The famous old American Museum was now the centre of Barnum's interests, and he devoted himself to its development with such energy as never before. His enterprise in securing new curiosities, and his skill in presenting them to the public in the most attractive light, surpassed all previous efforts. To his office, as to their Mecca, flocked all the "freaks" of the land, and all who possessed any objects of rare or marvelous nature. Foremost among these visitors was one veteran frontiersman, who had attained--and well deserved--much fame as a fighter of the most savage wild beasts. His name was James C. Adams, but he was universally known as "Grizzly Adams," from the fact that he had captured a great many grizzly bears at the risk and cost of fearful encounters and perils. He was brave, and with his bravery there was enough of the romantic in his nature to make him a real hero. For many years a hunter and trapper in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, he acquired a recklessness, which, added to his natural invincible courage, rendered him one of the most striking men of the age, and he was emphatically a man of pluck. A month after Barnum had re-purchased the Museum, Adams arrived in New York with his famous collection of California animals, captured by himself, consisting of twenty or thirty immense grizzly bears, at the head of which stood "Old Samson," together with several wolves, half a dozen different species of California bears, California lions, tigers, buffalo, elk, and "Old Neptune," the great sea-lion from the Pacific. Old Adams had trained all these monsters so that with him they were as docile as kittens, though many of the most ferocious among them would attack a stranger without hesitation, if he came within their grasp. In fact, the training of these animals was no fool's play, as Old Adams learned to his cost, for the terrific blows which he received from time to time, while teaching them "docility," finally cost him his life.