Circus Historical Society
One of the few physical descriptions we have of early nineteenth century traveling circuses is that of the 1826 Washington Circus, owned by Isaac Quick and Abraham Mead. Having this knowledge of it, makes the show an important part of circus history. But beyond knowing it physical makeup, the company is important for two other reasons. The least of these is the fact that the circus used a canvas tent as its theater. In 1826 there were but four troupes so equipped. Brown & Bailey, who had introduced the circus tent in 1825 and three firms that adopted tents in 1826, Howes & Turner; John Miller, and the Washington Circus.
More importantly, at least to the future of the business, was Quick and Meads taking on a twelve-year old apprentice by the name of Levi James North. This boy thus began a career that proved to be one of the greatest in circus history. Over a forty-year period he was to reach the heights of critical acclaim, and public popularity through his athletic grace as a standing rider.
This was the initial season for the Washington Circus, though the managers both had prior experience. As with all the small troupes of the era, this one depended on a roster filled with apprentices. In addition to North, they were James Raymond, Master DeGroot, George Nichols, and a lad named Worth. The advantage to the owners in this system was that apprentices received no pay beyond pocket money. They were given room, board and instruction as remuneration for learning the trade. They also did much of the labor, such as raising the tent, grooming the horses, and working on the master’s farm in the winter.
North was born in New Town (now Newton), Long Island, on 16 June 1814. He was the only son of Jeremiah North (c-1775--c-1825) and Elizabeth Edsall (1786-1856). (1) The fact that Levi left home in the year after his father’s death may indicate that he wished to relieve his mother of the burden of his support.
In addition to North and his contemporaries, the troupe carried the adult riders Sam Stickney and William Lawson. Chris Hughes was the clown and Reuben French the agent. There were seven horses and a pony. These were Romeo and Juliet, trick horses, ones that performed without a rider; Fanny, the Billy Button act horse, performing in the oldest comic riding act known; Lilly, a mare used to train apprentices, and on which North learned to ride; Lady, another mare; Arab, described as a “Kannuck” horse, that is, from Canada, which Stickney rode; Doctor, which pulled the sole wagon; and the pony Bob, later used in the Button act.
The wagon carried the tent, a fifty-foot round. The ring fence and the side poles may have been loaded in a hired dray; this was so in 1827. A new center pole was purchased at each stand. No mention was made of seating, as it was with other tented shows, and may mean that there was none. (2)
According to John Dingess, their season began in Brooklyn, (3) and according to the New York Clipper they purchased a show at the Military Garden in that city. (4) There is no contemporary reference to this.
Day quoted North as saying that the company left New York by a schooner on 2 September 1826 and arrived in Richmond, Virginia, on 11 September. We found no newspaper announcement of their presence in Richmond. Quick and Mead had an interest in a menagerie in this same season. It was managed by Jeremiah P. Fogg and Epenetus Howe, and featured the elephant, Columbus.
The two shows were combined in Richmond, and later in Columbia, South Carolina. (5) It does not appear that they traveled together, or that they shared the same lots.
The circus played in Raleigh, North Carolina, as it was there that North first stood on a horse’s back, the beginning of his riding career. The training method of the time called for the boy to hold onto a rawhide strap, while the trainer ran beside the horse. He was not trained as a bareback rider, but used a pad, and in fact was a pad rider throughout his career. The English rider, James Hunter, had introduced bareback riding to America in 1822. The first American practitioner was Sam Tatnall (b.c. 1799), who learned the turn in 1823. For some years, there was no distinction made between the two types of presentation, but in time pad riding came to be thought of as a lesser art, at least in America. After five or six days of practice, Levi North made his debut before the public in Camden, South Carolina. Day described him as jumping a whip, (6) and finishing with a waving of flags. By the time the circus reached Columbia, South Carolina, in December, North was daily turning a somersault to the ground from the back of a moving horse.
One of the programs presented in Columbia has survived (they were there most of the month) and it proved to be as follows: 1. Grand Entree of the beautiful horses. 2. Horsemanship by Master Raymond (including jumping through a balloon). 3. Running Vaulting by the entire company. 4. Metamorphosis of the Sack by Mr. Stickney. 5. Song by Mr. Lawson. 6. Ground and Lofty tumbling by Mr. Stickney and the apprentices. 7. Slack Rope by Master Kelly. 8. Horsemanship by Mr. Stickney. 9. Slack Rope by Mr. Hughes. (7)
In Columbia the circus constructed a board-sided pavilion with a canvas top. The menagerie joined them there, bringing with them Columbus, a lion, a tiger, and a pony-riding monkey, or Dandy Jack. The keeper of the elephant was a black man named Bin. There were at least three performers traveling with the menagerie - George Nichols, who later introduced minstrelsy into the circus, William Kelly mentioned above, and Paddy Wells, a singer.
The two shows moved to Augusta, Georgia, and set up in opposition to each other. The circus opened on 10 January 1827, and was duly advertised in the Augusta Chronicle, but no notice of the menagerie appeared. The Dandy Jack, or pony-riding simian, made an appearance in the circus ring on closing night, 12 February. During the winter Mr. Lawson left, and was replaced by the Englishman John Rogers, who brought along his talented son, Charles J. Rogers. Young Rogers and North were both future stars of the arena. The well-known wire-walker, Dan Minnich, also joined. We mention these names to illustrate how in his apprenticeship North met so many of the people he would perform with in the coming years. Sharing the hardships of touring made for friendships in the close-knit fraternity of field shows.
