FT268


They are neither man nor woman –
They are neither brute nor human –
They are Ghouls…
EA Poe

This year marks the 200th annivers­ary of the birth of Phineas Taylor Barnum, the controversial exemplar of 19th-century humbug gone wild. During his varied careers, “The World’s Greatest Showman” often revelled in the bizarre – from promoting Joice Heth, the 161-year-old (living!) nurse of baby George Washington, to exhibiting the mummified Feejee Mermaid. His blatant huckstering led some to peg him a shameless fraud. No matter, for as long as the public was talking about Barnum it amounted to free publicity.

One line of work he would never have wished to be linked to was that of “ghoul”. However, a close examination of Barnum’s political career scandalously connects him to grave desecrat­ion. The morbid results haunted him (no pun intended) during his later years, and followed him literally into – and almost out of – his own tomb.

Shortly after his death, aged 80, something very unusual occurred at Barnum’s graveside. Newspapers across the nation debated what might, or might not, have transpired in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mountain Grove Cemetery. Barnum’s associates and friends professed that the evid­ence pointed a skeletal finger toward the midnight labours of grave robbers. On the other hand, the showman’s parade of detract­ors suspected yet another well-planned, albeit lurid, publicity stunt. Whichever the case, the sepulchres of Mountain Grove, a ceme­tery Barnum himself helped found, witnessed “something” eerie during the early morning hours of 29 May 1891.


DEATH OF A SHOWMAN
Born on 5 July 1810, Barnum abandoned such middle class entrepreneurial ventures as store owner and newspaper editor in his home town of Bethel, Connecticut, to follow an extravagant life touring the world with the “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind and the legendary Tom Thumb. When Barnum wasn’t crowing before the crowned heads of Europe, he was legitimising American theatre, popularising baby pageants, hosting museums of curiosities and successfully attaining office as a four-term Connecticut state legislator. There was apparently nothing the marketing genius could not pull off. Following illustrious careers that brought him riches and bankruptcies, the internationally toasted showman suffered a stroke in early November 1890. Sequest­ered in “Marina”, his palatial home on Bridgeport’s shorefront, Barnum’s health slowly deteriorated. On the evening of 7 April 1891, the emblem of populist democracy and one of America’s best-known sons drew his final breath.

According to the Hartford Courant, Barnum’s “expressed desire was to have the funeral as quiet as possible”. Services were conducted without ostentation. Businesses were closed, buildings were draped with dark bunting, and flags flew at half-mast. Droves of Bridgeport’s reverent citizenry lined the streets for the funeral procession. When the mourners’ rendition of Auld Lang Syne wafted out from the Second Congregational Church (also known as South Church), an emotional tidal wave rolled across the indust­rial city. Thousands more viewed the final procession leading from South Church along the two-mile route to Mount­ain Grove Cemetery.

Barnum was placed beside his first wife, Charity, and other members of the Barnum clan. The Connecticut Yankee’s final resting place was designed to remain secure for eternity. The crypt lay within an eight-inch brick wall covered by a two-ton stone slab. The Middletown, Connecticut, Penny Press explained: “This kind of a grave was made in accord with Barnum’s wish, he having said that it was safer and that it could not be entered without attracting the attention of the watchmen of the cemetery.”

Following his interment, the 13 April 1891 New York Times ran an enigmatic article addressing a “rumour… that an attempt had been made to steal the remains of the late PT Barnum…” This inacc­urate – though prophetic – account resulted in the announcement that two special policemen, “one of them in uniform”, were being stationed at the cemetery “to prevent”, as the Bridgeport Evening Farmer reported, “vandals and relic hunters from stripp­ing the grave of its floral adornments”. The 13 April Evening Farmer painted a raucous picture of events at the funeral: “[E]ven while prayers were being said at the grave, it was necessary to use force to prevent persons from crowding through the group of mourners and appropriating the flowers. Women whose attire and appearance would indicate that they had an ordinary respect for the dead and a regard for common decency, rushed forward and scooped up flowers with both hands, exhibiting the most astonishing boldness and indifference to the opinion of those present.” The newspaper opined: “It was a sight to occasion wonderment and disgust.” Absconding with casket wreaths was the least of the Barnum family’s concerns. The Evening Farmer also made allusion to armed guards being positioned during the night to circumvent any “efforts that might be made to steal the body and hold it for a ransom as was done in the case of AT Stewart”. Alexander Stewart, the multi-millionaire “Merchant Prince of Manhattan”, had died in 1876. Two years later, for motives never determined, his body was stolen from St Mark’s churchyard in New York City and never recovered. The crime remains unsolved.

