Here’s an interesting but
unverified bit of circus history that I recently encountered in a
1955 book titled Our Vanishing Landscape by Eric Sloane. According to Sloane, American circuses
sometimes traveled via canal boats. When they would make their entrance into a
town, the band would be playing on the upper deck of the canal boat, which one
of the elephants would be pulling.
(These must have been smaller circuses that could fit everything into one
or two canal boats! Or perhaps most of
the equipment, animals, etc. traveled overland in the conventional manner.) Again, this information is unverified. I’ve never heard of a circus or any other
type of show traveling via canal boat, but it sounds plausible. Some of our circus historians will know if
this is true and, if so, can probably cite the specific shows, the years they
were active, the territories they played, etc.
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Wednesday, November 05, 2014
From Eric Beheim
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5 comments:
The Sig Sautelle Circus (aka George Satterly or Satterly) moved by barge over the Erie Canal in New York state.
There is much information on Sig Sautelle Circus on google or bing.
I was reading Dan Carlyon's book about Dan Rice, there's lots of stories about circuses moving along the Mississippi on boats. It's called Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of.
According to his autobiography, Barnum had a short venture with a canal boat and Doc Spalding had a most lavish boat-ounted circus until it burned. Circus travel be barge wa a fairly common occurance.
Bob
There's a very nice good-sized Sig Sautelle model at the Shelburne Museum in VT.
Concerning Circuses on canal boat or barges there was a circus that traveled on two barges secured together with a deck across them. The Great American Water Circus traveled up the Missouri and its tributaries . It only lasted two years.
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