Tuesday, March 13, 2007

To Dave Price


"Gyp's" connection with the Patterson Show is unclear to me as well.
They may have been conncected in some way before Patterson bought the Leon Washburn elephants.

GYPSY
1885- Miller, Stone & Freeman Show
1886-89- Wallace & Co. Show
1890-91 Bartine's Circus (Leased from Wallace)
1892-94 Cook & Whitby Shows (Ben Wallace)
1895-02 Great Wallace Shows
1903-04 Harris Nickel Plate
1904 William P. Hall's first elephant
1905-06 Cook & Barrett (Leased from Hall)
1907-14 J.E. Henry Shows
(Died in 1915)
Posted by Picasa

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many thanks, Buckles. I didn't have this info.

Cook & Barrett is an interesting story. Bob and Richard Schiller leased the former Nickel Plate show from Hall and, like so many who would follow them, they failed to make a go and the show went back to Lancaster, where it was leased or sold to another loser with the unlikely name of Weaver, Cannon and Gun.

Bob Schiller made history again in the early 1920s when he bought from Kelly-Springfield the Bode wagon sides which they had gotten when the Spellman motorized show failed. In time for the 1925 season, Schiller put eight pairs of these sides on ordinary baggage wagons and sold them to Fred Buchanan, who found them to be practical and attractive parade vehicles.

The Hall heirs eventually sold five of these wagons to the new Cole show but not all five saw service until they all went out on the 1938 Robbins. Russia later went to Terrell Jacobs, France survives today and three (Great Britain, United States and Belgium) perished in the Rochester fire.

China is mentioned in the opening paragraphs of "Gus the Great" indicating that it remained at Granger when Thomas Duncan checked out that property.