SHOTS IN THE DARK
Once the bunting was furled, flags raised and guards posted at the cemetery, Bridgeport was left to wrestle sadly with a post-Barnum world. Residents still anticipated a visit by the circus and newspapers focused on the dedication of PT’s bronze visage, modelled by Thomas Ball. The statue, already cast and waiting in a New Jersey warehouse for the granite base and steps to be constructed at Seaside Park, depicted Bridgeport’s adopted son writing meditatively in an easy chair. Evid­ently, the showman’s enemies wouldn’t allow even his image a moment’s repose. New York and Hartford newspapers related how within a week of its dedication in 1893, individuals under cover of night assaulted the seated Barnum, covering the pedestal and steps with “uncomplimentary inscriptions” scrawled in red. The Bridgeport Evening Post denied that any vandalism occurred, stating that the story’s unknown source was “poss­essed of a very brilliant imagination”.

Controversy continued to hound Barnum following his demise. Just a month and a half after his burial, on 29 May at roughly 11am, an individual stopped by the editorial offices of the Evening Farmer to voice concerns over the goings-on he’d witnessed earlier that morning. The man, who the newspaper refused to identify, reported that just shy of two o’clock, while riding horseback near the entrance of Mountain Grove Cemetery, he heard a series of gunshots, probably half a dozen in all, emanating from within the graveyard.

The lone rider leaned into the misty night trying to discern any further noises. Greeted by silence, he chalked the incid­ent up to the actions of a cantank­erous drunk stumbling home.

At first, staff at the Farmer dismissed the man’s testimony, but the witness’s adamant demeanour compelled a reporter to visit Barnum’s personal secretary, Henry E Bowser, and Charles R Brothwell, the showman’s agent and confidant. Barnum’s advisers laughed a bit too heartily at the suggestion of something untoward occurring at the famed man’s final resting place. Undeterred, the reporter promised next to visit the graveyard, compelling Brothwell to shout: “Hold on! You’re bound to find out anyhow… There has been an attempt to steal Mr Barnum’s body!”


THE NIGHT-WATCHMEN'S TALE
Earlier that same morning, 29 May, Barnum’s grave-watchers, George Calla­han and John Blakeman, had rushed into their superior’s office and shared a chilling story. Beneath three large oaks, the guards had lain asleep in a shanty, situated about 100ft south of the tomb. Callahan and Blakeman apologised for their lax behaviour, explaining that the string of uneventful nights made them feel the gravesite was safe, especially with the weather so drizzly. They were mistaken. At 2.00am, the men were startled from their sleep. Certain that he’d heard the scrapings of a pick, Callahan roused his partner and cautiously approached the Barnum crypt. The sounds of digging were now unmistakable. Straining their eyes into the shadows, the guards drew their revolvers. Wrapped within the mist, silhouettes busily tossed dirt to one side of the tomb. Callahan shouted: “Who’s there?” The unknown workers froze. Callahan and Blakeman discerned three figures, two men wielding tools while a third steadied a lantern outside the hole. One of the apparent resurrectionists broke the hush with a startled exclamation. The lantern’s beam turned on the guards and was extinguished abruptly. Callahan called out again. When no one replied, the guards fired a warning shot in the air. The ghouls dodged between gravestones, racing toward the cemetery pump, where a covered wagon waited. Coverage in the Middletown, Connecticut, Penny Press stated that either Callahan or Blakeman wounded one of the intruders, who leapt with their tools into the wagon, driven by a fourth accomplice, and galloped away. Unsure if others lay in ambush among the tombs, Blakeman and Callahan broke their pursuit and searched for evidence. Adjacent to the Barnum crypt’s western side, the guards discovered a shallow trench, about 1ft deep and 4ft long. Atop the discarded sod lay a tin lamp commonly found aboard vessels; known as a “dark lantern”, its sliding panel was used to produce a single beam of light.

