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“In my 16 year of age left Philadelphia for New York with Dan Champlin and went prentice to him for three years . . .” Thus did Thomas B. Nathans begin an autobiographical account of his circus career. It was the first sentence of a memoir written to his brother, John Jay Nathans, in 1889. It referred to events in 1823. Just two pages long, the letter, if it may be called that, chronicled twenty years of circus life.
We don’t know why it was written, but can speculate that John J. Nathans and George F. Bailey, former partners and retired some nine years, constant companions in New York, had questioned some long-past affiliation and had written Thomas Nathans for clarification. Their timing was fortunate, for seventeen days after he penned his autobiography, Thomas Nathans died in Quincy, Florida, aged eighty-two.
Dan Champlin, the man to whom Thomas apprenticed himself, was an acrobat and wire-walker who first appeared in this country with James West’s company in 1821. We assume he came to America with West and was, therefore, an Englishman. Nathans’ statement that he traveled to New York with Champlin in 1823 can be verified by advertisements in Hoboken and Brooklyn in July and August of that year.
“We joined a comp(any) going south, I think the man’s name was Mead,” the narrative continues. The company referred to here was one of two that Price & Simpson sent out from New York in late 1823, this one bound for Savannah. We don’t find Abraham Mead’s name in print until 1826, but he could well have had a position with the Price & Simpson troupe.
“We had no top, our advertiser Pad(dy) Clark took his sadel (sic) bags on his shoulders with show bills in . . . .”
Price & Simpson played in wooden arenas which they had built for them. Paddy Clark’s system of carrying show bills was the method of the time. “. . . travel’d some time, then met Ben Brown’s Circus. It had a 60 foot top the first I had seen.”
Champlin was with J. Purdy Brown’s circus in late 1826; we think this is the troupe to which Nathans refers. Ben Brown, J. Purdy’s cousin, was riding master of the show and may well have been managing it for J. Purdy. More important is the note concerning the size of the tent. It was the first one ever used by a circus and this is the first mention of its diameter.
“staid with him (Brown) some time, left him and joined a man by name Aaron T. Barker.”
This is July, 1827. Barker, a contract drayman for Fogg, Quick and Mead’s Washington Circus, started his own show that summer, employing people he hired away from the other circus. Dan Champlin was with the Washington Circus, so it stands to reason that Thomas Nathans was as well. Barker’s circus did not last the season and closed owing salaries. (1)
“I went then with Jim Green [who] had been in the South and West all the time.”
James B. Green, a menagerie and circus proprietor, was thought to have organized his first show in 1831 until Nathans’ letter came to light. Green usually limited his routes to the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys.
“In 1828 took you John and you went with Lucas Eaton and I staid with Green several years.”
Here Thomas introduces his younger brother, John J. Nathans, then twelve years old. There are several references in the literature to John being apprenticed to “General” Eaton who is a somewhat shadowy figure in the early circus. He might have lent his apprentice to others or been an investor in their companies.
Master Nathans is listed with Ben Brown’s circus in 1828 and with Asa Smith in 1829. If Thomas was with Green, as he surely says he was, then Master Nathans must be John. He made his debut as a rider on 4 December 1829 in Columbia, South Carolina. “His first attempt before the public,” the ads said.
The introduction of John J. Nathans into our narrative marks the inclusion of one of the outstanding personalities in nineteenth-century circus history. Active from this time until his retirement in 1880, J. J. Nathans was one of the few performers who was able to become a truly outstanding manager. As with his contemporaries, Richard Sands, Charles J. Rogers and Seth B. Howes, he bridged the gap between competence in the ring and the ability to manage large organizations. While he was not the equal of the others as rider, it was only a matter of degree, and he appears to have been every bit their equal as a manager. Like them, he was able to make and keep a great deal of money. All of these gentlemen retired with relative wealth.
To return to Thomas Nathans’ letter, he next writes, “you (meaning John J.) came to me at Richmond and we, with the company, went south, quit Green at end of year.”
It appears that he is describing events that occurred in 1831, as the J. B. Green & Co. Menagerie visited Charleston, South Carolina, on 21 December of that year. Green advertised no circus performance, but the following appears in J. J.’s obituary in the New York Clipper of 2 January 1892: “The show, as it was called in those days, was little else than a menagerie, but the canvas and sawdust had dazzled the adventurous boy when it was in his city . . . He at once sprang on a horse’s back, and in an incredibly short time he had become a proficient rider and demanded that his performance be given a place in the program.”
No doubt, there is a touch of apochrypha in this description, but it does answer our question as to the brothers duties with Green. Thomas Nathans, incidentally, was never a rider. We find him as a comic singer until 1840, when he also did snake handling, monkey and pony acts and, as he put it, “going into the cage of animals.”
