To My Wife and Family I Dedicate This Story of a Life Which Has Been Largely Devoted to Their Interests and Service....

This book is my recollections of forty busy years. Few men in civil life have had a career more crowded with incident, enterprise, and various intercourse with the world than mine. With the alternatio...

I was born in the town of Bethel, in the State of Connecticut, July 5, 1810. My name, Phineas Taylor, is derived from my maternal grandfather, who was a great wag in his way, and who, as I was his fir...

In the month of August, 1825, my maternal grandmother met with an accident in stepping on the point of a rusty nail, and, though the matter was at first considered trivial, it resulted in her death. A...

Mr. Oliver Taylor removed from Danbury to Brooklyn, Long Island, where he kept a grocery store and also had a large comb factory and a comb store in New York. In the fall of 1826 he offered me a situa...

During this season I made arrangements with Mr. Samuel Sherwood, of Bridgeport, to go on an exploring expedition to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where we understood there was a fine opening for a lottery ...

By this time it was clear to my mind that my proper position in this busy world was not yet reached. I had displayed the faculty of getting money, as well as getting rid of it; but the business for wh...

An amusing incident occurred when we were at Hanover Court House, in Virginia. It rained so heavily that we could not perform there and Turner decided to start for Richmond immediately after dinner, w...

I have said that the show business has as many grades of dignity as trade, which ranges all the way from the mammoth wholesale establishment down to the corner stand. The itinerant amusement business ...

My newspaper squib war against the Peale combination was vigorously kept up; when one morning, about the first of December, I received a letter from the Secretary of that company (now calling itself t...

The American Museum was the ladder by which I rose to fortune. Whenever I cross Broadway at the head of Vesey Street, and see the Herald building and that gorgeous pile, the Park Bank, my mind’s eye r...

The president and directors of the “New York Museum Company” not only failed to buy the American Museum as they confidently expected to do, but, after my newspaper squib war and my purchase of the Mus...

Immediately after our arrival in London, the General came out at the Princess’s Theater, and made so decided a “hit” that it was difficult to decide who was best pleased, the spectators, the manager, ...

Before taking the little General and party to Paris, I went over alone to arrange the preliminaries for our campaign in that city. Paris was not altogether a strange place to me. Months before, when I...

In crossing the border from France into Belgium, Professor Pinte, our interpreter and General Tom Thumb’s preceptor, discovered that he had left his passport behind him⁠—at Lille, at Marseilles, or el...

In London the General again opened his levees in Egyptian Hall with undiminished success. His unbounded popularity on the Continent and his receptions by King Louis Philippe, of France, and King Leopo...

While I was at Aberdeen, in Scotland, I met Anderson, the “Wizard of the North.” I had known him for a long time, and we were on familiar terms. The General’s exhibitions were to close on Saturday nig...

One of my main objects in returning home at this time, was to obtain a longer lease of the premises occupied by the American Museum. My lease had still three years to run, but Mr. Olmsted, the proprie...

Many of my most fortunate enterprises have fairly startled me by the magnitude of their success. When my sanguine hopes predicted a steady flow of fortune, I have been inundated; when I calculated upo...

After the engagement with Miss Lind was consummated, she declined several liberal offers to sing in London, but, at my solicitation, gave two concerts in Liverpool, on the eve of her departure for Ame...

No one can imagine the amount of head-work and handwork which I performed during the first four weeks after Jenny Lind’s arrival. Anticipating much of this, I had spent some time in August at the Whit...

Soon after arriving in Havana, I discovered that a strong prejudice existed against our musical enterprise. I might rather say that the Habaneros, not accustomed to the high figure which tickets had c...

According to agreement, the Magnolia waited for us at Natchez and Memphis, and we gave profitable concerts at both places. The concert at Memphis was the sixtieth in the list since Miss Lind’s arrival...

After five concerts in St. Louis, we went to Nashville, Tennessee, where we gave our sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh concerts in this country. At the first ticket auction in that city, the excitement wa...

While I was managing the Lind concerts, in addition to the American Museum I had other business matters in operation which were more than enough to engross my entire attention and which, of course, I ...

In the summer, I think, of 1853, I saw it announced in the newspapers that Mr. Alfred Bunn, the great ex-manager of Drury Lane Theater, in London, had arrived in Boston. Of course, I knew Mr. Bunn by ...

I now come to a series of events which, all things considered, constitute one of the most remarkable experiences of my life⁠—an experience which brought me much pain and many trials; which humbled my ...

