Sunday, December 21, 2008

"Rajah" with Lemen Bros. Circus 1890's


Scan11091, originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

RAJAH

1866 Dan Rice Circus (John O'Brien)
1867-79 Dan Rice Circus (Gardner & Hemmings)
1880-86 W.W. Cole Circus
1887-00 Lemen Bros.Circus

He must have been a pretty tough customer. Lots of stories of his rampages over the years. The autopsy following his death 4-24-00 showed that a bullet was lodged in his brain received from local citizens during one of his escapades.

Posted by Buckles at 12/21/2008 07:04:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

look at that top. never noticed that they were made from individual sewn strips before the big industrial looms existed. cc

21 December, 2008 08:45
Anonymous said...

When the Cole show was broken up in November 1886, the bulls were named as: Samson [went to Barnum & London quarters, died in the November 1887 fire there]; Tom; Lizzie; Jenny; and Laura. No Rajah. Harry Chipman wrote that Lemen's Rajah was formerly known as Samson, but that's not correct. Conklin wrote that Cole's Tom was renamed Rajah [pages 116, 117, 119]. That seems plausible. Chipman reports Rajah as dying on April 24, 1900.

There's only that one poor photo of Samson that ran in the Saturday Evening Post with Conklin's arricle, unless you have another.

Lizzie was on S. K. Tribbey & Co. in 1887. That was a Miles Orton show, so your heritage includes direct ownership of her. She later went to the Central Park Zoo in New York City [1892 ref] and then went to Walter L. Main.

Three of Cole's performing bulls were leased to Frank Gardner in late 1887, for a South American tour, so he may not have sold any in New Orleans. They were likely used for spot bookings in various productions.

21 December, 2008 19:01
Anonymous said...

Anonymous: I believe you mean Bert Chipman, Harry's dad. See p 72 "Hey Rube."

21 December, 2008 20:53
Anonymous said...

Yes, wise one.

22 December, 2008 08:32
Unknown said...

Hi, this is probably a shot in the dark given the age of this post, but what is the book you're referring to by Conklin? I'm a news producer in Denver who is trying to track down an elephant from the 1890s for a series we do called Verify Legends.

You can email me directly anna.staver@9NEWS.com

31 January, 2018 18:44

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