“The public whipping post and imprisonment for debt both flourished in Bethel in my youthful days. Suicides were buried at crossroads. How blessed are we to live in a more charitable and enlightened age, to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of modern times, and to realize that the world is continually growing wiser and better. “I sincerely congratulate my native village on her character for temperance, industry, and other good qualities. “And now, my friends, I take very great pleasure in presenting this fountain to the town and borough of Bethel as a small evidence of the love which I bear them and the respect which I feel for my successors, the present and future citizens of my native village.” II Among the many ways Barnum found for making money during his boyhood, the lottery business was his most important enterprise; from the ages of twelve to fifteen he was a lottery manager and salesman, selling his tickets to the workmen in the hat and comb factories near Danbury. Lotteries at this time were permitted by the state and often indulged in by churches and educational institutions, and in Bethel lotteries were held for the benefit of the church, where, according to Barnum, the minister often preached against gambling. That grandfather, Phineas Taylor, who appears at every turn in the early career of Barnum, was manager of a lottery, and it was by his example and with his advice that Phineas tried this means of growing rich quickly. In September, 1825, when Barnum was fifteen years old, his father died insolvent. Phineas had loaned his father all his savings and held Philo Barnum’s note for the money, but as he was a minor his debt was ruled out, and he was compelled to serve as clerk in a store just before the funeral in order to get money for shoes to follow the coffin to the grave. Irena Barnum, his mother, continued to keep the tavern at Bethel to support herself and her five children, of whom Phineas was the oldest. Phineas soon became a clerk in the general store at Grassy Plain, a village one mile northwest of Bethel, where he worked for six dollars a month and his board. Here his duties were much the same as they had been in his father’s country store at Bethel, but he showed signs of the advertising ability and the power to attract by unusual enterprises which were later to make him famous, when he organized at this store in Grassy Plain a lottery for the purpose of moving his boss’s old stock of tinware and green glass bottles. Those who won prizes in the lottery received their choice of a tin dipper or some green glass bottles.