Who Murdered Jumbo?: The Animal Rights Series, #3

By Pete Geissler

September 15, 1885, 8:15PM, Saint Thomas, Ontario: Circus workers are loading elephants on the train that will take them to a tomorrow's performances in a nearby town. The workers have ignored simple safety rules and a special freight train piloted by an experienced engineer rams and kills Jumbo, history's most famous and beloved elephant and the world's first animal superstar.Join Sarah Scrivener, America's first female investigative journalist, as she unwinds this twisted, bizarre, inexplicable death that plunged the world into infinite sadness. Was Jumbo's death a gory accident? An elaborate hoax perpetrated by the master of hoax, P.T. Barnum? A conspiracy to commit murder for fame and fortune? If so, who were the conspirators? Was Matthew Scott, Jumbo's devoted keeper, petty thief, and clever negotiator, part of a scam? Was Frank Perley, Barnum's enthusiastic publicist? Henry Ward, his taxidermist? Only Barnum and others in his inner circle know for certain, and they took their certainty to the grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Expressive Press
• Release date: Feb 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781729532812

Pete Geissler

Pete Geissler is an outspoken advocate of good communications and behavior. His eight books, and hundreds of articles, speeches, and classes examine why and how to be articulate, to write well, and to treat people respectfully and ethically. His accomplishments include authorship of a publisher's best seller and a finalist in best books 2014, and writing more than three million words that have been published or spoken in formal settings. Pete is founder and CEO of The Expressive Press, a publisher of books in several genre. He also teaches and coaches engineers, scientists, and business persons how to write and to use writing to boost their productivity, value, and careers. He serves on the Board of Directors, Opera Theater Pittsburgh, and chairs its planned giving committee.

Book preview

1. Sarah Scrivener: When Joseph Pulitzer smells a rat, there is a rat

Wednesday, September 16, 1885, 10AM, New York City

Three simple safety rules, one violent death, one possible conspiracy

I'm an aggressive reporter for The New York World―my critics tell me that I'm too aggressive, to ambitious.  Not so.  I'm struggling to make it big in a male-oriented, hard-boiled profession dominated by cynical men who simply can't or won't respect my talents for creative journalism... for converting boring news in ways that grab readers' hearts and minds. Syracuse University recognized those talents when I graduated with honors from its School of Journalism, and Joseph Pulitzer saw them when he hired me to be his first female reporter.

Joseph Pulitzer

I'm the only woman in the huge press room among dozens of men sitting on swivel chairs behind wooden desks as they tapped out the stories of the day on their Underwoods and Royals, sleeves rolled up, cigarettes dangling from their lips, and fedoras tilted jauntily on the backs of their heads. I'm 31 years old, been on the job for almost ten years, had a few bylines to my credit, and waiting impatiently  for a breakthrough story that would make my career and billing as America's first female investigative reporter.

So I grabbed my note pad and jumped when my boss, Joseph Pulitzer, the founder and strong managing editor who sets the editorial policies, tone and direction of his two newspapers, The Saint Louis Post Dispatch and The New York World, called me into his cluttered office. It was the closing years of what would be called The Victorian Era, during which immense fortunes were bring made in oil, steel, circuses, and other industries such as newspapers. Pulitzer and his rival, William Randolph Hearst, led the parade to opulent wealth and tinseled elegance by selling the news. Pulitzer showed his wealth and power with his opulent office, which was overflowing with knobby, filigreed furniture and windows draped with so many heavy curtains that they ceased to function as sources of light.I call it dark and dreary; he calls it fashionable.

Regardless, I wanted a piece of the action and be famous and rich.

As always, Pulitzer skipped the niceties and went right to the point: Jumbo, the gigantic African elephant owned by P.T. Barnum, was killed last night around eight o'clock. He continued:  If Jumbo were owned by anyone other than Barnum, I'd go along with the reports that Jumbo's death was an accident, but I don't believe it. Who ever heard of an elephant being killed by colliding with a freight train? I smell a rat, and I want you to find out why. His nose twitched and my ambition soared.