The circus moved from Augusta to Savannah near to February 2. The menagerie took Columbus to Charleston a month earlier. When Quick and Mead reached Savannah they combined their show with that of John Miller and Asa Smith. This combination had then thirty performers (in the ads), and twenty-five horses. It was here that we find Master North advertised for the first time. Just five months into his apprenticeship he was deemed worthy of mention. Charles J. Rogers, Chris Hughes, Stickney, Minnich and Master James Raymond were listed along with the performers from Miller and Smith’s troupe, being Asa Smith, Master Smith, Dan Ricardo, Master Burroughs, Dan Champlin, W. H. Creighton, and George Yeaman. It was a strong company for its time.
The Savannah engagement lasted five weeks. At the end of it, Miller and Smith traveled north, and the Washington Circus went into rural Georgia. They were entering a frontier area, and one in which no previous shows had advertised. Towns such as Atlanta, Marietta, Columbus, Valdosta and Albany didn’t yet exist. Roads were few, mainly the paths set by surveyors, who cleared brush on either side of their line, but which quickly became overgrown again if there was little traffic. North said they “hacked their way” through the Cherokee Nation.
They arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, to find a hotel as the only building on the site, or so North remembered. He may have told Day that there was only one hotel, not one building, since Montgomery had a Court House, forty-nine buildings, and twenty-eight log cabins in 1819, according to an Alabama historian. (8) The troupe had to clear trees and brush in order to have a space in which to raise the tent.
From Montgomery the circus went to Selma, Alabama, and then retraced their steps back to Columbia, South Carolina. (9) It was now November 1827. By today’s roads it is 438 miles from Selma to Columbia, a trip that could be made in a little over a month by a horse-drawn caravan, but since we don’t know how much they were slowed by cutting brush, or how many stops they made in Georgia and Alabama, it is impossible to know more than the beginning and end of the journey.
In Columbia once again, Quick and Mead joined forces with Asa Smith and Ben Brown, the former having the Yeaman Circus, and the latter the Pavilion Circus. The title used in Columbia was Washington Circus. The attraction in Columbia was the six-week session of the State Legislature, with its concomitant crowd of lawyers, lobbyists, and hangers- on. When the Legislature adjourned so did the circuses.
The next stop was Savannah, Georgia, where the combined companies opened on Christmas Day. That night Levi North was allowed the first benefit of his career. This meant that he received the proceeds, less expenses, of the performance. In actuality, Isaac Quick, as North’s master, presumably pocketed the money. North rode a principal act, appeared as ringmaster for others, and contributed a well-known turn called “Metamorphosis,” in which the rider changed costumes while riding in a sack. North, Rogers and James Raymond concluded the performance by presenting the Billy Button act.
Charleston was next, opening night being 20 March 1828. The Brown brothers had not participated in the ten-week Savannah season, but had gone to Charleston, where they closed as the Smith-Washington forces arrived. It is possible that the Washington Circus disbanded when the Charleston date ended on 1 April. No more notices of them have been found, yet the performers appear in no other rosters during the summer of 1828. They reappear in September in Philadelphia as members of the Fogg & Stickney company, newly formed by Jeremiah Fogg and Samuel Stickney. The new partners called their building on Fifth Street the Washington Circus and Theater, which may indicate they were the successors to Quick and Mead. After the tenting season of 1829, the circus returned to Philadelphia. It was here that Levi North’s apprenticeship ended after just three years.
He was now his own man and could hire out for the thirty-dollar a month salary of a principal rider. He joined the ranks of the available horsemen, men such as Sam Tatnall, Sam Stickney, James W. Bancker, Andrew Levi, James Raymond, and the Turner brothers, to mention only the American-born riders.
His first engagement was a memorable trip to the Caribbean Islands with a circus managed by Welch and Ernan Handy. They visited Havana, Matanzas, St. Thomas, and Jamaica, followed by Cartagena in Columbia. Of North’s participation we know only that he appeared in the scenic riding act, “Death of the Moor.” (10)
North returned to America, arriving on 31 August 1830. Day reports that he engaged with J. Purdy Brown, and was sent to Cincinnati. Brown opened in Cincinnati on 24 September in the amphitheater on Sycamore Street that William Blanchard had opened in January 1829. Brown and Noah Ludlow had occupied the same building in July 1829. Brown’s company was to be home to North until 1837, through both J. Purdy’s ownership and that of Oscar Brown, J. Purdy’s brother. This was a long tenure for a performer with one company, and it bespeaks Brown’s care of his employees. North reflected this attitude when he was himself an employer in the 1850s.
Oddly, Brown did not advertise North’s presence until February 1833, indicating his minor place with what was one of the larger shows of the day. He was described in the advertising as, “The first equestrian in the country,” doing his splendid act of horsemanship. Yet he was not the foremost rider on the bills, that place being accorded to George Yeaman. North also appeared with Dan Minnich in the still vaulting, turning consecutive somersaults on a springboard to the number of twenty and contributed a scenic act, “The Roman Gladiator,” a la Ducrow. For this he received a salary of fourteen dollars a week, twice what Welch and Handy had paid him.
Walter Howard was hired by Brown in March, 1833, as a bare back rider, without saddle or bridle,” as the usage had it, and was given the top spot on the program. North was still presenting his act of horsemanship as was Yeaman. In April North was listed as the three-horse rider.
Purdy Brown’s programs by 1833 and 1834 were heavy with hippodrama, and in fact he was about to abandon the circus in favor of the theater when his death in June 1834 ended his amazing career.
Proof of North’s prowess was an offer he received from Raymond & Weeks in 1834 of a salary of twenty-five dollars a week, and a $500 bonus, if he would break his engagement to Brown. This North refused to do, and Brown rewarded him for his loyalty by increasing his weekly stipend to twenty-five dollars. (11) At this point the twenty-year old North was a full-fledged member of the profession, capable of performing all the standard turns expected of a rider, as well as being versed in the leaps and tumbling parts of a program. An example of his versatility was the occasion in St. Louis, when cholera struck Brown’s troupe, and North and Walter Howard did the entire program between them.