After hearing Callahan and Blakeman’s breathless testimony, Brothwell went to the police. Mrs Barnum subsequently doubled the guard, who were instructed to shoot “at once” any body snatchers. Hundreds of daylight ghouls visited the cemetery to gawk at nothing more than the filled-in handiwork of the would-be grave robbers.

Naturally, over the course of the next couple of days, citizens and journalists advanced theories as to who might have disturbed the Barnum plot. The most popular assumption was that shameless ghouls had intended to secure Barnum’s earthly remains for ransom. The macabre work of resurrection-men was not so far-fetched an occurrence during the 19th century; graves were secretly opened in search of valuables and cadavers were illegally obtained by “sack-em-ups” for medical students. Just a few years later, the Secret Service would thwart an attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body in a scheme set on exchanging the president’s corpse for money and a prisoner release.

Most locals considered grave-robbing the only plausible reason for the cemetery visitation, an opinion often cited in Barnum biographies. Historian AH Saxon, author of the exhaustive P T Barnum: The Legend and the Man, subscribes to the theory that grave robbers were responsible, noting that “city residents and Barnum’s secretary, Bowser, who had recently taken to carrying a pistol, were in no doubt about [the veracity of the guards’ story].”

Others were not so convinced. Contemporaries familiar with the showman’s predilection for the sensational felt the whole incident was a hoax concocted by friends to highlight the circus coming to town. “No Clue as Yet,” a 30 May 1891 follow-up article about the attempted grave pilfering, appeared in the Bridgeport Evening Farmer and stated that Brothwell and Bowser were certain that “the attempt was genuine and only the presence of the guard[s] prevented the theft of the body”. The article conveniently ran adjacent to a column announcing the arrival in Bridgeport that very day of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Hartford Courant announced that the graveside tale “Smacks of Advertising”; the Bridgeport Daily Standard’s brief observation was entitled “Not Generally Credited”; and the New York Tribune dubbed the incident merely “Silly Rumours”. The Bridgeport Sunday Herald wagged an unequivocal finger: “A shameful fake was foisted upon a gullible world at the expense of the late PT Barnum.” Editors termed the story “one of the most transparent hoaxes that ever was perpetrated”. Supporting this view, it turns out, is the fact that Brothwell never actually did report the grave desecration to local police.

Another theory centres around the fact that Callahan and Blakeman’s final day of employment was approaching. The guards themselves, some postulated, staged the extravagant incident to ensure a job extens­ion – a theory picked up by the editors of the Bridgeport Evening Farmer and Daily Standard. Still, individuals familiar with Calla­han and Blakeman expressed the opinion that the guards were upstanding citizens incap­able of fostering such a ruse.

Lacking any tangible leads, interest in the crime quietly waned. The circus arrived in town and moved on to New Haven where, as tradition dictated, Yale students bombarded the parade marchers with skyrockets. Time passed. The story of Barnum’s attempted grave robbery was forgotten. The legend became a footnote buried in history.


THE HORROR IN THE BURYING GROUND
Over 100 years later, on revisiting contemporary newspapers and – of all the unlikely sources – state law books, another theory on the strange events at Mountain Grove Ceme­tery emerges – a theory which until now has never been articulated: revenge.

During July 1873, perhaps through Barn­um’s influence, a special law was passed by the state of Connecticut calling for the closure of the old Bridgeport and Stratfield Burying Ground. The cemetery, dating from about 1811, was originally far removed from any homes or businesses on Division Street, today’s Park Avenue. The last of an estimated 4,000 burials took place there sometime during the 1850s. In the interim, the city had expanded, encircling the now overgrown and neglected graveyard. It didn’t go unnoticed that Barnum owned land adjac­ent to the Burying Ground.