I listened carefully: nobody has a better nose for news, especially sensational news with worldwide appeal, than Joseph Pulitzer. He is the acknowledged inventor of the 'yellow journalism' that has made newspapers the everyday entertainment for everyman. A major achievement.

He then handed me a ticket and told me to be on the noon train to Buffalo and then another train to an unknown town in Canada called Saint Thomas. He then handed me a telegram from our reporter in Buffalo and briefed me with the bare facts of the story:

❖  Jumbo died at around 8:15PM on Tuesday, September 15, 1885, seconds or minutes―sources conflict―after being smashed from behind by a special freight train piloted by William Burnip that was traveling at 'lightning speed'. The Collision took place in the clearing yards of The Grand Trunk Railroad① in Saint Thomas, Ontario, Canada. ②

❖  Jumbo would not have been on that track, and he would not have been killed, if Byron V. Rose, P. T. Barnum's Superintendent of Transportation, had obeyed the railroad's specific, simple instructions to assure that the main track was clear:

―  load the elephants after 10PM,

―  maintain a protective fence surrounding the area, and

―  allow railroad personnel to escort the animals and handlers to the circus train.

❖  Matthew Scott and Jumbo formed a loving and mutual relationship that began twenty years before The Collision and included hand and voice signals that only they understood and Jumbo obeyed immediately. Scotty held hypnotic power over Jumbo that controlled his every move, and negotiating power―some would say blackmailing power―over Barnum that Barnum could not control. Barnum must be frustrated and angry.

Then Pulitzer's aide came into the office with a small piece of paper hot off the telegraph, and summarized―Barnum, who was staying at the upscale Murray Hill Hotel in New York, had just been told of Jumbo's death and called it a major tragedy but a trifle that he and his circus would soon overcome. The show must and will go on.

Pulitzer and I chuckled at Barnum's bluster and his habit of spouting contradictions. He was cementing his reputation as the creator of wildly spectacular, grossly exaggerated, and cheerfully phony news in order to sell tickets to his museum and circus. He was yellow journalism.

I knew enough about Pulitzer to know that he had underlying motives beyond a story. Thomas Nast, the famous political cartoonist who worked for Harper's Weekly, had recently introduced, to great fanfare, a donkey to represent the Democratic Party and an elephant to represent the Republican Party. Pulitzer was a staunch democrat who could use the death of Jumbo as a metaphor for the death of republicanism. I knew that he harbored political ambitions, and nothing short of Federal office would satisfy him.

I also knew enough about Jumbo and Barnum to know that this bare-bones story was full of holes, full of unanswered questions: Why did Byron Rose ignore simple safety instructions? Was Burnip's train 'special', i.e. unscheduled, for hidden reasons? Why did Barnum promise Jumbo's remains to taxidermist Henry Ward two years before The Collision? Could anyone have planned the split-second timing needed for The Collision to take place? Could anyone have staged The Collision without Scott's help? Why didn't Scott instruct Jumbo to run away from the oncoming train, as he could have? Why wasn't Scott killed in The Collision along with Jumbo?

Many people might have wished Jumbo dead: P. T. Barnum, F. L. Perley, Jimmy Hutchinson, Byron Rose, Matthew Scott...which of them had motive, means, and opportunity?  Which of them had an airtight alibi?

Mister Pulitzer told me in no uncertain terms that it was my job to find answers to these and other questions that were sure to crop up as I proceeded with my investigations. He reminded me that I was only 31 years old, barely more than a cub reporter, the ink barely dry on my diploma from the budding Syracuse University School of Journalism, and my future depends on my performance―'don't mess this up', he said, glaring over his reading glasses and quivering his beard to show that he meant business.

He said, You might even win a prize for your article, your expose' of the rat I smell.  You smell it too, right?

He also told me that I needed to find the answers quickly, ahead of his great rival in the fight for circulation and the public's cash, William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal. This could be a front-page story of the scandal of the century―one that might involve The Greatest Showman on Earth, no less―and make my reputation as a top-flight journalist and The World's reputation as the paper to read for the top stories of the day. I