"In proof of her extraordinary age and pretensions, Mr. Lindsay exhibited a bill of sale, dated February 5, 1727, from Augustine Washington, county of Westmoreland, Virginia, to Elizabeth Atwood, a half-sister and neighbor of Mr. Washington, conveying 'one negro women named Joice Heth, aged fifty-four years, for and in consideration of the sum of thirty-three pounds lawful money of Virginia.' It was further claimed that she had long been a nurse in the Washington family; she was called in at the birth of George and clothed the newborn infant. The evidence seemed authentic, and in answer to the inquiry why so remarkable a discovery had not been made before, a satisfactory explanation was given in the statement that she had been carried from Virginia to Kentucky, had been on the plantation of John S. Bowling so long that no one knew or cared how old she was, and only recently the accidental discovery by Mr. Bowling's son of the old bill of sale in the Record Office in Virginia had led to the identification of this negro woman as 'the nurse of Washington.' " Everything seemed to Barnum to be entirely straightforward, and he decided, if possible, to purchase the woman. She was offered to him at $1,000, although Lindsay at first wanted $3,000. Barnum had $500 in cash, and was able to borrow $500 more. Thus he secured Joice Heth, sold out his interest in the grocery business to his partner, and entered upon his career as a showman. He afterward declared that the least deserving of all his efforts in the show line was this one which introduced him to the business; it was a scheme in no sense of his own devising; but it was one which had been for some time before the public, and which he honestly and with good reason believed to be genuine. He entered upon his new work with characteristic enterprise, resorting to posters, transparencies, advertisements, newspaper paragraphs, and everything else calculated to attract the attention of the public, regardless of expense. He exhibited in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, and many other places, where his rooms were thronged and much money made. But in the following February Joice Heth died of old age, and was buried at Bethel. A postmortem examination was made by a surgeon and some medical students, who were inclined to doubt if she really was as old as Lindsay had said.