Thursday, February 10, 2011

4Paw-Sells Elephants #6

A Robert D. Good stamp on the back of this picture and in what appears to be his handwriting:

"Mike" Male African 10 ft. 4 in.
Sells United R.R. Show 1893
Sells-4Paw 1898
Barnum & Bailey 1907
Died Dec. 19, 1907 Bridgeport, Conn, from burns.
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Posted by Buckles at 2/10/2011 06:03:00 AM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not many bulls with a martingale, leg chains and other restraints went into street parade. Were these for show, to fulfill advertising?

The fact that the beast could maintain a pace equivalent to the walking horse and led stock suggests less that limited motion. That's a pretty long stride he's taking.

Otherwise, would a sane proprietor place such an animal in the public streets?

Also, note the punk behind it, the big bull presumably serving as an anchor.

10 February, 2011 09:31
Ole Whitey said...

Anonymous: Having said all that, you have to admit this is one spectacular parade attraction.

Does anyone know if the Cole show paraded Safari?

10 February, 2011 11:36
Anonymous said...

Spectacular, obviously, and also presumably quite safe. The Sells outfit never went big for elephant numbers after their Seven Elephant brand, deciding to have a broader general menagerie.

I don't recall seeing parade photos of Safari, for whom they originally provided a wagon to convey him between the train and the lot. He proved to be very tractable and simply walked between the train and the lot with the others. Few bulls had private conveyances, one being Keddah on Ringling.

They generally walked Jumbo through town in inconspicuous ways [how would you make an 11-foot bull elelphant inconspicuous?]. If the crowd was great, they waited to unload him, or would try and hide him in a freight house, etc., until the crowd dispersed. There are some mentions of him standing a head taller than the Asiatics that populated the show.

10 February, 2011 16:57
Lane Taburt said...

Buckles: Here's a 1907 clip from the New York Times

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y., July 31. -- Mac, the oldest and largest elephant of the Forepaugh Sells Brothers circus, and its mate, a younger and smaller elephant, narrowly escaped being burned to death on the circus train while on the way from Poughkeepsie to this city to-day.

10 February, 2011 19:54
Richard Reynolds said...

Lane’s information clarifies what had been a mystery, namely, where was Mike going in that rail car when he got burned?

If we look at the F-S route for 1907 we see that Poughkeepsie was played on July 30 and Middleton on the 31st. So, the badly burned Mike was on F-S at the time and was sent to the nearest place for treatment and convalescence - -the Bridgeport quarters. He lingered until December when he died.

I and possibly others had thought that he was burned while being sent to Bridgeport from Baraboo after F-S was shelved at the end of the 1907 season. That’s when the Boo brothers decided how the F-S animals and equipment would be split up between their RB show and their newly acquired B&B.

Topsy may have been sent to Bridgeport at the same time as Mike because she was on B&B at least as late as 1909 per photographs.

The newspaper named the burned elephant “Mac.” Do not let bother you. Newspapers were famous for misnaming elephants. Mac is close enough to Mike.

Mike was said to stand 10ft. 4in. While tall, that is nothing compared to some of the monster African males in captivity in recent times, some of them at and over 11 ft. Diamond at Knoxville zoo (ex-RBBB) was about 11ft. Jumbo stood 10’ 10”.

Mike Hackenburger’s Angus stood 11’ 1”. Calimerio at Beekse Bergen Safari Park in Holland stands 11’-1.9” and Yossi at the Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan zoo, Israel stands some 11’-6” The prize goes to the great Fénykovi bull in the rotunda of the Smithsonian. The museum put him at 13’-2” and 16,000 pounds. However, Haufellner (1999) gave him only 12’-6.”

11 February, 2011 10:10

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