North was described as being of fair complexion, with lightcolored hair, about five-feet four inches, and having very small feet. As with most riders, he was a small man, capable of the cat-quick reactions necessary for one of his profession. However it must be remembered that he was not much below average in size for the adult men of his day. He weighed about 115 pounds.
Several commentators spoke of his grace in the ring, even comparing him to dancers of the day. This applied to his physical actions, of course. The horse was set at pace by the ringmaster, and North entered the ring and in a single bound stood upright on the animal’s back. To do this at all required athletic ability, but to do it with the elan of seeming to fly captivated audiences. Next, he performed those feats expected of a principle rider, such as bursting through paper-covered hoops, leaping strips of canvas, supporting himself on his hands, on one foot, and leaping from horse to ground to horse again, seemingly in an effortless manner. And all this was done while the horse cantered an arms length from the front seats. This was exciting to watch then, and remains so today, the essence of principal riding.
J. Purdy Brown died from eating poisoned crab in Mobile in June, 1834, and his circus was taken over by his brother, Oscar W. Brown. (12) North stayed on, as did Minnich, and Oscar Brown added H. P. Madigan and Henry Rockwell as principal riders, and Joe Blackburn as clown. Blackburn was to become a close friend of North’s.
In Vicksburg, Mississippi, in November 1834, we find North listed as a bareback rider for one of the few times in his career. In fact, so seldom was it mentioned that we wonder if it was true, and not an agent’s error in writing the ads.
In the 1835 season, Oscar Brown added Sam Stickney to his roster, Madigan having departed. Charles Mateer came to the company as well. Brown continued brother Purdy’s habit of spending the summers in the North and descending the Mississippi for appearances in the South during the winter. This method was another of Purdy Brown’s innovations in circus management.
Lewis B. Lent became Oscar Brown’s partner in 1835, and from his notes, preserved at the Somers Historical Society, we are able to gain a picture of Brown & Co.’s Circus, as it was known in 1836. There were twenty-six employees, of whom eleven were workmen. Of the performers, Sam Stickney was the equestrian manager and two-horse rider, his daughter Rosaline was the lone woman rider, North, Charles J. Rogers, Andrew Levi, Charles Mateer and Master Lipman were the male riders. This was a distinguished group, though at that time most of them had their greatest years ahead of them. The show paid a dollar a day to feed and house each person at the hotels. Three dollars a day fed and stabled all the horses.
The proprietors in 1838, when the roster was the same, were Oscar Brown, Lewis B. Lent and Jeremiah Fogg. Minnich, Blackburn, Moses Lipman and Barney Burns were present through these four years, as were the above-mentioned riders, including North. It was unusual in that era for such a group to remain so cohesive. The majority of performers seem to have moved about every two years, on average. The indication is that the salaries were satisfactory, and the management somewhat enlightened.
Brown & Co. was dissolved in Cincinnati in April 1838, when Fogg and Stickney took it over. Previous to this time Levi North moved to the N. E. Waring Circus in New Orleans in January 1838. Here, he found his friend Joseph Blackburn once more, and the two decided to visit England together.
Waring’s Circus that winter (December to February) was half of the Waring & Raymond Menagerie and Circus of 1837, which split for separate showings over the cold months, only to reunite in the spring of 1838 for the touring season, and part again the next December. It was an unusual arrangement, the reason for which has escaped research. The leading performers for Waring were Barney Carroll, Dan Minnich, Levi North and Joe Blackburn. When Waring moved to Mobile, Alabama, in February, North and Blackburn began their trip together.
Blackburn’s diary of their adventures has been published under the editorship of William L. Slout, and we follow his construction here. (13) They journeyed to Washington, D. C. via Charleston, and there agreed to appear with Charles Bacon’s circus for four weeks. Bacon was in his first season as a proprietor, after twelve years in the business as a rider. The route encompassed Washington, Alexandria, and Bowling Green and Fredericksburg in Virginia, ending up in Richmond. In addition to his riding, North performed on the springboard, doing only twenty somersaults in Washington, but reaching forty-one later on the tour. Blackburn twice mentioned that the horses supplied to North by the troupe were not up to par. North and Blackburn left the Bacon company in Richmond and went to Baltimore, and then Philadelphia. From there they went to New York, and sailed on 3 May 1838 for England.
North’s adventures in England were unique in that he was the first American headliner to appear in London, making him an ambassador of western riding. Audiences in Europe were very serious observers of the ring, and for an American rider to astonish Europeans with his ability speaks very well of North. Given the generally inferior attitude toward things American held by Europeans, it may have simply boiled down to surprise that such a backward place would produce such genius. The voyage to Liverpool took twenty-four days, and that to London, by stagecoach, another three. North arranged for a vaulting board to be made, after he had an interview with the great Andrew Ducrow, proprietor of Astley’s amphitheater. In performing on such a board, the actor would turn somersaults consecutively, his ability being measured by the number of turns he made, landing on his feet on the board, which propelled him aloft again. Once the contraption fit North’s requirements, he was able to turn twenty-five somersaults. Rehearsals at Astley’s began on 30 June 1838. North, paired against the Englishman Thomas Price, did thirty-one somersaults, increasing to thirty-two on 2 July, the first performance. Price did fewer. Ducrow had the two vaulting boards set side by side, and with British and American flags set up to enhance the rivalry aspect of the performance. Blackburn clowned for North, acting as a sort of cheerleader. The contest went on for twelve nights, in only one of which Price was the winner. North reached his zenith at forty-four on 19 July. The audiences eagerly entered into the spirit of the event.
