Sunday, January 22, 2006

The Lone Ranger #2


This is Lee Powell and my father at the site of Jumbo's death in St. Thomas, Ont. where he was struck by a locomotive in 1885 while the heard was being loaded. They were good friends and I have a book of Shakespeare's works inscribed "To Bill Woodcock A-1 Elephant Trainer. Your friend Lee Powell". A discription I later placed on his tombstone.
With entry into World War II Mr. Powell immediately joined the Marines and lost his life in combat in the Pacific. He was later exhumed and reburied at the Punch Bowl in Hawaii.

Posted by Buckles at 1/22/2006 11:31:00 AM

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Test Post

22 January, 2006 14:24
Anonymous said...

Question for theshaz. When I click on a picture to enlarge it , then when finished try to go back to the Blog., it is closed and I have to reopen the Blog. Not a big deal but a little cumbersome.

22 January, 2006 17:38
Anonymous said...

I have The Blog on my list of favorites and have never had a problem. The FEED think sure makes it easy to print pictures. I was getting a lot of copys before of the same thing trying to guess how many pages to print. This Blog is better then sex. If I remember correctly. Would have saved a lot of wasted time if available years ago. No offence to the EXS where ever you are.

23 January, 2006 11:06
Anonymous said...

Is there a historical marker at this site?
I think I rember seeing a photograph from the 1930's
where some of the original eyewitness gathered at the spot.It was near a certain telephone pole.

24 January, 2006 17:44
Anonymous said...

I heard a couple different accounts concerning Jumbo's demise.
One source stated when he saw the on coming locomotive,he insticivly headed toward it,after tossing aside and out of danger the trick elephant Tom Thumb.
another story says he turned away and was running down the tracks when he was struck.

24 January, 2006 17:47
Buckles said...

I'm sure there is a marker at the site, my friend Rob Houston has done a lot of research on this subject.
I too have heard the story of Jumbo casting Tom Thumb aside to protect him from injury which sounds like something a Press Agent would come up with.
Running headlong in a state of panic into an oncoming locomotive sounds a little more reasonable.

24 January, 2006 17:59
Anonymous said...

From what I remember reading,George M. Bates account who was a eyewitness to the accident.Jumbo's keepers saw the locomotive heading straight at them when they were taking the elephants back to load on the cars along the railway track after a late performance.Jumbo's keepers turned him around and were leading him down the track in a hurry to get to were a open space was between railroad cars a little further down were they came up from.They didnt make it.The train hit Jumbo and crushed him in between a platform car,Jumbos tusk was driven into his skull.

26 January, 2006 15:08
Anonymous said...

Just a note here.
Its an elephants natural instinct to confront danger.
Thats why the old elephant men of days gone by,turned the elphants back toward the curb when the herd a fire engine coming,otherwise they would panic not knowing what the danger was.
Also when a big wind storm arose,
elephants hated being inside canvas with all the flapping,so they take them outside and have them face the storm(just like the wild buffalo's use to do on the plains .

26 January, 2006 18:03
Buckles said...

The comment attributed to George Bates certainly makes sense but the picture of Jumbo's carcass on an embankment doesn't jive.

27 January, 2006 00:09
Anonymous said...

From what I rember reading
Jumbo was dead on the tracks and obstruckting the railway line of the Grand Funk RR.,so all of the circus employess and a number of on lookers used ropes and managed to tip him over and down the embankment where the two famous photographs took the image.

28 January, 2006 16:21

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)