with “our Ad.,” train with him, and run with the same machine.

“I’d take off my overcoat if I was going to try it again,” remarked Forepaugh as he nodded to the crowd and drove off.

William C. Coup had a meteoric success as a manager. He found Barnum out of the swim, coaxed him from his retirement, and made a great deal of money until the Hippodrome venture, which proved very disastrous, Barnum’s son-in-law, Hurd, George Bunnell, the museum manager, and Coup getting badly pinched in the squeeze. Dan Castello went out broke and never recovered. Coup’s next venture was with Henry Reiche in the New York aquarium. Mr. Reiche put up money like a Prince and invested $85,000 in fish and water. Coup was bought out and Reiche continued. Coup again got a foothold in the circus business, prospered for a while, and was at last driven to the wall. One of the most likable men in the world, he was very popular with the press and I am glad to record that once more he is basking in fortune’s smiles, controlling an exhibition of educated horses.

The Great Eastern for a few seasons was prodigiously prosperous under the guidance of Andrew Haight and George W. DeHaven, who were the originators of the tworing business.

Howes & Cushing were very successful under the management of Seth B. Howes and Col. Joe Cushing. Howes is a many-millionaire. Cushing died a few years ago on his farm near Dover, N.H. The circus which last exhibited at Providence under the name of Howes & Cushing and wound up unfortunately was under the direction of Col. Cushing, Andrew Cullen, and Frank Howes (not Seth B.). Col. Cushing, I have been told, was originally a boss canvasman and secured his interest in the Howes & Cushing show by resenting an insult directed against his employer. The sound threshing he administered the infractor made him a partner in the show, which won great favor in England where they had the honor of appearing before the Queen and royal family.

The London, after its loss by Kelley, made several very prosperous seasons under Parks, Davis & Dockrill. The last two have been particularly unfortunate, and the former has been able to save no great amount from the wreck.

Now to come down to the billboards and the pictures displayed by the courtesy of Cornell & Haskins. I won’t ask you to look way back to ‘20, the time of the organization and foundation of the VanAmburgh show. It might sprain your neck. To all the old folks, VanAmburgh is “as familiar as household words,” if I may be allowed to use that very chestnut quotation. For many years the power behind the throne with this ancient and honorable institution has been Hyatt Frost, who has been connected with it for thirty-nine years. Frost says that the circus business is not his forte this year but it will be his forty next year.

The woods are full of showmen where Frost came from and today all the old inhabitants of Putnam and Dutchess counties, N.Y., traveled with the VanAmburgh show; and their progenitors were in the business with the Turners, Howes, Mabies, and Raymonds, whose names are a tradition in the history of the circus. Manager Frost has been associated at times in ventures with P. T. Barnum and James Kelley and was one of the proprietors of the last Barnum museum destroyed by fire. He has been rather backward in the way of personal advertising and for years he refused to sit for his picture, fearing that the camera might go off and spread his likeness broadcast.

Frost’s old partner is also a modest man. I mean P. T. Barnum, whose face is quite as familiar as that of G. Washington. Phineas is a very nice-looking old gent. I don’t know which I admire most, his face or his cheek. Mr. Barnum has combined religion, politics, cold water and clocks to advantage. He don’t care anything for money. His partners have risen from the ranks. Hutchinson peddled the peanuts and he don’t care shucks who knows it. Bailey was a billposter and “made haste with paste.” Frost drove hogs out of Indiana when it was a new country and received his reward - thirty-seven and a half cents a day and found the hogs if he could. Said hogs were built to run and they could do as much space in a given amount of time as a quarter horse well gingered.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.