After a misunderstanding with Ducrow, North and Blackburn signed on with Ryan’s company, then in Leeds. North began performing on August 6, doing both riding and vaulting. Blackburn reports that he (North) received great applause, and his thirty-six somersaults were thought to be amazing. The two performers signed on for six months of traveling about the north of England with Ryan. This ended 30 March 1839, and the two friends signed on with Batty’s circus, then appearing in Liverpool.
It was later, at Batty’s in Henley, that North accomplished, for the first time by any rider, a somersault on horseback. Somersaulting had advanced by degrees as performers became adept at the practice. At first, it was enough to somersault from the horse’s back to the ground, as Mr. Codet of Cayetano’s troupe did in 1811. Next came the leap on horseback that ended in the rider landing astride the horse, this was first accomplished by W. B. (Barney) Carroll. North first went feet to feet at Batty’s, on a pad, in a back somersault. We have no proof that he performed this at each exhibition thereafter. Oddly, Blackburn does not comment on the feat. When T. Allston Brown wrote his A Complete History of the Amphitheater and Circus, which appeared serially in the New York Clipper in 1860 and 1861, he credited Timothy Turner with the first somersault on horseback, dating it 1 May 1826. Brown had read the notices incorrectly, as they reported Turner’s leap being from horse to ground, not feet-to-feet on the animal. Levi North corrected Brown in a letter to the Clipper, printed 26 January 1861: “It (Brown’s history) also speaks of T. V. Turner turning a backward somersault on the horse, in 1828 (actually, 1826). It was never accomplished until I performed the feat in England, in 1839. I was also the first to perform the feat in this country, in 1840 at the Bowery Theater.” In point of fact, North was at the Bowery Amphitheater (not the Bowery Theater) in the winter of 1840-1841. Turner, at the Bowery Theater, was advertised as performing the turn in 1841. (14) Both men appeared on pad horses. A somersault on a bareback horse was not seen until 1846, when John Glenroy introduced it.
On 22 April 1839, Blackburn sailed for America, thus ending this most important account of Levi North’s career. The clown mentioned in one of his last entries that he met Avery Smith and his employee Isaac Van Amburgh, who arrived in April to begin that famous seven-year European visit of Van Amburgh & Co. North stayed in England, much honored, until the fall of 1840. Among his rewards was a medal struck on the occasion of his turning fifty-five somersaults, an unheard of number, on 21 March 1839 in Birmingham. This medal, incidentally, still exists in the rider’s family. A silver snuff-box, also a survivor, was presented to him in July of that same year for again reaching fifty-five leaps in London.
Upon his return to America, North accepted a sixteen-week engagement with Welch, Bartlett & Co., beginning in November 1840, at the Bowery Theater in New York. He was now the leading circus performer on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1900, John Dingess, who had seen all the great riders, wrote of North: “He was certainly the most classical and finished equestrian that America or any other country has ever produced . . . all the riders then in this country tried to copy his elegant ease and fashion on horseback. There was not at that time any other individual who could ride as well as he did.”
The Welch, Bartlett circus of 1840 was one of three troupes in which Rufus Welch had an interest. The circus operated under five different titles in 1840, New York Circus being the one with which North appeared. At the Bowery, he again demonstrated his somersault on the back of a horse, but it does not appear that he did this as a regular part of his act.
The Panic of 1837 was still having its effect on the entertainment business. The number of shows on the road in 1840 was down to thirteen (plus five menageries), and fell even lower in 1841. Welch hired North for a short season in the West Indies, receiving the munificent salary of $350 a week for the three week run. He returned to Baltimore in June 1841 to ride for Bartlett & Delavan, a company that Welch & Mann bought out in July, with which the new owners made a tour of Pennsylvania and New York. North left the company in Reading, Pennsylvania, because of illness, complaining of a sore chest. Prior to that, the firm as “the first rider in the world” had advertised him. His contributions to the program were his principal act, a scenic act, and a ballet on horseback with Mrs. Asten. Timothy Turner replaced him as principal rider. At this juncture one anonymous critic wrote of him: “. . . It is not a number of extraordinary feats on horseback that can make the most finished rider. North, like the dancers we mentioned, has ‘caught a grace beyond the reach of art.’ There is a mind in almost all he does. In stature, he is under the middle size, but well proportioned. His face is handsome and intellectual. He will be admired by everybody, but especially by the ladies. He is what Ducrow was in his prime, without exception the most graceful and accomplished rider of the day.”
And another said of him: “Next to Ducrow (North) is the most graceful, the most classic equestrian we ever saw. Nor is this all. He performs the most daring and startling feats with an exquisiteness, so to speak, that at once captivates and astounds the beholder.”
No other rider of his day received encomiums such as this. North was simply acknowledged as the best there was, comparable to the great Ducrow. In America, he did not perform on the springboard, as he had done in England. It may be that he didn’t need to; his riding was enough to command attention.
In January 1842, North appeared briefly for Ludlow & Smith in New Orleans and Havana. Here he performed his latest scenic riding act, titled “Italy, France & Spain,” presumably carrying the flags of those countries as he circled the ring. He returned to the mainland in 1842 to work briefly for Welch again, and then returned to England. Although he carried and raced a trotting horse on the trip, his real object was to get married.