“Joined Bill Harrington,” is the next statement. William Harrington (1804-1847), a four-horse and scenic rider, had been performing at least since 1825. In 1831-32-33 he was the manager and star performer of his own circus. In Charleston in January, 1832, Master Nathans was on the roster as a rider. Unfortunately, we have no 1833 program for Harrington, so cannot place the brothers with him with certainty. Thomas does give us a clue when he writes “after [Harrington] engaged to firm of Raymond, Ogden & Co., Weeks [was the] manager.”
Raymond, Ogden & Co. had been in existence since 1831, when it was apparently organized to exhibit the second live rhinoceros to reach this country. It was a partnership between James Raymond and Darius Ogden. The menagerie ended the year 1832 in Charleston playing in conjunction with Harrington’s circus. It might have been then that the Nathans switched employment. We don’t find them again until September, 1834, when they were together on Buckley, Weeks & Co. in Newton, New Jersey.
This circus was owned by Mathew Buckley and Edward C. Weeks. Weeks was a brother of Chauncey R. Weeks, whom Thomas referred to above as manager of Raymond & Ogden. John was a rider and Thomas a singer of comic songs for Buckley, Weeks & Co. in 1834 and 1835.
James Raymond and his partners purchased the Lion Tavern in Boston in the winter of 1834-35 and converted it into the Lion Theatre. Their program was a mixed one, combining drama and circus. For the arena portion of the concern they bought or leased Buckley, Weeks & Co. In 1835 the show went on tour, minus the dramatic elements, under the title Boston Lion Circus and the Nathans were with it.
Thomas Nathans remained with the Boston Lion for 1836, but
John J. toured with the Boston Arena Company, J. J. Hall, manager. It is
in this season that we find the first critical comment on John’s ability.
The Kingston, Ontario, Chronicle & Gazette of 30 July 1836, printed:
Nathans was rather superior in his way. The feats performed by him on
three horses were more imposing and difficult than any other part of the
performance.
He led the grand entree, performed a duet on horseback with Mrs. Caldwell, presented the scenic act “Indian Chief,” and was the two and three-horse Roman rider.
Hall took a troupe to the West Indies in February, 1838, and the brothers accompanied him. In addition, John Nathans had by then acquired two apprentices, brothers Edward and William Kincaid (sometimes Kincaide). These young boys (William was five or six) were two of the seven youths from the same neighborhood in Baltimore who became circus apprentices in 1834 and 1835. John Glenroy was one of that group.
John J. and his pupils spent the 1838 season on Buckley, Rockwell, Hopkins & Co. During the tour Henry Rockwell dropped out and Thomas Tufts took his place, thus Buckley, Hopkins, Tufts & Co. became the firm name. They spent the winter of 1838-39 exhibiting in Baltimore and Washington and Philadelphia and in the latter city J. J. Hall and J. J. Nathans bought out Buckley’s and Hopkins’ interest and the title became Hall, Nathans, Tufts & Co., J. J. Nathans’ first essay into management. Unfortunately, 1839 was a bad year for the American economy and the new partners were no more successful at selling tickets than had the old ones been. In July or August, 1839, Clayton, Bartlett & Welch bought the circus. John Nathans and the Kincaid boys remained as employees of the new owners for the rest of the year and for 1840 as well.
We find no affiliation for Thomas Nathans in either 1838 or 1839, but since we have no list of performers for any of the shows John J. was with in those years, it is possible that Thomas stayed with him. In 1840, however, Thomas says, “At last got with June, Titus, Angevine & Co. on what was called the flatfoots.” There were several units of this concern and Thomas was with one or another of them through the end of the 1842 season. At that time the firm was dissolved and Thomas Nathans retired after nineteen years in the business.
At some time in the 1840s, date uncertain, John J. married Mary Amilia Pastor, like himself a native of Philadelphia. She may or may not have been related to the Pastor brothers of New York, who were later apprentices of John’s.
In 1841 he became associated with the original “Flatfoots,” that group of New York showmen whose main intersts were the various shows titled June, Titus, Angevine & Co. He was with them in 1841 and 1842. In the first of these years he was manager of their third unit, which became the Eastern Division (of two) in 1842. He also performed with these troupes and an 1842 ad said of him: “. . . a superb display of force, agility and a proof of how far the powers of human strength can be applied by perseverance and practice, in training the body to deeds of elasticity and manly exercises . . .” (2)
The reference here is to Nathans’ abilty to carry his apprentices on his shoulders and arms while standing on horseback. This was known as a carrying act.
