1886

    Edward A. Tinkham fainted from the bursting of a blood vessel while listening to a minstrel performance at the Grand Opera House, Rochester, January 8, and died two hours afterward at his boarding house. A wicked, paragraphing journalist declares that poor Ed’s demise was occasioned by the end man telling a new joke. Tinkham was the son of an elder of the church and his home was in Lima, N.Y. He held good positions with Cooper, Bailey & Co., Barnum & Coup, and W. C. Coup. Ed could talk faster than Maud S. ever trotted or the Journal ever sold and wrote left-fisted to keep time with his tongue tangle.
    In 1877, when I was Pilgriming with Uncle Charles Castle, ahead of the sainted John O’Brien‘s, we drove with the bill wagons and contractor’s carriage from Akron, N.Y., into a stand (some Falls or other). But the people of the Falls took a tumble and did not want the “Irish Brigade,” as Castle called the show, within its limits. On the contrary, it did not object to the cholera, yellow fever, small pox, or itch. Jim Robinson, (33) Castle, and myself talked and talked but, as they say Down East, the authorities “sot and sot.” Well, we camped there for two days and then came Tinkham, who was laying off that season and selling hymn books at camp meetings. The select men were glad to see “Brother Tinkham” and in a few moments he succeeded in persuading them that “Brother O’Brien had met with a change of heart and come over on the Lord’s side.”


    Sally Stickney is dead. For four months she was cared for by the Actors Fund, who also put her under Mother Earth. The fund includes circus folks in its good offices and every member of the circus profession should become a member and in a small way help along the good cause. Remit two dollars for one year’s fee to Benjamin A. Baker, Assistant Secretary, Actors Fund, 12 Union Square, New York, and he will put you on the books. At the same time, inform him of your line of business, as non-professionals are not eligible.


    Barnum & Co. have bought Alice, the companion to Jumbo, and she will be brought over in the spring and billed as the best girl of the late lamented. There ought to be considerable curiosity to see the beast and she will be worked up for all she is worth.


    Death, the reaper, has been ever busy of late. Again I am called upon to chronicle the departure of well known professionals to the unknown spheres. Horace G. Nichols, the ringmaster, died at St. Mary’s Hospital, Hoboken, January 19, aged 68. Mr. Nichols was fatally injured by a fall from the stoop of his house a fortnight previous. The veteran had seen long service and was an antique and honorable member of the hair-dye brigade under the banner of “the fleet foots.”


    Most of the cheap theatres and museums are managed by circus folks. John A. Forepaugh holds forth in Philadelphia; Kohl and Middleton have three establishments in Chicago; Drew & Co., one each in Providence and Indianapolis and two in Cleveland; Herzog & Co. at Richmond and Washington. Old Thad Barton, of Washington, is also an old circus cully from way back. Pat Harris, the “Monarch,” holds forth at Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville. Keith and Batcheler of Boston; George B. Bunnell of New Haven and Buffalo; Garwood and Brady of Toledo and Fort Wayne; Signor Faranta of New Orleans; and many others are all from the circus fold, not forgetting Jacobs and Proctor.


    Dr. James Reilly, the popular show printer, died at his residence in Brooklyn, January 25. He was the successor of Clany & Reilly, and formerly the bookkeeper of Bacon, the printer, at the old Spruce Street stand. Clany was a practical typo and died many years ago. I believe that Mr. Reilly got the title of “Doctor” while clerking on a Mississippi boat from his kindly dosing of ailing passengers or crew. Years ago he was the treasurer of Bryant’s Minstrels, when Dan, Jerry, and Neil were all three playing. He was a courtly, genial gentleman, an able businessman and a staunch friend and will be greatly missed by the managers and agents who were wont to meet at his office.
    After the failure of Kelley of the London show, Dr. Reilly carried it on his shoulders until it finally fell into the hands of Cooper & Bailey. It was a heavy load but the Doctor managed with rare skill and came out all right. His departure for the land of hereafter was not unlooked-for. Mr. Reilly was a victim of Bright’s disease and he had long since arranged his business, knowing that soon his call must come. Peace to the ashes of an honest man, a kind husband and father, and the staunchest and truest of friends.
    How Thad Anderson, the old foreman, will miss the Doctor! Thad dates back to the Farwells and was with Bacon. He has lived to see all his employers pass off the scene of action. I know not what change in Thad’s affairs the Doctor’s may make but hope Thaddeus of Brooklyn will remain as he has for a lifetime, a fixture at the old Spruce Street stand.
    Just previous to the death of the late C. W. McCune of the Courier Co., there was a plan on foot for the organization of a gigantic printing company which would have absorbed Dr. Reilly’s concern. It would have been located in Jersey City and have been far larger than any establishment in the world. James Reilly would have been the managerial head of the monster affair.