When he had worked for Ducrow in 1838, he was also working for James West, Ducrow’s partner at Astley’s. West was well-known in America for bringing his very talented hippodramatic company from England in 1816. He had sold out to Price & Simpson in 1822, and returned to his native country. West was somewhat critical of North’s business sense, but not so much that it interfered with North’s pursuit of West’s daughter, Sophia. The two were married on 2 July 1842. Levi North was twenty-eight; his bride was twenty-six. John June, Lewis Titus and Richard Sands had the American Circus in Liverpool and London in 1842, in addition to the Van Amburgh Menagerie, in which June and Titus were partners. North signed on with the American company for one season.
At this time, Thomas Price and Levi North were two of the leading performers in England. Former rivals, they joined together in 1843 to put Price & North’s Circus on tour. At season’s end North returned to America, and joined Rockwell & Stone’s Circus (Henry Rockwell and Oscar R. Stone). This was on 18 December. This company had the distinction of being the first circus to play Niblo’s Garden in New York. The location, according to Day, operated against its success, it being too far uptown. (15) North appeared with Rockwell & Stone until 9 February 1844, when he returned to England. Price and North were partners again in the season of 1844, at the end of which North sold out to Price.
Sands & Co. was still touring England in that year, and would in 1845 as well. Sands and his partner, Lewis B. Lent, had successfully planted the canvas tent as a circus hall in England in 1842, and had reaped the benefits of summer touring apart from using theater buildings as most English companies did. Just as in America in the 1820s, the tent allowed managers to show in venues that otherwise would have been bypassed. North was hired that winter to appear with Sands & Co. in the Theater Royal at Liverpool. He was still listed on the roster in the spring of 1845.
His next move was to Paris, and the Cirque Champs Elysees. It was in Paris in June 1845 that North performed before Louis Phillipe, King of France, in the monarch’s private riding school. After a fivemonth season in Paris, he returned to America once more, signing up with Welch’s Philadelphia winter show, Welch, Mann & Delavan, for a two-month stay, November and December 1845.
Rockwell & Stone once again secured North’s services for the traveling season of 1846, as did John Tryon for the Bowery Amphitheater that winter. The North’s lived in Brooklyn at this time, and on 1 October 1846, their first child, Sophia Victoria, was born. North and those star performers such as himself were assured of work over the winter in New York or Philadelphia, while lesser lights had to wait until spring when the traveling circuses filled out their rosters. Rufus Welch, so often North’s winter employer, regularly had a cold-weather presentation in Philadelphia, as well as two traveling companies in the summer. From 1845 until 1853, Welch had the largest organization in the country.
Welch & Delavan’s Great National Circus went into the west in 1847, and North was their leading rider. Welch advertised him as “the Great Equestrian Hero, who has far surpassed the most celebrated rivals of this or any other country.” North, J. J. Nathans, and Master John Glenroy, were the leaders of Welch & Delavan’s corps, a trio not to be matched elsewhere. North had trained a trick horse, that is, one that performed without a rider (“at liberty,” as it were) named Tammany, and which North rode as a menage horse as well. He introduced the animal on this show.
One supposes that any successful man, regardless of his profession, desires to control his own destiny by becoming independent. Levi North, at age thirty-four in 1848, again invested in a circus. Stickney’s Grand National Circus, then in New Orleans, went out as a partnership of North, Sam Stickney, and J. W. Jones. The latter was the treasurer. They followed Stickney’s usual route of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, where he was well-known, a situation that prompted an observer to say that, “every show that travels there is suspected of being Stickney’s.” (16) A successful season was capped by a December to April engagement in New Orleans. Tammany came in for a fine press notice in Little Rock, when an editonalist wrote: “Mr. North’s riding was excellent, but the performance of his horse, Tammany, was a matter of astonishment to all who saw him. It is really wonderful to see this horse dancing to all sorts of tunes, changing step to the tune, and keeping the most perfect time.” (17)
Although the title of the 1848 and 1849 versions of the company were usually some form of Stickney’s Circus, most commentators called it North, Stickney & Jones, and indeed these names were part of the advertising in 1849. North was equestrian director, and Jones the manager. North did not participate in the winter exercises in New Orleans from December 1848 to March 1849, and we suspect he did not work in that off-season. He was back in April. The circus traveled east through Alabama and Georgia, and as far as Charleston. In September the route doubled back on itself; finishing with a month’s run in Mobile. It closed on Christmas Eve, 1850, and the company was disbanded.
Spencer Q. Stokes brought his circus into New Orleans in December 1850. Levi North, Puss Horner, the clown, and George Sweet, the rider, crossed from Mobile to join Stokes’ “Mammoth Circus,” and spent the following season with him. They began in February in Baton Rouge, and went upriver to Missouri and Iowa, returning to New Orleans in December.
Dan Rice opened in New Orleans on 18 December 1850, and North found employment with the famous clown. He was granted a benefit on 16 January, at which time he was advertised as “Chief of Equestrians.” He took some time off, and returned in March. Tammany was still a wonder among trained horses, and every show that North appeared with advertised the equine prodigy’s presence.
A second child was born to Sophia North in September 1861, and we would speculate that the lying-in period was the reason for Levi’s next move. He left Rice in July or August and arranged to lease from Avery Smith the premises at 37 Bowery in New York. Here he promoted his first sole proprietorship, under the title “New York Amphitheater.” It opened on 25 August, and featured several of Rice’s employees, none of them top of the line. North was able to keep the building only until 17 November, as Smith’s partners, Sands & Lent, were moved in for the winter show. North’s child, and first son, was named Henry.
Little Victoria North, aged seven, made her debut in the ring in 1852 as, “the smallest and youngest equestrienne in the world,” as Welch’s National Circus advertised her. She most likely rode a pony. The same publicity machine as “the greatest living rider of the day” touted her father. In addition to his scenic and dramatic riding, North presented Tammany, and introduced his first apprentice, one Master Willie North, a hurdle rider, who was to remain with the master for the full sevenyear apprenticeship. This boy’s real name was William H. Naylor and he reverted to that name when his apprenticeship ended. However, he remained with North on various circuses for another ten years through 1860.
