Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Forepaugh Show 1882


Adam Forepaugh Jr. was the Gunther Gebel-Williams of his day although others actually did the training. From what I read he was not a robust guy like his father.
Amongst my dad's letters, there is one received many years ago from an old timer who recalled that while setting up the show he was on (I think it was in the 1900's), Addie arrived on the lot in a carriage and watched the activity for a while. He added that you could see the effects of the Mercury in his system? Posted by Picasa

Posted by Buckles at 1/17/2007 06:12:00 AM

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did young Adam get mercury in his system?? cc

17 January, 2007 08:14
Buckles said...

The comment ended abruptly at that point as tho the writer assumed that everyone was aware of the situation.
Possibly the result of a medical treatment.

17 January, 2007 08:29
Anonymous said...

Now we can search the web and find what mercury was used for in those days.

17 January, 2007 09:28
Anonymous said...

YEP I was right. Would not want the world to know either.

17 January, 2007 09:31
Anonymous said...

Buckles,
Some years ago I acquired the small collection of Mrs. Adam Forepaugh, Jr., and ever since I have been curious about young Adam (“Addie”) and his career, especially due to one item I shall describe in a moment. When you first mentioned to me on the phone some weeks ago the story about Addie Forepaugh and mercury, it set me on to doing some research. Mercury, I have since learned was the first known treatment for syphilis, beginning in the late 1400s. Administered both topically and orally, mercury was still widely used by trained physicians into the Victorian era. Shortly before World War I, an arsenic compound marked under the trade name Salvarsan was discovered and used to treat the "sleeping sickness." There was considerable risk with the new treatment but it did help with the debility caused by venereal diseases and any loss of manpower during World Wars I and II. By the end of World War II, however, penicillin became widely available and accepted as the treatment of choice for syphilis.

Lillie Deacon, an English rider on the Forepaugh show, had the foresight to marry the boss’s son on June 28, 1882, in Norwalk, Ohio. Addie’s interests, however, strayed to that of other women on the show and Lillie was not unaware. One of the more interesting items that I now have is a diary kept by Lillie Deacon in 1883 recording the various transgressions of Addie. The other woman is never named though I have since been able to determine it was probably Lottie Aymar, a member of a large and talented circus family. One of the offences that disturbed the young Mrs. Forepaugh was when Addie and Lottie were discovered to have done their laundry together in one wash! With your story about Addie suffering from the effects of mercury, I think we can conclude that Addie’s activities might have been more than the simple cohabitation of his dirty laundry!

The Aymar family did not return to the Forepaugh show the next season (!) and Lillie soon left her husband for the Barnum show. Adam, Sr., was quite sympathetic and would write and send money to his daughter-in-law. They were never divorced and Lillie continued to benefit from the Forepaugh estate until her own death about 1945.

Dick Flint
Baltimore

17 January, 2007 11:52
B.E.Trumble said...

Mercury was certainly the treatment of choice for sexually transmitted diseases at the time, as well as other maladies. Some of the descriptions of Addie's health and rather rapid decline in the 1890's, including I believe serious vision problems, and lameness could also suggest adult onset diabetes. Blood tests for glucose levels had been around since the 1850's, but many doctors weren't well versed in testing, and when properly diagnosed the only treatment was diet... which didn't prolong life all that well. Some doctors just assumed that the frequent urination associated with diabetes was a sign of a sexually transmitted disease and treated the patient accordingly.

17 January, 2007 12:17
Anonymous said...

I saw a program on the History Channel last night and it said that medicinal mercury in the olden days turned a person's teeth black. Maybe that's what the comment written on the picture meant. Yuk.

17 January, 2007 15:10
Anonymous said...

Mercury is a heavy metal and exposure can cause it to collect in the body, particularly in the brain.

From the website of Mercury Technology Services (http://www.hgtech.com/)

"Hatters really did go mad. The chemicals used in hat-making included mercurous nitrate, used in curing felt. Prolonged exposure to the mercury vapors caused mercury poisoning. Victims developed severe and uncontrollable muscular tremors and twitching limbs, called "hatter's shakes". Other symptoms included distorted vision and confused speech. In advanced cases, hatters developed hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms."

Those would be noticable effects.
Lee Merritt

17 January, 2007 22:16
Anonymous said...

It had been reported that
Adam Forepaugh,Jr had been an apprentice of Stewart Craven(as well as Adam Forepaugh Sr's, brothers,like George Forepaugh).
Also various other elephants trainers assumed the name of Forepaugh,like Patsy Meagher.

18 January, 2007 15:38
Anonymous said...

Adam Forepaugh jr,was famous for being a teenage elephant trainer
sensation,
back during the late 1870's and early 1880's.
Reportly he wanted to be an elephant trainer,but his father would not allow it,so he secretly observed Stewart Craven train the elphants through a knot hole in a door,at the winter quarters in Philadelphia,later at night with the help of "Big Babe' the huge assiant canvasman,
he secretly copied Craven's techigues at night putting the elphants through the paces while everyone was asleep.
When Craven demanded a salary increase,Adam Forepaugh Sr,let him go and Addy took over the elephant act.
Around 1880,Adam Forepaugh jr, was almost killed in Lancaster New Hampshire by the dancing elephant,"Old Dick'while trying to load him aboard Forepaugh's elephant palace car.
He was knocked off his horse on to the ground by the elephant and probably about to be gored,when he was saved in a nick of time by the big elephant"Old Betts' who knocked Old Dick away

18 January, 2007 17:13
Anonymous said...

I read somewhere that Taxidermists around that time used arsenic to help preserve birds and hides.
It later drove many a taxidermist mad.

18 January, 2007 18:29
Luellas family said...

Wow!I am a family member of Lillie aka.Luella Fourpaugh and I have papers written about Luella and Addy Fourpaugh and your right she did benefit till her death in 1945.she was 103 years old.is their anyway I can get copies of her diary?

23 July, 2019 22:54

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