| Jumbo, the African bull elephant
which came to symbolize the meaning of big, was over 20 years old by the
time he gained international attention by joining the P. T. Barnum's circus in 1882.
He had spent the first two decades of his life in captivity at England's London Zoo giving
rides to thousands of children. A small, scrawny baby elephant when he was captured in Central Africa, Jumbo was so lovingly cared for, fed, groomed and trained by his keeper, Matthew Scott, that he weighed an estimated seven tons and stood nearly 12 feet tall by the time Barnum sought to purchase him. Because of the London Zoological Society's fears that the huge animal might one day become a danger to the public, Barnum's offer of $10,000 was readily accepted. However, English citizens from Queen Victoria to the man in the street protested the potential loss of what had become considered a national treasure. Barnum delighted in the "Jumbo-mania" that raged between the two countries and gained him what he loved most – free publicity. Eventually, he refused to reconsider the deal, and transported Jumbo and Scott to America on board a huge freighter, the Assyrian Monarch, for a 15-day voyage across the Atlantic. It was on Easter Sunday, 1882, that Jumbo arrived at a dock in New York City, where he was greeted by thousands. Over the next three years, Jumbo was the focal point of the Barnum and Bailey Circus and was viewed by an estimated 20 million people. Jumbo died Sept. 15, 1885 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, when he was struck by a freight train. As with many things related to Barnum, stories vary about Jumbo's demise, whether he deliberately stood firm in the train's path or attempted to protect a younger elephant named Tom Thumb. Determined to continue using Jumbo as an attraction, Barnum contracted a taxidermy firm to rebuild the giant elephant. His skin, weighing an estimated 1,500 pounds, was stretched over a large wooden model. The "restored" Jumbo continued to appear with the circus for several years. Eventually, Barnum donated Jumbo's skeleton of more than 2,000 bones to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the mounted hide to Tufts University, where it remained until it was destroyed by fire in 1975.Matthew Scott, Jumbo's longtime friend and trainer, was devastated by Jumbo's demise. He want on to care for small animals at the Barnum and Bailey Circus' winter headquarters in Bridgeport and died in 1914 in the city's almshouse. |