When June, Titus, Angevine & Co. went out of business after the 1842 season Nathans caught on with Rufus Welch and was part of his organization for the next nine years. It was under Welch’s tutelage that Nathans advanced to the front rank of showmen. As performer, manager and part-owner of several shows with Welch he apparently learned the business to such an extent that he was ever after in demand by his peers.
The circuses in which Nathans was involved over these years read as follows: 1843 - Welch & Mann; 1844 - Welch, Mann & Delavan; 1845 - Welch, Mann & Delavan; 1846 - Welch, Mann & Delavan; 1847 - Welch & Delavan; 1848 - Welch, Delavan & Nathans; 1849 - Welch, Delavan & Nathans; 1850 - Welch, Delavan & Nathans; 1851 - Welch & Nathans.
Nathans took Frank Pastor as an apprentice in 1845. Nathans has been described as “an old friend of the (Pastor) family,” and, as we mentioned, there must have been some connection through his wife. (3) Frank Pastor (1837-1885) went on to become an accomplished pad rider (as was his mentor) and the best performer of the three Pastor brothers. He first appeared in the ring in early 1846 in what was termed “introductory horsemanship.” This was an act in which he rode a horse on a long lead - a safety rein - held by Nathans.
More interesting was the act introduced in 1845 by Nathans and William Kincaid, then twelve years old (and advertised as nine) wherein Kincaid stood on Nathans’ head while the horse galloped around the ring.
In 1847 Nathans took an apprentice Antonio (Tony) Pastor, who gained fame as a music-hall singer and even more fame as a New York restauranteur. Pastor (1832-1908) is quoted as saying, “Mr. Nathans got the consent of my mother and I was apprenticed to him. In reality it was to learn to be an equestrian and acrobat, but as these things were not legally recognized, my apprentice papers read that I was to learn to be a farrier and veterinary man.” (4) At some time prior to this Nathans had taken on William Pastor (b.1840) as a third pupil so he had all three of the brothers under his wing in 1848.
The above list indicates Nathans’ name in the title of one show in 1848; Welch’s National Circus was also on tour. If he was an investor in this concern, he owned part of one of the larger circuses. It had a new Stephenson bandwagon and a thirty-horse hitch as a parade feature. We say “if” he was an investor; Welch may have included his name in the title just to get his services.
William Delavan retired after the 1850 season and the title was shortened to Welch & Nathans. John Nathans was the featured rider, appearing at various times on one, two, four and six horses. This 1851 season saw the introduction of Miss Emma Nathans, “infantile equestrian, whose daring feats astonish all spectators,” as well as Master Philo Nathans, “infant prodigy only four years of age, elegant in his most extraordinary exercises.”
Emma C. Paulin (Emma Nathans) appears to be J. J.’s stepdaughter. Apparently, his wife had been married before; the records tell us nothing. Emma was eleven years-old in this year of her debut.
Philo Nathans was perhaps ten years old in 1851. Advertised often as J. J.’s son, Philo, he was J. J.’s apprentice. His real name was Philo Rust. He was an orphan from Syracuse, New York. It was not unusual for apprentices to adopt their master’s name.
J. J. and Philo were advertised as presenting “the most finished two-horse performance ever witnessed,” when they appeared together on the eastern unit of Sands & Quick in 1852. Emma Nathans was with them as were the three Pastors in that year and 1853 as well. All of them transferred to the Mabie brothers circus for 1854. Then, in 1855, J. J. Nathans and Richard Sands formed a partnership that was to last for five years. Sands, Nathans & Co. was one of the more successful shows on the road from 1855 through 1859. Emma Nathans and the Pastor brothers went elsewhere in this period, but Philo remained and was still being advertised as J. J.’s son. It was during this partnership that Nathans ceased to perform, having reached his thirty-ninth birthday in 1855, he took the job of equestrian manager in the concern, the equivalent of today’s program director. The Clipper once described the task as “conducting the arrangements and order of the scenes, acts, professional pageants and general cavalcade.”
At the end of the 1859 tour the partners sold the firm to Quick, Smith and Chiarini, who in turn sold out to Charles Forshay. Forshay continued using the Sands title until Sands’ untimely death in 1861. Nathans seems to have sat out the 1860 season. Emma Nathans had retired, temporarily, as she gave birth to a son, William Henry Pastor, on August 13, 1859. It has been suggested that William Pastor, J. J.’s apprentice, was her husband, though he was only nineteen years old in contrast to her age of twenty. No certain evidence is at hand; her husband’s name was William H. Pastor, however.