Another person in North’s life was one Harry J. Turner. Seemingly a man with financial means, but no prior mention in the business, he backed North for three years, and they were close personal friends. They began their partnership in 1863 with “L. J. North’s Hippodrome Circus and Menagerie.” The hippodrome movement in America began in this season with Franconi’s Hippodrome in New York. Several circuses added the word hippodrome to their titles, but, as with North, lacked the quality of having a racing track and infield of a true hippodrome. Only two shows, Franconi and Welch, were the real item. Charles Day wrote that North’s was a canal-boat show, traveling on water and raising the tent on shore, and the route seems to allow for this, but we have no other proof.
Eighteen-fifty-three was the year in which Rufus Welch’s empire came apart. (18) As a consequence, his National Amphitheater in Philadelphia became available for that year’s winter season, and Turner and North leased the premises from November through April 1854. Here, they presented the Siegrist brothers, Charles and Augustus, in their newly-introduced act called La Perche, which was to become standard throughout the circus world henceforth. It was also in Philadelphia in March 1864 that North’s second son, Levi Ferdinand, was born.
In their 1854 tour, North and Turner were a wagon show, announcing that they had all new Concord-built wagons. These might have come from Stevens Abbott in that town. In both 1853 and 1854 North presented one of the early trained bear acts, that of Sig. Capulino. Victoria and Willie North were both on the roster, as were adult riders such as Burnell Runnells and Edgar Jones. Ben Jennings was the clown, and Charles C. Pell the agent. Two months of the summer of 1854 were spent in Canada. In December they took possession of the Front Street Theater in Baltimore.
The largest troupe that North and Turner managed was their 1855 effort. There were twenty performers, which they organized in Baltimore. The riders, other than North, were Horace Smith, Louise Marion, and William Kennedy. James McFarland had introduced the ascension act on North’s circus in 1853 and still presented it in 1855. Ben Jennings and his son Willie were the clowns. Harry Turner’s management abilities shone with this troupe, providing a good-sized profit that the partners invested in the furnishings of an amphitheater in Chicago.
Theirs was not the first circus building in Chicago, as the littleknown L. G. Butler had erected a temporary house with stoves and gas lighting in November 1854, at Lake and Wabash, but North’s effort dwarfed Butler’s. Located on the south side of Monroe Street, between Clark and LaSalle, it was two stories high, constructed of wood, ninety by 206 feet, with rooms for the performers, and stables for the horses. One-hundred-twenty gas jets supplied the lighting. Opening night was 19 November 1855. (19) The amphitheater proved to be a popular venue, and solidified North’s continual success. He leased rather than owned the building.
From 1855 through 1858 Chicago was his base of operation. From there he toured the western states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. There were usually a half-dozen competing shows in those venues in each season, most of them about the size of North’s, but occasionally a large show wandered through the territory. Sands, Nathans & Co., Van Amburgh & Co., and Spalding & Rogers exemplified these eastern aggregations.
North’s 1856 touring company, though not particularly distinguished beyond North’s presence, nevertheless was a profitable venture. Tom Neville performed as somersault rider, doing both forward and backward throws; young Tony Pastor was the clown; North’s children, Victoria, and six-year old Henry, were there, as was the apprentice Willie North. A Miss Castella and James McFarland (husband and wife) were the ascentionists.
Victoria North later described her father in this period as a very wealthy man. He had a home in Chicago, as well as a farm in Des Plaines, Illinois. He had a host of friends, and was active in politics.
Henry J. Turner died unexpectedly in the winter of 1856, and his managerial hand was sorely missed, as subsequent events seemed to prove. But there were still bright spots in 1856, among them, a $20,000 net in St. Louis in a ten-day stand in September. Returning to his Chicago amphitheater in November, North disclosed that the building had been redesigned to include theatrical appurtenances. The season, from November to late April, was not successful, and North offered the building on a sub-lease, according to the 23 May 1857 New York Clipper. Prior to that, in March 1857, it was disclosed that Harry Turner had left his entire $50,000 estate to North, a bequest that withstood a contest by Turner’s brothers and sisters.
Armed with this bounty, North took to the road again in 1857, and in addition, in the fall elections of 1857, stood for the office of Alderman in Chicago. He won office by twenty-four votes, and served for one term. In those days, elected officials only met sporadically, usually in the first three months of the year. A city of 80,000 could conduct its business in a matter of a few weeks.
When no buyer emerged for the amphitheater, North occupied it again from November 1857 to April 1858. His route for the summer season led him into Missouri and Kansas, just as it did for the much larger Spalding & Rogers circus, and the two sparred occasionally, as well as with “Border ruffians,” and “ruffianly abolisionists (sic),” as the New York Clipper described them. Kansas, the “Bleeding Kansas,” of historical note, in the time after the adoption of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, had its own civil war prior to the secessions of 1861. The two circuses survived intermittent interference, but it was also a year in which the Missouri River and its tributaries went into high flood, and it was this that ended the opposition.
North returned east, to Quincy, Illinois, where he reformed his company preparatory to returning to Missouri, once the water abated. He cut down the size of the circus, to where the Cincinnati Daily Commercial called it “inferior with performances on the cheap and nasty plan.” It could have been at this point |that his printer took over the show.
North had a brush with great national events in Quincy, just as he had touched them in Kansas, both involuntarily. When the Lincoln- Douglas debates moved to Quincy in October 1868, the organizers of the event borrowed seats that North had stored in the town. As so often happened at circus performances in those days, the seats collapsed just as the debate was beginning. No one was seriously injured.