    I am informed that John A. Wood, circus agent, has been called to his last home. John was many years with the Robinson show, a couple of seasons with Forepaugh, with the London show, and last with Myers & Short. John was a man of ability and most positive convictions. In the “Beauty” season with Forepaugh, he was my “right bower.” Peace to his ashes.


    Perhaps you recollect when it was the fashion to part one’s black hair and bring the soap locks over the ears in front? Bob Stickney has always glued his hirsute that way. This is what “the Giddy Gusher” has got to say about the peculiarity in the New York Mirror:

I cannot account for Robert Stickney’s being with this company. He may want practice or has a horse he desires to keep up to business. Certainly he seems mighty out of place among these artists, showing his fine form and graceful riding to a handful of ragged boys and a baker’s dozen of women and children. Stickney is a splendid figure of a man, as Aunt Hannah would say. If someone would disturb the awful bandolined rigidity of his hair that is thrown up on one place and plastered down another, I would go on and say he was handsome. But no man can be goodlooking and resemble a barber’s block so closely.
    It’s funny to note the sincere admiration the troupe have for this equestrian Apollo. Down to the man who holds the banners and the toughs who sell popcorn candy, every topknot is laid out, soaped down and parted like Bob’s.
    I can always tell you the distinguishing features of the most celebrated man in a company or a band or a club before seeing the Admirable Crichton. Just hear Barrett’s company bleat before he comes on. Note the lingering nasal tremor of Irving’s gang. Catch onto the near-sightedness of the principal cornet players. Hear the catarrhal snorts the satellites of Clara Morris indulge in. John Sullivan came on a tear to New York with a hideous indigo-blue shirt on. The following week every pug was standing up in cerulean calico as near the tint as he could get.
    So when I saw the candy butcher at the Cosmopol, with his head ornamented with hair scroll-work, with scallops on his brow, I would have layed an egg it was my Robert’s capillary vagaries that set the fashion. Take down your hair, Bob. Try a simple bang. You are a darling in the pastoral days of Mlle. Arisna Felicia and you are today the best formed man in the circus business.

    I was at Cincinnati the other day and by the courtesy of Mr. Morgan went through the vast establishment of the Russell & Morgan Co. As the proprietors are the familiar Bob, Pick, and Young John Robinson, circus folks may be glad to know something about their old friends in their new building. The printery is 75 by 230 feet and the floor space measures two and a half acres, six stories. Seven large vaults insure safety to cuts, etc. 450 names appear on the payroll. Heat is distributed through eighteen miles of steam pipes. All the inks are manufactured on the premises, six large mills running continually. Two systems of electric light are in use. Forty-seven presses are in constant use. Show printing and the label business no longer monopolize their attention. The Russell & Morgan Co. is now the largest manufacturer of playing cards in the world. But as my readers do not know anything about “keards,” it is not necessary to remark further.


    Hyatt Frost is much put out at the use of the VanAmburgh name in California by a snide show. He writes:

I have worked hard for forty years to become sole manager of the menagerie and circus and title of VanAmburgh & Frosts Shows and I have no interest whatever in the so-called show now in California and never did have. I would not, under any circumstances, permit the public to be deceived under the name of VanAmburgh & Frost by paying their money to see an imitation show, owned and run by men who have so grossly [pilfered] me of my good name and title. Many an old “forty-niner” now in California is personally acquainted with me and is well aware that I never had anything to do with any show but the best.

