Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. BarnumBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years' Recollections of P. T. Barnum
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor), 1810-1891; Circus owners -- United States -- Biography
Arriving in New Orleans, January 2, 1841, I had but $100 in my purse,
and I had started from New York four months before with quite as much in
my pocket. Excepting some small remittances to my family I had made
nothing more than current expenses; and, when I had been in New Orleans
a fortnight, funds were so low that I was obliged to pledge my watch as
security for my board bill. But on the 16th, I received from the St.
Charles Theatre $500 as my half share of Diamond’s benefit; the next
night I had $50; and the third night $479 was my share of the proceeds
of a grand dancing match at the theatre between Diamond and a negro
dancer from Kentucky. Subsequent engagements at Vicksburg and Jackson
were not so successful, but returning to New Orleans we again succeeded
admirably and afterwards at Mobile. Diamond, however, after extorting
considerable sums of money from me, finally ran away, and, March 12th, I
started homeward by way of the Mississippi and the Ohio.
While I was in New Orleans I made the acquaintance of that genial man,
Tyrone Power, who was just concluding an engagement at the St. Charles
Theatre. In bidding me farewell, he wished me every success and hoped we
should meet again. Alas, poor Power! All the world knows how he set sail
from our shores, and he and his ship were never seen again. Fanny
Ellsler was also in New Orleans, and when I saw seats in the dress
circle sold at an average of four dollars and one-half, I gave her
agent, Chevalier Henry Wyckoff, great credit for exciting public
enthusiasm to the highest pitch and I thought the prices enormous. I did
not dream then that, within twelve years, I should be selling tickets in
the same city for full five times that sum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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