BAILEY, Hachaliah [1774-1845] -- American circus pioneer
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In 1808, while residing in Somers, New York, Bailey purchased an African elephant for $1,000 and named it "Old Bet." Old Bet appears to be one of the first elephants brought to the United States; she had previously been on exhibit in Boston in 1804, but Bailey found her for sale four years later in a New York City cattle market.
Bailey originally planned to use Old Bet as a draught animal on his farm, but she attracted so much attention that he decided to found a travelling menagerie instead. He started out to show Old Bet with a wagon of hay, a horse to draw it, and an assistant. The admission fee for an entire family was either a coin or a 2-gallon jug of rum. In 1808, Hachaliah Bailey rented two-thirds of Old Bet to Benjamin Lent and Andrew Brown, who also had a right to display her.
On July 24, 1816, Old Bet was killed while on tour near Alfred, Maine by a farmer who thought it sinful for poor people to waste money on a travelling circus, and Bailey memoralized her in 1825 with a statue and the Elephant Hotel in Somers, New York. WIKI
¤P. T. Barnum, not often cited for his honesty, nevertheless made an accurate statement when he called Hach Bailey the father of the American circus.
Milestones |
1815c | America's first travelling menagerie |
Bookmarks (off-site links) |
- Works by Hachaliah+Bailey
- Analyses, critiques and interpretations
- Quotations
- For sale
- BookFinder.com: Search Results (Matching Titles) Books by or about Hachaliah+Bailey
- Works about
- Biographical
- Specific periods, events, aspects. Trivia.
- Old Bet, elephant. Roadside Pet Cemetery Old Bet was shot dead by a fanatical Maine farmer. Note: the tusks in the skeleton are mounted upside down! They should curl upward.
- Little Bett, elephant. Roadside Pet Cemetery Bailey's 2nd elephant was also shot down in New England!
- AmericanHeritage.com / POSTSCRIPTS TO HISTORY SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON OLD BET
- Lewis Bailey had 9 sons + one daughter: Joan? Hachaliah's son, Lewis, moves the family to Virginia
- The Menagerie 1.4
- Chronologies, synopses, encyclopedias
- Hachaliah Bailey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Timeline3 Somers, NY 1808-1827
- Timeline4 Somers, NY 1828-1840
- Bandwagon July - August 1958: A Chronology of American Menageries and Circuses
- MSI: Circus Timeline
- Specific periods, events, aspects. Trivia.
- Genealogy
- Memorials, tributes, shrines
- Bibliographies and Link Farms
- Open Directory The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human- edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.
- Search engines A selection of search engines, for Hachaliah+Bailey
- Discussion, interviews
- Biographical
- Collections, archives - Papers
- AMERICAN CIRCUS COLLECTION
- Elephant Contract The 1808 contract where Bailey leased 2/3 use of Old Bet for one year to Brunn and Lent.
- Zoological Association Articles of Association, 1835
- Historical context, background
- Places (residences, etc)
- HistoryBuff.com -- The Elephant Comes to America
- American Circus
- The Circus in America: 1793 - 1940
- Big Apple Circus - About - Classical Circus
- RootsWeb: GenConnecticut-L P.T.Barnum resources & circus history
- James Anthony Bailey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia of Barnum & Bailey fame, né James Anthony McGuiness, was discovered by Fred Harrison Bailey (a nephew of circus pioneer Hachaliah Bailey) as a teenager.
- Gallery
- The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). As a character.
- Google Images Search