In 1861 J. J. and Philo went west to join with the Mabie’s in a show called E. F. & J. Mabie and J. J. Nathans’ American Circus Combined. It lasted the one season.
Apparently concerned with the effect of the Civil War on the entertainment business, Nathans outfitted the Metropolitan Circus in 1862 and with it toured the Mediterranean ports. The Clipper referred to this as a prodigious enterprise for those days. He returned in time to join what has since been called the “second generation of Flatfoots” in their first big enterprise.
This group, Nathans, George F. Bailey, Lewis June, Avery Smith and G. C. Quick, were to dominate the circus business in the eastern part of the country for the next decade (ceding the West to Spalding & Rogers and not yet being affected by the meteoric rise of Adam Forepaugh). A greater pool of managerial talent had not existed since the collapse of the Zoological Institute and another was not seen until the rise of the Ringling Brothers. Like these last, the partners in the new “Flatfoot” group each had his specialty within the various organizations they toured. George F. Bailey (1818-1903) was the “nuts and bolts” man who saw to the day-to-day operations; Nathans supervised the performance; Lewis June (1824-1888) was in charge of advertising; Gerard Quick (1811- 1869) was the menagerie expert; and Avery Smith (1814-1876) counted the money.
Their first venture was as George F. Bailey & Co.’s Grand Circus, sometimes advertised as the Metropolitan and Quadruple Combination. This was supposedly Bailey’s circus, which he had operated since 1856, when he took over the Aron Turner show; Quick’s hippopotamus, the first live one to be exhibited in America; and the Sands, Nathans & Co. elephants. Occasionally, the menagerie was advertised as being that of Herr Driesbach. The Clipper, referring to Nathans’ presence on the show, called him “an old and experienced showman,” in his forty-seventh year.
The Sands, Nathans & Co. elephants were named Albert, Victoria. Anthony and Cleopatra; Victoria was not the original of that name. In 1856 Sands and Nathans had imported Albert and Victoria from England where they had been the property of William Cooke and the animal stars of Batty’s Circus.
Albert had been trained to climb a fifteen-foot ramp, at the top of which he did a headstand. The two bulls were exhibited on various circuses for several years and in 1859 or 1860 were leased to John Wilson, the California showman. Victoria died in June, 1860, during this lease. Anthony and Cleopatra were imported by the partners in 1857, no doubt because Albert and Victoria had been so popular. Anthony died in Belfast, Maine, on July 24, 1866.
The Bailey circus was operated by the new “Flatfoots” from 1863 through 1871 (G. C. Quick had died in 1869). In addition, Smith, Quick and Nathans were partners with Seth B. Howes in the Great European Circus beginning in 1864. This was a combination of what had been Charles Forshay’s Sands & Co. circus (see above) and the collection of outstanding parade wagons Howes had brought from England in late 1863. Avery Smith managed the European and Lewis June, who apparently was not an investor, handled the advertising. Howes sold out to his partners in May, 1866 and they operated the concern through the season of 1871. George Bailey bought out the other “Flatfoots” at the same time, so Smith and Nathans were temporarily out of the circus business.
During these years, which we have admittedly gone over rather brusquely, there were other significant events in the Nathans family chronicle. Isaac Nathans, father of Thomas and John J., died in 1861. John J.’s wife, Mary, died in 1869. Philo Nathans, who we last mentioned as being with the 1861 Mabie circus, continued his career as a rider, appearing most often in the 1860s with the George F. Bailey show. In February, 1866, Philo married Victoria North (1846-1908?), daughter of the great Levi J. North. She was a professional, first in the circus and later on the variety stage. They had one child, Harry Whitney Nathans, born 19 May 1868. He apparently went into the entertainment business, possibly as a vaudevillian. Philo and Victoria were divorced in the early 1880s.
Yet another Nathans entered the circus business in 1868; this was Addison Mandelle Nathans, half-brother of John J., the child of Isaac Nathans’ third marriage (he sired eighteen children all told). Addison, or Ad, as he preferred it, was in the Confederate Army in the Civil War, having been raised in Florida. He followed mercantile pursuits for some years before going to work for brother John J. on the Great European Circus. In 1869 he was with George F. Bailey and returned to the European for 1870 and 1871.
John J. Nathans married again in 1874. We mention this outside the order of our chronology because of his wife’s career. Her name was Lucy Jane Watson and she was of an English circus family. When Seth B. Howes brought his Great European Circus from England in 1864, Lucy Watson accompanied it and performed as an equestrienne from that year until her marriage to J. J. Nathans at age twenty-nine.
There is a family tradition that J. J. first met Lucy Watson when she was a child and, sitting her upon his knee, asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. According to the tale, she replied, “I’m going to marry you.” This is one of the few personal notes we have of J. J. Nathans. Another is that he was, according to some who knew him, an immaculate dresser.
