Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"Hebe" and "Young America"


So to put a lid on Babe and Columbia, this picture was taken in 1880at the Cooper & Bailey winter quarters in Philadelphia.

Posted by Buckles at 9/28/2005 07:15:00 AM

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thats a really good profile photograph of Hebe where you can see the unusual curve of her back,lacking the so called hump seen in most Asian elephants.
Do you have a photograph available of the Ringling Babe when she was at the National zoo in 1934,where one can see her profile,to see if possibly they just might be the same elephant?(I dont think anyone will know for sure nowdays,since no one here knew personally either elephant)
I believe George"Deafy"Denman
was still around in 1934,he would have known.

29 September, 2005 14:56
Buckles said...

I have a lot of White Tops magazines and one of the 1930's issues has a picture of Babe being presented to the zoo and included are Dr. Mann, Edith Ringling and Boss elephant man Bill Emory.
Denman's fell ill late in the 1933 season and retired from the show and passed away in 1937.
Strangely enough Emory had been in charge of Ringling elephants in 1910-11 and was replaced by Denman.

29 September, 2005 15:23
Anonymous said...

I came across this rather interesting reference while reading the book,
THE WAYS OF THE CIRCUS
Memories and adventures of
George Conklin
Tamer of Lions
(as set down by Harvey Root)
published in 1921
page 136
"It was named Columbia and its mother was Babe.
The mother is still alive and owned by the Ringling Bros.
The father was Mandarin.

01 October, 2005 19:36
Buckles said...

I have that book, very interesting reading, particularly the discription of traveling overland with wagon shows.
George Denman left lists of both the Ringling herd (23) and the Barnum herd (18) at the time of the 1919 merger and nothing indicates the Cooper & Bailey "Babe" who would have been born in the 1860's. The chances of her still being alive in 1937 are extremely remote and from her condition in the 1907 photo even 1921 is a stretch should the Denman records be in error.

01 October, 2005 21:38
Anonymous said...

To anyone who may not know,George Conklin was a famous elephant trainer.
He got his start with the John O'Brien show in the 1860's,then was with the Cole Bros. circus in the 1870's and early 1880's.
He was with the Barnum&Baily show from 1888 to 1918 as boss animal man.I believe he had a brother named Pete Conklin who worked with elephants also and who was directer of the Central Park zoo
in the late nineteenth Century.

03 October, 2005 15:13
Anonymous said...

I figured it may have been a possibility due to the fact that even around the turn of the century
the well known elephant men who were scholarly about their subjects and didnt not exagerrate, said that 60 years old was old for a elephant but they could live to be as old as 80.
If Hebe was 23 years old in 1880,
in 1937 she would have been 80 years old which is the limit.
It just makes one wonder.

03 October, 2005 15:19
Buckles said...

When people came up to me and asked how old they get I always said 102.

03 October, 2005 15:30
Anonymous said...

Mr.Woodcock,would you have any photographs in your collection of Barnum & Bailey's,
"Mandarin"
also Barnum& Bailey's
trouble-shooting elephant
"Old Gip"
that you could post?
K.C

03 October, 2005 16:30
Anonymous said...

Will the real Mandarin please stand Up?
Want to hear something goofy?
I just came across this item while searching old newspapers.
It concerns a article that appeared in the Ogden (Utah)
Standard Examiner of
1908-08-03.
Its about a Baby elephant born to the elephant Judy March.4.
It weighed 153 lbs.
"The baby elephant is the fourth one born in this country and is the smallest pachyderm ever placed on exhibition"
Mandarin,his father is seventy years old,weighs six tons and is the produest thing in the circus">

03 October, 2005 18:57
Anonymous said...

The circus was Barnum& Bailey there in Ogden.

03 October, 2005 18:59
Anonymous said...

I need to correct something in my earlier posting.
George Conklin was the menagerie
superindentent of the Barnum&Bailey show from 1888 to Spring 1907 when he retired because of health.He was succeded by John Patterson as menagerie superindent.
Anyone have info on JohnPatterson's career,especially his early years?

13 October, 2005 19:58

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