North’s fourth and last winter season at the amphitheater in Chicago began on 22 November 1858, and ran until April. However, the circus performances ended on 22 January, and theatrical events took over the house. North lost his lease to foreclosure at some point in the run. The circus was in the hands of the printer, according to the 18 June 1859 New York Clipper, and probably had been since the reorganization in Quincy of the previous summer. The building went back to the investor who had built it.
It is in the 1850s that we see the involvement of printers in the management of circuses for the first time. Such situations were brought about through foreclosure of one sort or another based on unpaid printing bills. As the popularity of printed posters among showmen increased, and their cost decreased, and the efficacy of that method of advertising showed value, the cost of a season’s printing went from hundreds to thousands of dollars. When such figures were reached the printers began to pay attention to their accounts receivable, and were quick to foreclose on the property of companies that fell into arrears.
John E. Bacon, proprietor of the Farwell printing company in New York, was one of those who became circus owners in spite of themselves. He became a partner of Dan Rice’s Great Show in 1858 and of Levi North’s circus in 1859. North’s manager, H. L. Stebbins, was also a party to this foreclosure, probably for reasons of unpaid salary, though he may have owed his position to an investment in the show. Stebbins had been North’s agent in 1856.
There was a sale in Burlington, Iowa, in April, 1859, (20) that may have marked the transfer of ownership, which, if true, negates our statement about 1858. In any case, Bacon, Stebbins & Co. were listed as the proprietors in June. The show moved on until it was again attached in Columbus, Georgia, in December. This new action was brought by someone unknown to us, but could have been Farwell and Stebbins, protecting themselves against further loss. The Panic of 1857 was the cause of much misery in the circus business over the subsequent seasons, and no doubt contributed to the demise of North’s company. Money was scarce, prices were high, and at least five circuses were auctioned at season’s end.
Levi J. North’s National Circus was auctioned at Columbus, Georgia, on 18 January 1860. The calliope brought $1,429, the horses and “gear,” another $9,000. (21) The buyer proved to be Gilbert L. Eaton, a well-known circus agent, and scion of a wealthy Troy, New York, car manufacturer. Eaton’s career as an agent extended back to the 1847 Stone & McCollum circus. North and Eaton were partners. Miss Castella was still making an ascension daily; Andrew Levi, Herr Cline and Luke Rivers were among the performers. They opened in Troy on 21 May, visited Quebec and Ontario, and closed in Brooklyn in October. The season must not have been a successful one, as they did not repeat the partnership in 1861.
In January, 1861, the Clipper noted that Levi North was building wagons in Utica, New York. This was the hometown of Alexander Robinson, younger brother of the great John Robinson; and as time passed, Alexander announced the formation of his first circus, “Cooke’s Royal Amphitheater.” He may have chosen this name because he planned a season in Canada. Later he added “Alexander Robinson’s Great Show” to the title, and later still called it “Alexander Robinson & Co.” In any event, Levi North was listed as the director, and the Clipper listed it as North’s company on occasion. Most of the personnel were from the 1860 North roster.
Alexander Robinson had been assistant manager and doorkeeper on his brother’s circus, which was the source of his knowledge of the business. One might guess that North oversaw the performance, and Robinson tended to the business end. They were together but the one season.
We find no employment for Levi North in 1862, nor any explanation for his absence from the ring. His son, Henry, was with George DeHaven that year. It is from the 1861 season that we find North so often listed as manager or director for various companies. This would seem to indicate that, though still riding, he was not the luminary he had been. This cannot be unusual, after thirty-five years of being one of the leading principal riders in America.
That North still had some money is proven by his investment in 1863 in the Antonio Brothers Circus, which was offered for sale in late 1862. The new owners were William Lake and Horace Norton and North. Lake had just ended his partnership with John Robinson, Norton was a two, four and six-horse rider, and North acted as rider and manager. The show opened in Springfield, Illinois, where it had wintered, and spent most of the season in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. The title was “Lake & Co.’s Great Western Circus.” North sold out in Cairo, Illinois, on 8 December.
Dan Castello and George W. DeHaven framed “Dan Castello’s Great Show” in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1864. North’s friend, Gilbert Eaton, was the agent, and North was the manager. This was a steamboat show (Jeannette Roberts) plying the Mississippi and the Ohio and the Wabash. They stayed close behind the Union Army as it moved down the Mississippi, and played in the camps in Arkansas, and in Vicksburg. Both of North’s sons, Henry and Levi, were with the troupe. Don Hensey located an announcement in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, paper that reported that the government had confiscated the steamboat, but we know no more of that incident. In Memphis in October Castello advertised that the company was reorganized, and materially strengthened. The partners appear to have parted ways, perhaps in Natchez. Levi North then accompanied DeHaven to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where DeHaven and Andrew Haight framed the “Great United Circus” for the 1865 season. North was listed as director, and appeared in the ring. Levi, Jr., eleven years old, did an act featuring wild ponies. On 5 July, North left the show in Council Bluffs, Iowa. His reason for doing so remains unknown.
We find him with Levi, Jr. in St. Louis in April 1866. George H. Metcalfe and a partner had constructed what they called a Hippotheatron (and which became the Olympic Theater), opposite the Southern Hotel, which they opened on 23 April with what they said was North’s Circus. However, none of the performers had any previous ties to North. When the show left for the summer tour in June it was as the “New York Champs Elysees Circus,” the third season for that title. North was the equestrian director. It would seem that he was trading on his name in these positions with western shows; certainly, his fame was such that his presence was heavily advertised (“The Veteran Pioneer of Circus Amusements”).
