Barnum's Museum Fires: Curious People Wanted

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Hi, Curious People! Happy to have you with me again for another episode of Curious People Wanted, a video series by the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I'm Adrienne Saint-Pierre, and as the Museum's Curator, I am always learning new things about the artifacts and documents in our collection.

A few weeks ago, we received this magazine from a local person who has a deep interest in history. She was sorting through her bookshelves and came upon this magazine from 1986. It's called With New York Firefighters. She sent it to the Museum because it contains an article about the fire that destroyed P. T. Barnum's American Museum on July 13, 1865. The article is interesting because it provides a different perspective from most about the fire–telling us more about the individual firefighters who responded to the fire that fateful summer day and giving us some new context for that time in New York's firefighting history.

I'm guessing that you already know that this fire completely destroyed the five-story Marble building and all of its attractions–luckily all the humans escaped. The firefighter's encounters with the wild animals on the loose became the stuff of legends. Still, most of the animals were not so fortunate, even those who made it out of the building, and of course, the exhibits of artifacts were a total loss.

Well, receiving this magazine reminded me of a couple of items in the collection that relate to the American Museum fires. So here we have the New York Herald newspaper, which has the 1865 fire–or conflagration as they called it–as front-page news. Which it deserved to be. Barnum's Museum was a landmark and a top-rated attraction, a major tourist destination. The loss was very considerable, and yet, he managed to re-open in another location on Broadway only a few months later, in October.

New York's Volunteer Fire Department, which included the Vollies who responded to Barnum's fire, was about to disappear. On September 1st, only about seven weeks after the Museum burned, the volunteer firefighters were ordered to make way for a paid, professional fire department, which was to be called the Metropolitan Fire District of New York.

So on that first day of September in 1865, Chief Engineer of the Vollies John Decker and the 4000 Red Shirts had to turn over their firehouses, engines, and tools and equipment to the pros who were replacing them. 583 METS, as the paid professionals were called. Of course, among them were many former Vollies. It was a peaceful transition, but undoubtedly an emotional one for many volunteers, who were well known for their bravery and self-sacrifice and thus set the standard for the new department.

Despite having a Fire Department of paid professionals, New York would continue to suffer from devastating fires. New buildings were usually taller than the old ones, and even if the stone was used in construction, the design of some buildings resulted in significant fire hazards. Maybe some of you know that Barnum's second Museum also burned. In March of 1868, that happened not even three years after the first fire. The causes were very different, the first was believed to be arson, and the second was due to a malfunction in the heating system, which happened when the Museum was closed at night.

To that point, that is "when" it happened, we have another exciting item in our collection, and that is a portion of the Fire Department logbook for 1868. This contains a record of all the alarms that came in. So, on this page, we see recorded in ink when the department received the call about the fire at Barnum's Museum.

As happened with the first Museum, this fire also consumed the Museum, another total loss. And as it happened, this was one of a series of tragic losses Barnum suffered in the space of only about a month or so. Barnum's mother passed away 11 days after the fire, and then his namesake grandson, a little boy not yet three years old, died in April. These losses must have felt like terrible blows coming so close upon one another. So it was at this time Barnum decided to take the advice of his friend Horace Greeley, who suggested that he take it as a sign he ought to retire and go a-fishin'. Well, that retirement only lasted a couple of years. Then the restless and energetic P. T. Barnum embarked on the career that brought him even greater fame as the circus entrepreneur who created the Greatest Show on Earth. That, of course, is another story.

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