After selling out to George F. Bailey and closing the European, Nathans, Smith and June framed the North American Exhibition, put it under the management of Walter Waterman and sent it on a tour of South America. Ad Nathans went along as treasurer. In the family archives are some entertaining letters written by Ad complaining of Waterman’s management, but they have no place in this narrative.
George F. Bailey closed his circus at the conclusion of the 1874 season, ending the eighteen-year history of the concern. Lewis June and J. J. Nathans took over the property and put June, Nathans & Co. on the road in 1875. The new Mrs. Nathans, billed as Lucille Watson, was one of the riders. It was her last year on the bills; in December of 1875 she gave birth to John Avery Nathans. Two years later she presented J. J. with a daughter, Mabel Jay, and yet a third child, Elizabeth Lucy, a year or so later. Elizabeth Lucy died at two and a half months.
June, Nathans & Co. was closed on Long Island in July, 1875, perhaps because of poor business, but possibly because June and Nathans and Bailey and Avery Smith had been approached by P. T. Barnum to manage his circus beginning in 1876.
As is well known, P. T. Barnum and his partner, W. C. Coup, had a parting in 1876 and Barnum in casting about for someone to manage his circus, convinced the second generation of “Flatfoots,” Smith, Bailey, Nathans and June, to take on the task. Thus, these experienced showmen reached the pinnacle of their careers - at least in terms of notoriety. As they had in the past, they divided the tasks among themselves, and for half of the profits guided the Greatest Show on Earth from 1876 to 1880.
Avery Smith died in December, 1876, and the others maintained the contract without him. Barnum suggested that the agreement be amended since there were now three partners instead of four, but the “Flatfoots” stood firm and he relented. The arrangement was good for the participants; the three shared $56,300 in 1877, $53.269 in 1878, $36,541 in 1879 and $87,850 in 1880. (5) Barnum received these same amounts as his half of the contract, plus a percentage of receipts.
James A. Bailey and James L. Hutchinson became Barnum’s partners in 1881, probably because the “Flatfoots” wanted to retire and because Bailey and Hutchinson had a major concern which they could add to Barnum’s circus.
Full of years and relatively wealthy, John J. Nathans retired and spent the rest of his life in New York. When he died in 1891 he left an estate of $300,000 to $500,000. (7) From being an apprentice rider in the small wagon shows of the 1820s to being a partner in one of the great railroad circuses of the 1880s, he had not only seen the full spectrum of circus life in America, he had made a historic contribution through his management of some of the largest field shows of his day. “His interest was always keen in what he had helped so much to create,” the Clipper said of him. Shrewd, innovative, energetic, John J. Nathans was one of the handful of men who raised the circus to the forefront of popular entertainment.
Of the others in his family, Philo Nathans continued as a four and six-horse rider at least until 1882. The last we could find of him was an 1887 engagement in a variety theatre with a troupe of trained dogs. Ad Nathans, who worked for J. J. during the Barnum years, joined W. C. Coup in 1881 and in 1882, using equipment leased from Coup, put Nathans & Co. on tour. Philo was a rider for his relative. In 1883 Ad hired Dan Rice and began what he hoped would be an improvement on the mediocre 1882 season. In fact, Nathans & Co. had one of most disastrous tours ever suffered by a circus. Among the catastrophes were the deaths of the elephant, and of a performer, blowdowns, a fire and finally, bankruptcy. (7) This was Ad Nathans’ final attempt at circus-owning. He retired that winter.
Footnotes
1. Stuart Thayer, “Trouping In Alabama In 1827,” Bandwagon, xxvi. 2
(1982), p. 20.
2. New York Clipper, 3 April 1875.
3. Parker Zeilers, Tony Pastor, Dean of Vaudeville (Ypsilanti, 1971), p. 5.
4. Ibid., p. 6.
5. Profit figures from Barnum Circus records, Pfening Archives, Columbus,
Ohio, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, Public Library.
6. New York Clipper. 2 January 1892.
7. A description of the 1883 tour of Nathans & Co. appears in John Kunzog,
The One Horse Show (Jamestown, New York, 1962), pp. 340-
43.
Author’s note: Much of the material on which this article is based came to us from a great-grandson of John J. Nathans. Mr. Fred P. Nathans of Weston, Connecticut, has generously shared what he has collected concerning his circus forebears. Some biographical information on the various members of the Nathans family was supplied to Fred Nathans by Robert Parkinson from the files of the Circus World Museum.
CHS webmaster J. Griffin, last modified December 2005.