Happily, there is always more wheat than there is chaff. While my enemies and a few envious persons and misguided moralists were abusing and traducing me, my very misfortunes revealed to me hosts of h...

In the summer of 1855, previous to my financial troubles, feeling that I was independent and could retire from active business, I sold the American Museum collection and good will to Messrs. John Gree...

On arriving at Liverpool, I found that my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lynn, of the Waterloo Hotel, had changed very little during my ten years’ absence from England. Even the servants in the hotel were ...

After a pleasant and successful season of several weeks in London and in the provinces, I took the little General into Germany, going from London to Paris and from thence to Strasbourg and Baden-Baden...

Holland gave me more genuine satisfaction than any other foreign country I have ever visited, if I except Great Britain. Redeemed as a large portion of the whole surface of the land has been from the ...

Seeing the necessity of making more money to assist in extricating me from my financial difficulties, and leaving my affairs in the hands of Mr. James D. Johnson⁠—my wife and youngest daughter, Paulin...

While visiting Manchester, in 1858, I was invited by Mr. Peacock, the lessee, to deliver a lecture in “Free Trade Hall.” I gave a lecture, the title of which I now forget; but I well remember it conta...

In 1859 I returned to the United States. During my last visit abroad I had secured many novelties for the Museum, including the Albino Family, which I engaged at Amsterdam, and Thiodon’s mechanical th...

I was now fairly embarked on board the good old ship American Museum, to try once more my skill as captain, and to see what fortune the voyage would bring me. Curiosities began to pour into the Museum...

For nearly five years my family had been knocked about, the sport of adverse fortune, without a settled home. Sometimes we boarded, and at other times we lived in a small hired house. Two of my daught...

On the 13th of October, 1860, the American Museum was the scene of another reopening, which was, in fact, the commencement of the fall dramatic season, the summer months having been devoted to pantomi...

In 1862 I heard of an extraordinary dwarf girl, named Lavinia Warren, who was residing with her parents at Middleboro’, Massachusetts, and I sent an invitation to her and her parents to come and visit...

I began my political life as a Democrat, and my newspaper, the Herald of Freedom, was a Jackson-Democratic journal. While always taking an active interest in political matters, I had no desire for per...

On the thirteenth day of July, 1865, I was speaking in the Connecticut Legislature, in session at Hartford, against the railroad schemes, when a telegram was handed to me from my son-in-law, S. H. Hur...

During my membership in the Connecticut Legislature of 1865, I made several new friends and agreeable acquaintances, and many things occurred, sometimes in the regular proceedings, and sometimes as ep...

When the old American Museum burned down, and while the ruins were still smoking, I had numerous applications for the purchase of the lease of the two lots, fifty-six by one hundred feet, which had st...

During the summer of 1866, Mr. Edwin L. Brown, Corresponding Secretary of the “Associated Western Literary Societies,” opened a correspondence with me relative to delivering, in the ensuing season, my...

My new Museum on Broadway was liberally patronized from the start, but I felt that still more attractions were necessary in order to insure constant success. I therefore made arrangements with the ren...

In the summer of 1868, a lady who happened to be at that time an inmate of my family, upon hearing me say that I supposed we must remove into our summer residence on Thursday, because our servants mig...

And now as a traveller, when almost home, sits down by the wayside to rest, and meanwhile discourses to his companion about minor matters relating to the journey, or revives reminiscenses of home and ...

From the time when I first settled in Bridgeport and turned my attention to opening and beautifying new avenues, and doing whatever lay in my power to extend and improve that charming city, I was exce...

What I can call, without undue display of egotism or vanity, my “public life,” may be said to have closed with my formal and final retirement from the managerial profession, when my second Museum was ...

Everyone knows the story of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. His ambition gratified to satiety in the conquest of kingdoms, and the firm establishment of his empire, he craved rest. He abdicated his thr...

Written up to February, 1873. Readers of the preceding pages will expect in this Appendix a brief resumé of events relating to my Great Travelling World’s Fair for the season of 1872. Connected as I h...

In sending these last pages to the printer in March, 1872, I may say that my manager, Mr. Coup, his assistants, and myself, have been busy ever since New Year’s in reorganizing our great travelling sh...

These were the euphonious names of localities in the vicinity of Bethel. ↩ By his consent I state that his name is John Fish. ↩ The New York and New Haven Railroad Company never forgave me for thus se...