    The worst feature of the larceny of the title of VanAmburgh is that it is connived at by Mr. Hyatt Frost’s nephew, Frank. (34)

You don’t know how glad I am to hear that Charlie Corbett, one of the founders of the Journal, is much improved in health and is once more in the newspaper field way Down East in old Providence, R.I. It was there I first scraped acquaintance with Charles, when he was on the Sunday Dispatch. Then he started the Sunday Telegram, afterwards a daily, and prospered marvelously. I opine that Mr. Corbett has not put his trust in Providence in vain in his new venture.
    Corbett was always a favorite with the show folks, especially the circusites. And if Bill Durand don’t give C. C. C. a good advertisement for Forepaugh’s, he is not the W. W. D. that I used to know. When the flowers of May were on the way, the circus agents used to meet Corbett at the Adams House and the Washington Tavern, along with Sam N. Mitchell, the song writer; Hopkins, the variety manager; Archie Stalker, the only man in New York who knows how to make a clam chowder; and dead and gone Dr. Metchear; and the prince of billposters, Charlie Haskins; and exfireman, Sam Cornell. Oh! dear! Talk about clams and oysters and sich and the Rocky Point roasts!


    There’s Gus Hatch, prospering in Kansas City and standing in with the real estate ring that are coining cash. Before he was ever in the circus business he was a whaler. Now, when he tires of Armour’s beef and Baltimore oysters in the tin, he buys a New York Herald for a change and reads the “Marine List.”
    Kansas City is enjoying a great boom. Real estate is a ballooning. Mel Hudson says there is no telling how fast fortunes may be accumulated here: “A man made $15,000 the other day while he was changing cars at the Union Depot.”


    It is a wonder that circus folks get their mail at all. This very week I called at a post office for my mail and secured but a few letters. I walked away half satisfied that more were in the office, as letters of importance were not among those received. Arrived at the hotel, I called a messenger boy and dispatched him to the post office with a polite note and in short metre he returned with a fist full of communications. Next I unearthed a batch at a hotel. It is no uncommon occurrence to come in possession of one’s mail by installments. Rival hotels divide it, the billposter may have some, and it is no uncommon thing to be told, “All the show mail goes to Mr. So-and-so’s store.” Why should it? What in the deuce is the showman’s mail doing scattered all over town? Some years ago I dropped off the train at Bridgeport, Ct., and on calling at the general delivery of the post office I was informed that, “The clerk that takes care of the show mail has it locked up in his drawer. He has gone to supper. You will have to wait until he comes back.”
    I didn’t wait though. I demanded my mail, the drawer was broken open, and the mail produced. Down at Calais, Maine, they once had a turnstile affair and everybody helped himself, which was about as good as locking it up. The clerks in city post offices have a racket of burying the mail and holding it until the arrival of the show and then turning it up in a mass in hopes of getting tickets.


    Ere these lines are in print, the particulars of William W. Durand’s sudden taking off will have been heralded. Perhaps his greatest success was with the “Great Eastern“ or the “Large Eastern,” as the coons Down South used to call it. His old comrade, Andy Haight, was laid away but about a year since. It is a satisfaction to know that he left his family well provided for.
    It is detracting nothing from the laurels of the late William W. Durand to say that you have been misinformed, Mr. Editor, in regard to his salary. It was not $7,000 a year and there are no $7,000 a year salaries flying around in the circus business. Probably the highest he ever attained was $5,000 and a royal figure was that. I understand that at his decease he was receiving $125 per week from Mr. Pat Harris. But William did not feel at home in theatricals but sighed for the red wagons, as one always will when he has followed them for years.
    The Journal’s kind obituary also makes an omission by not referring to Durand’s successful connection with the London show. When Parks, Davis, Dockrill, and the late James Reilly took hold of the London after Kelley’s failure, it was pretty tight papers for the outfit but Charlie Fuller had the nerve to push the London show east in the face of the Barnum show under “Flatfoot“ management, and W. W. D. whooped up the tricks to an immense success - much to P. T. B.’s disgust, the king of Bridgeport fairly frothing at the mouth with envy and chagrin. That was the smartest thing Col. Charles W. Fuller ever done in his life and he ought to have been promoted to Brigadier General then and there.

Footnotes

33. There were at least five James Robinsons in the circus business around this time. Day is most likely referring to James A. Robinson, the contracting agent. See Circus Personnel Reference Roster.


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William L. Slout and Circus Historical Society, Inc.