Struggles and Triumphs P. T. Barnum (the beginning after the end read novel .TXT) 📖

The twenty-five bouquets were made,
And round the village sent;
And to whom thinkest thou, my friend,
These floral jewels went?
Not to the beautiful and proud⁠—
Not to the rich and gay⁠—
Who, Dives-like, at Luxury’s feast
Are seated every day.

An aged Pastor, on his desk
Saw those fair preachers stand;
A Widow wept upon the gift,
And blessed the giver’s hand.
Where Poverty bent o’er her task,
They cheered the lonely room;
And round the bed where Sickness lay,
They breathed Health’s fresh perfume.

Oh! kindly heart and open hand⁠—
Those flowers in dust are trod,
But they bloom to weave a wreath for thee,
In the Paradise of God.
Sweet is the Minstrel’s task, whose song
Of deeds like these may tell;
And long may he have power to give,
Who wields that power so well!

Mrs. Anna Bache.

Philadelphia.

The East Bridgeport Enterprise⁠—W. H. Noble⁠—Plans for a New City⁠—Dr. Timothy Dwight’s Testimony⁠—Investing a Fortune⁠—Selling City Lots⁠—Money Making a Secondary Consideration⁠—Clock Company in Litchfield⁠—The “Terry and Barnum Manufacturing Company”⁠—The Jerome Clock Company⁠—Baiting for Bites⁠—False Representations⁠—How I Was Deluded⁠—What I Agreed to Do⁠—The Counter Agreement⁠—Notes with Blank Dates⁠—The Limit of My Responsibility⁠—How It Was Exceeded⁠—Startling Discoveries⁠—A Ruined Man⁠—Paying My Own Honest Debts⁠—Barnum Duped⁠—My Failure⁠—The Barnum and Jerome Clock Bubble⁠—Moralists Making Use of My Misfortunes⁠—What Preachers, Papers, and People Said About Me⁠—Down in the Depths.

I now come to a series of events which, all things considered, constitute one of the most remarkable experiences of my life⁠—an experience which brought me much pain and many trials; which humbled my pride and threatened me with hopeless financial ruin; and yet, nevertheless, put new blood in my veins, fresh vigor in my action, warding off all temptation to rust in the repose which affluence induces, and developed, I trust, new and better elements of manliness in my character. This trial carried me through a severe and costly discipline, and now that I have passed through it and have triumphed over it, I can thank God for sending it upon me, though I feel no special obligations to the human instruments employed in the severe chastening.

When the blow fell upon me, I thought that I could never recover; the event has shown, however, that I have gained both in character and fortune, and what threatened, for years, to be my ruin, has proved one of the most fortunate happenings of my career. The “Bull Run” of my life’s battle was a crushing defeat, which, unknown to me at the time, only presaged the victories which were to follow.

In my general plan of presenting the facts and incidents of my life in chronological order, I shall necessarily introduce in the history of the next seven years, an account of my entanglement in the “Jerome Clock Company,”⁠—how I was drawn into it, how I got out of it, and what it did to me and for me. The great notoriety given to my connection with this concern⁠—the fact that the journals throughout the country made it the subject of news, gossip, sympathy, abuse, and advice to and about me, my friends, my persecutors, and the public generally⁠—seems to demand that the story should be briefly but plainly told. The event itself has passed away and with it the passions and excitements that were born of it; and I certainly have no desire now to deal in personalities or to go into the question of the motives which influenced those who were interested, any farther than may be strictly essential to a fair and candid statement of the case.

It is vital to the narrative that I should give some account of the new city, East Bridgeport, and my interests therein, which led directly to my subsequent complications with the Jerome Clock Company.

In 1851, I purchased from Mr. William H. Noble, of Bridgeport, the undivided half of his late father’s homestead, consisting of fifty acres of land; lying on the east side of the river, opposite the City of Bridgeport. We intended this as the nucleus of a new city, which we concluded could soon be built up, in consequence of many natural advantages that it possesses.

Before giving publicity to our plans, however, we purchased one hundred and seventy-four acres contiguous to that which we already owned, and laid out the entire property in regular streets, and lined them with trees, reserving a beautiful grove of six or eight acres, which we enclosed, and converted into a public park. We then commenced selling alternate lots, at the same price which the land cost us by the acre. Our sales were always made on the condition that a suitable dwelling-house, store, or manufactory should be erected upon the land, within one year from the date of purchase; that every building should be placed at a certain distance from the street, in a style of architecture approved by us; that the grounds should be enclosed with acceptable fences, and kept clean and neat, with other conditions which would render the locality a desirable one for respectable residents, and operate for the mutual benefit of all persons who should become settlers in the new city.

This entire property consists of a beautiful plateau of ground, lying within less than half a mile of the center of Bridgeport city. Considering the superiority of the situation, it is a wonder that the City of Bridgeport was not originally founded upon that side of the river. The late Dr. Timothy Dwight, for a long time President of Yale College, in his Travels in New England in 1815, says of the locality:

“There is not in the State a prettier village than the borough of Bridgeport. In the year 1783, there were scarcely half a dozen houses in this place. It now contains probably more than one hundred, built on both sides of Pughquonnuck (Pequonnock) river, a beautiful mill-stream, forming at its mouth the harbor of Bridgeport. The situation of this village is very handsome, particularly on the eastern side