NEW YORK TRIBUNE - MAY 2nd 1856
In the early 1850s, Barnum began investing in real estate to develop East Bridgeport, Connecticut. He made substantial loans to the Jerome Clock Company, to get it to move to the new industrial area he was underwriting. But by 1856, the company went bankrupt sucking Barnum's wealth with it. So began four years of court litigation and public humiliation. Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed that Barnum's downfall showed "the gods visible again" and other critics celebrated Barnum's moral comeuppance. But his friends pulled hard too, and Tom Thumb, now touring on his own, offered his services again to the showman and they undertook another European tour. Barnum also started a lecture tour, mostly as a temperance speaker. By 1860, he emerged from debt and built a mansion "Lindencroft" (his palace "Iranistan" had burnt down in 1857) and he resumed ownership of his museum.(1) The article is transcribed below.
Jenny Lind has written a letter to a friend, an extract from which is published in The Philadelphia Times, expressing great sympathy for Barnum on account of his pecuniary misfortunes. She expresses great admiration for Barnum as a business man and a man of large benevolence and goodness of heart. We quote:
“You know my dear friend, those gifts and charity concerts, which I was made to participate in, not that they did not meet with my most cordial approval, yet they all sprang from Mr. Barnum, which, although he was shrewd enough to know would return again ten fold; yet his soul was in the act, nor would he listen to my remonstrances that he, too, should shake in whatever credit might have been attached to them. I know, also that he was continually importuned by needy people for assistance and I can most positively assure you, as I believe to be the case, that none ever left him unassisted, who was in the least deserving. I think, however, that his genius and talent will not long permit him to remain in impoverished obscurity. His determined will will soon arouse him to action, and a in a short space of time he will have surmounted the difficulties that now surround and oppress him, and which would have paralyzed the energies of an ordinary man.
“I will not dwell long upon this subject. It is in. deed painful for me to contemplate. I believe a good man should never fall, nor should he (Barnum) do so for the want of a friend. His pride will not permit him to write to me under the circumstances - mine compels me to write to him. He, nor his, shall never know want while I have it in my power (which, owing to the goodness of Heaven, I have now) to keep it away. But let us hope that things are not as bad as represented and that the next steamer will bring more agreeable tidings.
This is in confidence.
Affectionately, your friend, JENNY LIND
1. Philip B. Kunhardt, et al, P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman, Alfred A. Knopf , New York, 1995, ISBN 0-679-43574-3, p. vi
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