Arriving in New Orleans, January 2, 1841, I had but $100 in my purse, and I had started from New York four months before with quite as much in my pocket. Excepting some small remittances to my family I had made nothing more than current expenses; and, when I had been in New Orleans a fortnight, funds were so low that I was obliged to pledge my watch as security for my board bill. But on the 16th, I received from the St. Charles Theatre $500 as my half share of Diamond’s benefit; the next night I had $50; and the third night $479 was my share of the proceeds of a grand dancing match at the theatre between Diamond and a negro dancer from Kentucky. Subsequent engagements at Vicksburg and Jackson were not so successful, but returning to New Orleans we again succeeded admirably and afterwards at Mobile. Diamond, however, after extorting considerable sums of money from me, finally ran away, and, March 12th, I started homeward by way of the Mississippi and the Ohio.
While I was in New Orleans I made the acquaintance of that genial man, Tyrone Power, who was just concluding an engagement at the St. Charles Theatre. In bidding me farewell, he wished me every success and hoped we should meet again. Alas, poor Power! All the world knows how he set sail from our shores, and he and his ship were never seen again. Fanny Ellsler was also in New Orleans, and when I saw seats in the dress circle sold at an average of four dollars and one-half, I gave her agent, Chevalier Henry Wyckoff, great credit for exciting public enthusiasm to the highest pitch and I thought the prices enormous. I did not dream then that, within twelve years, I should be selling tickets in the same city for full five times that sum.
At Pittsburg, where I arrived March 30th, I learned that Jenkins, who had enticed Francis Lynch away from me at St. Louis, was exhibiting him at the Museum under the name of “Master Diamond,” and visiting the performance, the next day I wrote Jenkins an ironical review for which he threatened suit and he actually instigated R. W. Lindsay, from whom I hired Joice Heth in Philadelphia in 1835, and whom I had not seen since, though he was then residing in Pittsburg, to sue me for a pipe of brandy which, it was pretended, was promised in addition to the money paid him. I was required to give bonds of $500, which, as I was among strangers, I could not immediately procure, and I was accordingly thrown into jail till four o’clock in the afternoon, when I was liberated. The next day I caused the arrest of Jenkins for trespass in assuming Master Diamond’s name and reputation for Master Lynch, and he was sent to jail till four o’clock in the afternoon. Each having had his turn at this amusement, we adjourned our controversy to New York where I beat him. As for Lindsay, I heard nothing more of his claim or him till twelve years afterwards when he called on me in Boston with an apology. He was very poor and I was highly prosperous, and I may add that Lindsay did not lack a friend.
I arrived in New York, April 23rd, 1841, after an absence of eight months; finding my family in good health, I resolved once more that I would never again be an itinerant showman. Three days afterwards I contracted with Robert Sears, the publisher, for five hundred copies of “Sears’ Pictorial Illustrations of the Bible,” at $500, and accepting the United States agency, I opened an office, May 10th, at the corner of Beekman and Nassau Streets, the site of the present Nassau Bank. I had had a limited experience with that book in this way: When I was in Pittsburg, an acquaintance, Mr. C. D. Harker, was complaining that he had nothing to do, when I picked up a New York paper and saw the advertisement of “Sears’s Pictorial Illustrations of the Bible, price $2 a copy.” Mr. Harker thought he could get subscribers, and I bought him a specimen copy, agreeing to furnish him with as many as he wanted at $1.37½ a copy, though I had never before seen the work and did not know the wholesale price. The result was that he obtained eighty subscribers in two days, and made $50. My own venture in the work was not so successful; I advertised largely, had plenty of agents, and, in six months, sold thousands of copies; but irresponsible agents used up all my profits and my capital.
While engaged in this business I once more leased Vauxhall saloon, opening it June 14th, 1841, employing Mr. John Hallett, my brother-in-law, as manager under my direction, and at the close of the season, September 25th, we had cleared about two hundred dollars. This sum was soon exhausted, and with my family on my hands and no employment I was glad to do anything that would keep the wolf from the door. I wrote advertisements and notices for the Bowery Amphitheatre, receiving for the service four dollars a week, which I was very glad to get, and I also wrote articles for the Sunday papers, deriving a fair remuneration and managing to get a living. But I was at the bottom round of fortune’s ladder, and it was necessary to make an effort which would raise me above want.
I was specially stimulated to this effort by a letter which I received, about this time, from my esteemed friend, Hon. Thomas T. Whittlesey, of Danbury. He held a mortgage of five hundred dollars on a piece of property I owned in that place, and, as he was convinced that I would never lay up anything, he wrote me that I might as well pay him then as ever. This letter made me resolve to live no longer from hand to mouth, but to concentrate my energies upon laying up something for the future.
While I was forming this practical determination I was much nearer to its realization than my most sanguine hopes could have predicted. The road to fortune was close by. Without suspecting it, I was about to enter upon an enterprise, which, while giving full scope for whatever tact, industry and pluck I might possess, was to take me from the foot of the ladder and place me many rounds above.
As outside clerk for the Bowery Amphitheatre I had casually learned that the collection of curiosities comprising Scudder’s American Museum, at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street, was for sale. It belonged to the daughters of Mr. Scudder, and was conducted for their benefit by John Furzman, under the authority of Mr. John Heath, administrator. The price asked for the entire collection was fifteen thousand dollars. It had cost its founder, Mr. Scudder, probably fifty thousand dollars, and from the profits of the establishment he had been able to leave a large competency to his children. The Museum, however, had been for several years a losing concern, and the heirs were anxious to sell it. Looking at this property, I thought I saw that energy, tact and liberality, were only needed to make it a paying institution, and I determined to purchase it if possible.
“You buy the American Museum!” said a friend, who knew the state of my funds, “what do you intend buying it with?”
“Brass,” I replied, “for silver and gold have I none.”
The Museum building belonged to Mr. Francis W. Olmsted, a retired merchant, to whom I wrote stating my desire to buy the collection, and that although I had no means, if it could, be purchased upon reasonable credit, I was confident that my tact and experience, added to a determined devotion to business, would enable me to make the payments when due. I therefore asked him to purchase the collection in his own name; to give me a writing securing it to me provided I made the payments punctually, including the rent of his building; to allow me twelve dollars and a half a week on which to support my family; and if at any time I failed to meet the instalment due, I would vacate the premises and forfeit all that might have been paid to that date. “In fact, Mr. Olmsted,” I continued in my earnestness, “you may bind me in any way, and as tightly as you please – only give me a chance to dig out, or scratch out, and I will do so or forfeit all the labor and trouble I may have incurred.”
In reply to this letter, which I took to his house myself, he named an hour when I could call on him, and as I was there at the exact moment, he expressed himself pleased with my punctuality. He inquired closely as to my habits and antecedents, and I frankly narrated my experiences as a caterer for the public, mentioning my amusement ventures in Vauxhall Garden, the circus, and in the exhibitions I had managed at the South and West.
“Who are your references?” he inquired.
“Any man in my line,” I replied, “from Edmund Simpson, manager of the Park Theatre, or William Niblo, to Messrs. Welch, June, Titus, Turner, Angevine, or other circus or menagerie proprietors; also Moses Y. Beach, of the New York Sun.
“Can you get any of them to call on me?” he continued.
I told him that I could, and the next day my friend Niblo rode down and had an interview with Mr. Olmsted, while Mr. Beach and several other gentlemen also called, and the following morning I waited upon him for his decision.
“I don’t like your references,