I was introduced by her father to a girl of seventeen, named Barnum. The old man was an original Mormon. He had moved from Illinois with Brigham Young and his disciples, when they were driven out and compelled to make that wonderful and fearful journey over the plains. The daughter was born in Salt Lake City, and of course knew nothing of any other religion. I asked her laughingly if she expected to have the fifth part of a man for her husband?
“I expect I shall. I believe it is right,” she replied.
My apostolic friend took me to Brigham Young’s house early in the morning. Mr. Young had gone to Ogden to accompany some Bishops whom he was sending abroad. I left my card with his Secretary, and said I would call at four o’clock. But before noon a servant from President Young brought a message for me to call on him at one o’clock. At the hour designated I called with my friends. Brigham Young was standing in front of one of his houses—the “Bee Hive,” in which was his reception room. He received us with a smile and invited us to enter. He was very sociable, asked us many questions, and promptly answered ours. Finally he said with a chuckle:
“Barnum, what will you give to exhibit me in New York and the Eastern cities?”
“Well, Mr. President,” I replied, “I’ll give you half the receipts, which I will guarantee shall be $200,000 per year, for I consider you the best show in America.”
“Why did you not secure me some years ago when I was of no consequence?” he continued.
“Because, you would not have drawn at that time,” I answered.
Brigham smiled and said, “I would like right well to spend a few hours with you, if you could come when I am disengaged.” I thanked him, and told him I guessed I should enjoy it; but visitors were crowding into his reception room, and we withdrew.
I subsequently met him in the street driving his favorite pair of mules attached to a nice carriage. He raised his hat and bowed, which salutation I, of course, returned. I hope that Brigham’s declining years will prompt him to receive a new “revelation,” commanding a discontinuance of the wife plurality feature of the Mormon religion.
Arriving at Sacramento, where the train stopped for half an hour, I was “interviewed” for the first time in my life by a newspaper reporter. On the same evening, in the excellent Cosmopolitan Hotel, in San Francisco, I was again “interviewed” by the chief editor of a morning paper, accompanied by his reporter. By this time I had become accustomed to this business, and when the gentlemen informed me they wanted to interview me, I asked them to be seated, pulled up an extra chair, on which to rest my feet, and said:
“Go ahead, gentlemen; I am ready.”
Well, they did “go ahead,” asking me every conceivable question, on every conceivable subject. I felt jolly and “spread myself.” The consequence was, three columns of “Barnum Interviewed” appeared next morning with a “To be continued” at the bottom; and the succeeding morning appeared three columns more. This conspicuous advertisement prepared the way for a lecture I gave in Pratt’s large hall, which was well attended.
It took us a week to “do” San Francisco, with its suburbs, including Oakland, Woodward’s celebrated and beautiful Gardens, and “Seal Rock.” When I saw that small rocky island lying only ten rods off, covered with sea lions weighing from eight hundred to two thousand pounds, the “show fever” began to rise. I offered fifty thousand dollars to have ten of the large sea lions delivered to me alive in New York, so that I could fence in a bit of the East River near Jones’ Wood, and give such an exhibition to citizens and strangers in that city. I little thought at that time that I should subsequently expend half that sum in procuring these marine monsters and transport them through the country in huge water-tanks as a small item in a mammoth travelling show.
The Chinese quarters—where were their shops, restaurants and laundries, their Joss House, and the Chinese Theater—gave us a new sensation, and were quite sufficient to quench a lingering desire I had long felt to visit China and Japan. The Chinese servants and laborers are diligent, peaceable, clean, and require no watching. When I remembered how many thousands of dollars I had paid to “eye servants” for not doing what I had hired them to do, I did not feel sorry that there was a prospect of the “Celestials” extending their travels to the Eastern States.
While I was in San Francisco, a German named Gabriel Kahn brought to me his little son—literally a little one, for he is a dwarf more diminutive in stature than General Tom Thumb was when I first found him. The parents of this liliputian were anxious that I should engage and exhibit him. Several showmen had made them very liberal offers, but they had set their hearts on having “Barnum” bring him out and present him to the public.
Of course I felt the compliment, but was inclined to say “no,” as I had given up the exhibition business and was a man of leisure. But the marvelous manikin was such a handsome, well-formed, intelligent little fellow, speaking fluently both English and German, and withal was so pert and so captivating, that I was induced to engage him for a term of years and gave him the soubriquet of “Admiral Dot.” Indeed he was but a “dot”—or as the New York Evening Post put it, the small boy of the “period”—at any rate, in the matter of growth, at a very early age he came to a “full stop;” though further, in the matter of punctuation, he compels an “exclamation” on