Over the years 1870–1872, more than half of the plot owners exchanged their burial lots for sites within the newer Mountain Grove Cemetery. The 1873 statute explained that due to dwindling financial support “interest in [the Bridgeport and Stratfield Burying Ground] will be lost, and all revenue from which the fences could be maintained and the grounds kept in such order… will cease, and they will become a disgrace, discredit, and nuisance…”. It was therefore resolved by the state assembly to “remove the remains of all those persons deposited in the [olden] grounds… and the monuments erected over the same, and to re-deposit such remains in such suitable lots and grounds in the Mountain Grove Cemetery…”.

David W Sherwood, a Barnum operative and board member of Mountain Grove Ceme­tery, agreed to cover costs for the removal and re-interment of all the Park Avenue graves. In return, Sherwood was to receive ownership of the old cemetery property. The expense proved too much for Sherwood. Ever thoughtful, Barnum provided his friend with the financial means to complete the work, thus acquiring half of the cemetery’s lands for himself.

Not everyone was pleased with the new law, or Barnum’s land-grab. Old-guard families resented being ordered to rouse ancest­ors from their eternal slumber. The controversy came back to goad Barnum during his successful 1875 run for city mayor, forcing the candidate to respond (in an unsigned editorial letter) that “It was no unusual thing for burial grounds to be removed from the heart of a city…”

But the most grievous complaints arose from the way the grave removals were conducted during 1873 and 1874. Barnum hired George Poole, a retired butcher who had once worked at a Main Street meat market, to oversee the exhumation and transport of earthly remains and monuments. Bridgeport resident Julian H Sterl­ing, a longtime corre­spondent for the New York World whose family had slung plenty of ink back and forth with Barnum, expounded on how indecently the old cemetery was treated. The reporter noted in a 1904 Connect­icut Magazine piece: “The dead were taken up in cartloads and carried, mostly at night time, to another resting place. The bodies were reburied in the far side of Mountain Grove Cemetery, monuments were broken, headstones replaced, and in many instances headstones were utilized for flagging side-walks about town.” It’s important to note that the “far side” of the actual burial sites was located in the western section of Mountain Grove Cemetery. This fact will have a bearing on later events. An anonymous 1897 New York Sunday World article detailed how “Sixteen and twenty [bodies] at a time were loaded on trucks and in broad daylight hauled by horses through the streets… Many of the graves were so old that the coffins were decayed or entirely gone. Some burst open and bones were scattered along the causeway.”

Upon completion of the grave removals, the area encompassing the old Bridgeport and Stratfield Burying Ground, now owned by Sherwood and Barnum, was laid out as a middle-class neighbourhood. The profit Barnum generated in sales from bungalows and cottages lining the new Cottage Street, according to the Sunday World, were “more than a million dollars”. By 1885, all evid­ence of the decrepit cemetery had been obliterated. That is, all the above-ground vestiges.

The removal of the dead was so badly handled that skeletal remains left behind were regularly uncovered whenever street excavations took place in the area. Throughout the closing decades of the 19th century, local newspapers commonly reported coff­ins, bones and broken headstones being exposed. Portions of city sidewalks, uprooted as recently as 1982 and 2000, have turned out to be inverted gravestones linked to the unethical practices of Mr Poole.

Considering the number of families affected by the closure of the Bridgeport and Stratfield Burying Grounds, and the outrageous treatment of their dead, it isn’t difficult to imagine a handful of distraught descendants swinging a midnight pickaxe in order to provide Barnum with a little graveyard comeuppance. With no intention whatsoever of stealing the showman’s body, might not a group of Bridgeport bluebloods have removed a few clods of earth and with them heaped insult upon Phineas Taylor Barnum? By scratching a shallow trench on the same, western, side of Barnum’s grave that faces the site where the Burying Ground remains had been re-interred, these mock-ghouls, and their intentionally abandoned dark lantern, most likely desired only to spotlight the insult to their families.

Still controversial after all these years – even from the afterlife – Barnum is no doubt smiling over the free publicity.