Monday, May 12, 2008

Howes Elephant Telescoper (From Dick Flint)


Howes ele telescoper001, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Since you've now posted two photos of the long-lived dragon float in
it original configuration, here's a stereo view of one of the two
principal parade wagons that accompanied it on the Howes Great London
show voyage from England for its 1871 US premier. While the show's
other principal parade wagon featured a three-dimensional globe atop a
wagon similar to the later Five Graces bandwagon, I thought I would
send this 1872 view of the magnificent Car of India for the elephant
fanciers on the blog. The wooden elephant would lower by a gear
system into the body of the wagon when this mud show traveled
overland. On the perimeter of the platform upon which the elephant
stands are spring supports for bells that would have clanged as the
wagon moved along in the parade producing what was a clever musical
effect.

A few years back a family living on Starr Ridge in Brewster, NY, where
the show wintered, discovered on their property the uppermost or
herringbone-patterned back support of the howdah. While this view was
recently published as a colorized view in a circus magazine showing
this panel in red, the surviving paint on the Brewster panel shows
green. The elephant top was removed early on but the wagon with its
single, bottom row of oval mirrors and a new skyboard lasted until its
use on Forepaugh-Sells.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

Posted by Buckles at 5/12/2008 06:51:00 AM

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I correct in assuming that this circus came complete from British Isles to America and if so, Did it return to British Isles? Who owned it? I am confused. We do know that later the title was used on grift shows in America. Where is the connection. I always assumed the "Howes" were brothers here in USA that got into the circus Biz.Who would Seth B. Howe be? Hope someone will clear up my confusion.

12 May, 2008 09:01
Anonymous said...

This wagon toured England with the Howes show in 1870, then appeared in the USA starting in 1871 and is last known to have toured with a Mugivan & Bowers troupe in 1908.

The discovery of the howdah piece may offer some substantiation for the provenance of two carved images at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. They have been identified as having originated from the companion globe telescoper. The fact that these pieces can be traced to a site other than the Bridgeport winter quarters, where the vehicles were presumably converted from telescoping tableaus to conventional box-body wagons, has caused some concern over their portrayal as circus artifacts in the past.

The colorized version of this photo [of which at least three copies exist] appeared on the cover of "Bandwagon" magazine, Jan-Feb 2007. If you go to the Circus Historical Society website, www.circushistory.org, and go to the "history" button and click on it, the next page opens up a wonderful assortment of reading on the American circus. Numerous capsule biographies for American show people can be found in Slout's "Olympians of the Sawdust Circle." Many items provided there are very rare and not readily obtainable elsewhere, including elsewhere on the web.

12 May, 2008 09:57
Anonymous said...

Johnny, Nathan Howes (1796-1878) was one of the earliest American performers and owners and, in 1826, one of the first to use a tent. His much younger brother Seth B. (1815-1901) followed him and was probably the first person to become a millionaire from his circus and related businesses. Seth toured England and some parts of the European continent from 1856-64 as Howes & Cushing. He married an Englishwomen and returned again in 1870 to start another show that toured England. It was to play the continent the following year but because of war, he brought it to the US for the 1871 season as Howes Great London Circus and Sanger’s European Menagerie (or variations thereof).

Nathan had many children but twins Egbert (1830-1892) and Elbert (1830-1900) were the ones who actively worked for or in partnership with their father and/or uncle Seth at various times, including the several English tours and the 1871-73 tour in the US of Howes Great London. When business partner/investor James E. Kelly’s other investments got consumed by the financial Panic of 1873, the show was sold (but the Howes family prevailed in not having their name used in later years; Sanger was not so lucky). Thereafter, as anonymous nicely wrote, it was “chronically lacking in the owner and leadership department.” The show finally ended up in the hands of printer James Reilly who had supplied all the show’s posters. He, in turn, disposed of it to Cooper & Bailey who had just returned from an Australian and South American coastal tour with a much-dilapidated show. The rest is history, as they say, with one of the Great London elephants giving birth and supposedly being the reason for the merger of Barnum with Cooper & Bailey in 1881.

The famous family were no longer show investors after 1873 but the name began to be appropriated by small and unscrupulous showmen in the 1880s and endured in that situation into the 20th century. And one further comment: several members of the Howes family, who all came from the Somers, NY, area (the “cradle of the American circus”) were in the circus business so the name is often seen. But there was another important family named Howe (without the s) from the same area and active as owners in the menagerie business in the 1830s era. Finally, a Frank J. Howes was in the circus business as an owner in the years around the Civil War but of no relation to the Nathan/Seth clan.

I have two copies of the stereo and neither is colored and I believe the colorization was done only for the magazine cover.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

12 May, 2008 22:10

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