From Don Covington

9023908-large, originally uploaded by bucklesw1. ONE OSWEGO COUNTY MAN'S DREAM OF BUILDING HIS OWN CIRCUS COMPLETE WITH ELEPHANTS, CAMELS AND A TRAIN. This is the story of the “rise and fall of the Arthur T. Brown Great American Circus” in the town of Parish. It’s come down to an empty circus train car, sitting on a railroad siding, alone and rusting, near the village of Parish in Oswego County. My colleague, photographer Mike Greenlar, found the car recently when he took a wrong turn in Parish. He was surprised, of course. Mike later showed me the picture he took and I was intrigued, too. I made a few phone calls and with the help of Parish historian Bridget Swartz, and my friend Tracy Kinne, I found my way to two Parish residents, Mike Cecere and Arthur J. Brown, known as Jack. Jack is the son of Arthur Brown, who died in 1998. Last week, I listened to the story of how the circus train cars – along with three elephants and a camel – got to this little community of about 500 people. It’s about a busted dream of creating a circus. Arthur Brown’s dream. First off, Jack is a graduate of West Point, one of a long line of members of the military. His British grandfather fought in the Canadian Army during World War I. Arthur Sr. was born in Syracuse (the family lived on Merritt Avenue) and grew up with an interest in the circus that lasted all of his life. Arthur volunteered for the Army right out of a high school, at age 17, according to Mike and Jack. He fought in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge, and won many medals, including the Bronze Star for his actions under enemy fire. His service, according to his son, included one action where he got an entire German outfit to surrender. Later in the war, the Army transferred him to the Pacific Theater, where he served in the Philippines. Here he met Jack’s mother, Fumina, who was a guerrilla commander and a troop guide. “Dad worked on MacArthur’s (General Douglas) staff after the war,” Jack explains. “But he really aspired to be a farmer.” He went into the Army Reserves and with help of his parents, Jack says his father bought a farm of 90-acres near Mallory, north of Central Square, in the late 1940s. This spread eventually became the Double M Ranch. Jack says Arthur got a job in security at the new Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse, where he “worked his way up the ladder” to become hospital registrar, the job he held when he retired. After retirement, he says Arthur worked as a VA hearing officer. At one point, his Syracuse reserve unit was activated during the Cuban Missile Crisis. About this time, according to his son, Arthur began to work on his dream of creating a circus, which he eventually called “Arthur Brown’s Double M Ranch Circus.” Jack remained out of Parish in Army and Department of Defense assignments. He came back in 2001. Also, Arthur crossed paths with Mike Cecere, who had worked all of his life as an animal trainer. Mike says he came to Parish “for a six months stay 25 years ago.” He worked with the senior Brown on his circus. “He always wanted to get into the circus,” Mike explained. “He bought stuff and made connections.” The “stuff” Brown bought eventually included seven train cars, which he lined up on a private siding off of Route 69A, south of a Parish. Also, three elephants and a camel. The cars were surplus. Mike recalls his friend once drove past the old Marley scrapyard in Syracuse – now the site of Carousel Center – and saw crews tearing apart old rolling stock. “He drove right into the yard and told them to stop. He said he’d buy the cars.” The elephants – Rhoda, Reba and Sheba – he kept on the farm. Also the camel, a male he called “Cleopatrick.” All of the animals have died or were euthanized. Not that the presence of circus creatures in the rural area between Parish and Central Square didn’t attract attention. Jack said Arthur tried to keep the animals’ presence on his farm low-key (“he didn’t want it to be a playground”) but he watched lots of double takes as motorists drove by the farm and saw three elephants grazing in a field. “They stopped traffic, for sure,” Mike explained. “School buses used to park and watch the animals. The UPS man was really amazed by what he saw.” He said Arthur bought the elephants from a private zoo in Florida. They had been rescued from Africa, where their kin were killed by poachers for their ivory. One of the critters had a disease similar to ALS. Local farmers sometimes were called in to use their back hoes to get the animal back on his feet when he fell down. Mike says the train cars, which were not connected to circuses originally, were decorated by a sign painter from Syracuse. The dream of a circus died in Parish. First, Jack’s mother had cancer, and Arthur had to “put his dreams on hold” to care for her. She died in 1997. Then, the man himself was felled. He had a heart attack while attending a board meeting of the Sandy Creek Fair. He eventually died at the VA Hospital in 1998. “That’s when the circus plan came to a halt,” Jack says. “The rise and fall of Arthur T. Brown’s Great American Circus.” Only one car of the circus train is left. It sits on a siding near Parish owned by Jack Brown. He’s donated all of the other stock to railroad museums. The caboose, which was his father’s office, is an ice cream stand in Vermont. A large dormitory car has been refurbished and is part of the exhibits at the rail museum operated by the Central New York Chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society, nearby in Central Square. Jack and I drove to the museum the other day, and to the siding, where the lone car sits. It’s an 1898 model and started out as a mail car. This is where the Parish railroad station once stood. Jack and Mike are told “this once was the busy industrial center” of the town. Now it’s a lonely spur of a line that runs to Montreal. Jack says he holds on to a piece of his father’s dream. “Maybe some day, when I have the money, I’ll fix up this one,” he said, running his hand over the tired hide of the car. “Maybe, we’ll see.”