P. T. Barnum’s museum mysteriously burns to the ground - July 13th, 1865

On this day in 1865, P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City was destroyed in a mysterious fire.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that talies the gains and losses of everyday history.
I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking at the untimely

(00:21):
end of P. T. Barnum's earliest success, a one of
a kind museum that would raise more than a few
eyebrows today. The day was July eighteen sixty five. P. T.

(00:43):
Barnum's American Museum in New York City was destroyed in
a mysterious fire. Located in downtown Manhattan at the intersection
of Anne Street and Broadway, the five story building was
once heralded as the most visited place in America. It's
collection of artifacts, oddities, live performers, and animals drew as

(01:05):
many as fifteen thousand visitors a day. The museum opened
its doors in eighteen forty one, and by the time
it burned to the ground twenty four years later, it
had welcomed more guests than the entire US population. The
culprit behind the beloved museum's fiery destruction, and if there
even was one, is still an open question. Phineas Taylor

(01:30):
Barnum is best remembered today for his long running partnership
with circus showman James Anthony Bailey. But before these famous
hucksters crossed paths, Barnum made his living as an innovative
museum proprietor. I used the term museum because that's what
he called it, but most of the exhibits on offer

(01:51):
weren't like any you'd find in a museum nowadays. In reality,
the American Museum was a strange mash up of a zoo,
a cirkus side show, a stage theater, and a cabinet
of curiosities. Visitors found both entertainment and education within its
winding halls, but the accuracy of the information they learned

(02:13):
was a bit of a mixed bag. For example, the
museum's collection of taxidermied animals offered anatomical insight on exotic
creatures like lions, elephants, and zebras, but it also featured
the infamous Fiji mermaid, which was really just the mummified
head and torso of a monkey sewn onto the tail

(02:33):
of a fish. Then there were the museum's human attractions,
most of which would be deemed exploitative today. Among them
were Josephine Boada Shane, the Bearded Lady. There was also
a pair of conjoined twins named Chang and Hang, and
General Tom Thumb, a twenty five inch dwarf who formed

(02:54):
a lifelong friendship with Barnum. On the slightly more educational side,
there is a collection of live animals monkeys, snakes, pigs, dogs, hippos,
an alligator, and even a kangaroo. The museum also boasted
the country's very first aquarium, which housed two imported white
whales in a giant tank of water pumped in from

(03:17):
the East River. There was also a priceless collection of
objects from the Revolutionary War, as well as a series
of wax figures representing historical and contemporary celebrities. One of
the most notable figures on display was that of Confederate
President Jefferson Davis, who was depicted wearing his wife's dress

(03:37):
due to a rumor that he had once tried to
evade capture by disguising himself as a woman. This ever
growing array of unusual exhibits made Barnum's American Museum one
of New York's most popular destinations for leisure and culture.
But alas all good things must come to an end,
and for Barnum's Museum, it arrived on July eighteen sixty five.

(04:03):
The fire began around noon and was first discovered by
an employee stationed in the museum's basement. The flames quickly
spread to the upper levels, and firefighters soon responded to
the site of black smoke billowing out of the building.
They diligently worked to evacuate the many visitors, performers, and
animals from within the museum, and one fireman in particular,

(04:25):
William McNamara, is credited with leading out dozens of patrons
all on his own. This was a crucial task, as
many guests had a hard time navigating the museum's corridors,
even when it wasn't full of smoke and flame. Amidst
all that confusion, many wax figures were rescued as well,
with several firefighters mistaking them for real people. It's a

(04:49):
good thing they weren't, though, as the figures were hurled
to safety from the windows of their exhibit on the
third floor. And yes, because I know you're wondering, Jefferson
Davis us among the survivors, Petticoat and all. However, The
crowd of New Yorkers who had gathered to watch the
blaze were none too happy to see the former Confederate

(05:10):
president in their midst. The New York Sun described his
unwelcome appearance, and their report the following day, it said, quote,
when the Jefferson Davis petticoated figure was recognized by the crowd,
it was seized, kicked, knocked, and finally hanged to an
awning frame in front of St. Paul's Church, amid the

(05:31):
derisive and contumulus epithets of the persons engaged in this pastime.
The roof of the museum collapsed less than ninety minutes
after the fire was first reported. One of the building's
walls gave way not long after. By two PM, the
flames had spread to several neighboring buildings, and soon after

(05:53):
the entire block was ablaze. Luckily, New York had learned
well from the Great Fire of eighteen thirty five. The
new water system it had invested in a decade later
allowed the fire at Barnum's to be contained before it
could spread to the rest of the city. Amazingly, not
a single person died in the fire that day, though

(06:14):
sadly many animals weren't as lucky. The two white whales
were boiled live in their tanks. Several other mammals tried
to escape through the windows, only to be shot down
by police officers who feared the panicked animals might run amuck.
In this way, the fire proved something that held true
for the next century and a half. Live animals deserve

(06:38):
better than the care of P. T. Barnum. As for
what caused the fire, no one knows for certain. At
the time, the New York Times attributed the blaze to
a defective furnace, a theory supported by the fact that
the fire did start in the basement. However, many historians
believed the fire was likely an act of arson. For

(07:00):
all his many faults, P. T. Barnum was a vocal
supporter of abolition at the time of the fire, which
happened to be just three months after the end of
the Civil War. Barnum was also a sitting member of
the Connecticut Legislature. With all that in mind, it's possible
the fire was started by Southern sympathizers who didn't approve

(07:20):
of Barnum's opposition to slavery. It's a theory that seems
all the more plausible when you consider that a member
of the Confederate Secret Service had already tried to burn
down the museum once before. A year earlier, in eighteen
sixty four, Robert Cobb Kennedy had entered the museum, thrown
a homemade incendiary device, and strolled right out again. The

(07:43):
resulting fire caused a good deal of panic and property damage,
but no one was hurt and the building survived more
or less intact. The same couldn't be said for the
museum's second fire in eighteen sixty five. Was that the
work of a former Confederate back to finish the job,
or just a tragic accident. Barnum wasn't sure himself, but

(08:05):
he decided to press his luck either way. The persistent
showman opened a new museum less than two years after
losing the first one. Unfortunately, he had chosen to heat
the building with a largely untested innovation boilers. This proved
to be Barnum's undoing when one of his boilers exploded
in eighteen sixty eight, burning the museum to the ground

(08:28):
for a second time. These ill fated attempts at stationary
exhibitions eventually pushed Barnum to take his show on the road.
Together with his partner Bailey, Barnum formed a traveling circus
in eighty one, but that's a story for another day.
After Barnum's museum burned down for the first time, the

(08:49):
New York Times lamented the loss, writing quote, almost in
the twinkling of an eye, the dirty, ill shaped structure,
filled with specimens so full of suggestion and merit passed
from our gaze, and it's like cannot soon be seen again.
That ultimately proved true, And all things considered, maybe that's

(09:10):
not such a bad thing. Still. If you're curious to
learn more about some of the museum's exhibits and even
see them for yourself, the historians at City University, New
York have you covered. Through painstaking research, They've reassembled much
of the museum online. You can pay it a visit
yourself by going to Lost Museum dot c U and

(09:33):
y dot E d U. I'm Gay Bluesier and hopefully
you now know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history
by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at T
d I HC Show. And if you have any comments

(09:53):
or suggestions, feel free to send them my way at
this day at I heart media dot com. Thanks a
Channel or Mays for producing the show, and thank you
for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow for
another day in history class