At the age of fifty-two in the winter of 1866-1867, North fulfilled an eight-week engagement with L. B. Lent’s New York Circus at the Hippotheatron, Lent’s building on 14th Street in New York. He was a marvelous success, according to Charles H. Day, “astonishing his many admirers by the evident retention of his powers of his younger days.” It would seem that from this point “America’s Horseman” rode no more.
Perry Powers, a livery stable operator in Cairo, Illinois, framed a new circus for 1867. The title, “Powers Combination Circus,” had some first-class acts, despite its small size. Tom Burgess, Willis Cobb, Oliver Bell, Don Santiago Gibbonois (John Fitzgibbons), Fred O’Brien, and Ed Schofield were on the roster. It also appears to be Frank Lemen’s first circus job. North was again the manager. The circus traveled on a steamboat.
He suffered a tragedy on 18 April when Levi, Jr., a member of the company, died of consumption in Columbus, Indiana. He was not quite fourteen years old. With this, none of North’s children were then in the business.
George F. Bailey, in 1868, hired North to present trained horses and ponies. And in 1869, William H. Sheppard and Charles H. Haskins equipped and organized “Levi J. North’s Circus,” at Joliet, Illinois. For this troupe, North presented a liberty act composed of wild ponies. These were presumably the same ones that Levi, Jr. presented on the Powers’ show. North had trained them for his son. Sheppard offered the circus for sale in October, and James T. Johnson bought it.
Still on tour in 1871, North had an educated horse, one Mare, which had replaced the famous Tammany, and which he carried to Agnes Lake’s Hippo-Olympiad. He also acted as equestrian director for the circus. In these reduced positions, which he accepted because of his need for income, no onus attached to him in the press. His was still considered one of the great names of the circus world.
In 1872 he joined the “Grand Forest City Circus,” operated by the Newton brothers out of Hantsburg, Ohio. This was a twenty-nine wagon show that closed in Pennsylvania on 24 August, citing bad business. The Newton brothers were not alone in what was considered a season without prosperity (except for the Barnum colossus). Twenty percent of the forty-five circuses on tour closed early. North was listed as a rider in the New York Clipper, but this is most likely an error.
Chronicling North’s professional journey is the easiest part of honoring him, for he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He was the first of our great principal riders, and none of those who later rose to duplicate his feats seem to have had the skills he showed in any more measure. But his personality is almost completely obscured in the tale of his efforts in the ring. His success indicates hard work and the singleness of purpose we would suppose such a career required. As a manager of his own circuses and those of others, he must have had that gift for organization that such tasks required. His long-time employees, such as Charles C. Pell, James McFarland, Tom Osborne, Miss Castella, and William Naylor, worked for him season after season, indicating their satisfaction with his management. We know of no censure of him by either employees or rivals.
We would mark his career as a showman a success. His problems arose from the financial Panic of 1857 and the Missouri River floods of 1858. The collapse of his 1859 tour occurred in a year in which there was no money in the South, which was where he toured. He was not alone in suffering for these reasons.
His declining years were spent in retirement in Brooklyn, in such genteel poverty that his daughter Victoria and son Henry had to support him. Charles Day wrote that North was morbidly sensitive about his reverses and resisted most efforts to interview him.
He retired to his Brooklyn home, where in 1884 he was reported to be ailing with bronchitis and liver trouble. Frank Pastor, the clown, died in June 1885, and North attended the funeral of his old acquaintance. He caught a cold at the ceremony, which led to a lung hemorrhage. He died on 6 July 1886, at the age of seventy-one. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Perhaps the most lyrical of the homage’s paid to North was that of Mons. LeThorne (John M. Dilks), the acrobat and strongman, who was quoted in the 18 July 1885 Clipper as saying: “The style of this remarkable man was of his own creation. Many attempted to imitate it, but none succeeded completely. We shall never look upon his like again.”
Footnotes
1. Gail Binwell genealogical investigation, 1995. Author’s collection.
2. Charles H. Day, “The Eventful Career of Levi J. North,” New York
Clipper, 6 March 1880.
3. John Dingess manuscript, Hertzberg Collection, San Antonio, TX, Public
Library.
4. New York Clipper, 11 July 1883.
5. Columbia (SC) Telescope, 8 and 15 December 1826.
6. Charles H. Day, op. cit.
7. New York Clipper, 18 January 1864.
8. Milo B. Howard, State of Alabama, Department of Archives and History,
letter to author, 16 January 1979.
9. Stuart Thayer, “Trouping in Alabama in 1827,” Bandwagon, March-
April, 1982.
10. Charles H. Day, op. cit.
11. Ibid.
12. Noah M. Ludlow, Dramatic Life as I Found It, (reissue, New York,
1966.)
13. William L. Stout, ed., A Clown’s Log, (San Bernardino, 1993).
14. Providence (RI) Republican Herald, 2 July 1841.
15. Charles H. Day, op. cit.
16. Anon., New Orleans Program, reprinted New York Clipper, 18 December
1858.
17. Little Rock (AR) Arkansas State Gazette, 29 June 1848.
18. Stuart Thayer, “Rufus Welch’s Worst Season,” Bandwagon, November-
December, 1990.
19. Walter C. Scholl, “Early Chicago Circus History,” cited by George
Chindahl, The White Tops, November-December, 1954.
20. Hannibal (MO) Daily Messenger, 13 April 1859, and the New York
Clipper, 30 April 1859.
21. Cincinnati (OH) Enquirer, 29 January 1860 and the New York Clipper,
24 January 1860. The calliope may have been left in Chicago as the
Cincinnati Enquirer says it was auctioned in that city.
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