Part 2 of a three-part story on the popular animal mascots and horses of the Richmond Hill Police Station.
Part 2: Sport, the Hero Canine Mascot
In Part 1 of this series, we met Tramp, the Richmond Hill Police cat who saved the police horses from rats and mice. Part 2 is a sweet, short story about Sport, a collie who saved a mother cat and her kittens.
Sport was described as an immense collie who adopted the police officers of the Richmond Hill police station in July 1924. He loved all the men in the station, from Captain Herbert Graham to detectives Mierau, Herbert, Cotter, and Newins–and all the way down the line.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 30, 1924
A few weeks after Sport adopted the police, he found a mother cat with newborn kittens in an alley near the police station. After carefully considering the situation, he decided to make preparations to bring the feline family to the horse stables attached to the station.
According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Sport gathered up some loose hay and placed it in a remote corner of the stables. The reporter noted, “Having arranged this to his satisfaction, the dog was now ready for the second part of his knightly performance.”
The horses stables at the Richmond Hill police station, pictured here in 1975, made the perfect home for a mother cat and her kittens.
Sport returned to the alley and placed one of the kittens gently in his mouth. The mother cat must have sensed that the dog was doing a good thing, because she did not put up a fight. Five times Sport returned to the alley to gather a kitten, until they were all safely deposited in the bed of hay.
When all her kittens were gone, the mother cat followed Sport back to the stables and joined her brood in the hay.
Although the police officers did not object to housing the new family temporarily, they would not be able to keep them forever. They already had Tramp, their expert mouser, and I’m sure Tramp was not too pleased about the new arrivals invading his territory.
As the Brooklyn Eagle noted, if the police could not continue to care for the cats, Sport was sure to find another way to provide for them and be their knight in shining armor.
If you’re a horse lover, stay tuned. In Part III, I’ll tell you about some of my great-grandfather’s adventures with his police horse and provide a detailed history of the Richmond Hill police station and mounted unit.
Part 1 of a three-part story on the popular animal mascots and horses of the Richmond Hill Police Station.
Part 1: Tramp the Police Cat
In March 1916, the Richmond Hill Police precinct, which covered all of Richmond Hill, Woodhaven, Morris Park, and part of Forest Hills, was designated a mounted precinct. That is, every mounted police officer throughout Queens was transferred to the 283rd Precinct in Richmond Hill.
The Richmond Hill Police in front of their station on Church Street (now 118th Street) sometime around 1914. My great-grandfather may be in this photo, possibly the man second from the right.
At this time, the Richmond Hill Police station on Church Street had only 15 mounted police–one of these men was my great-grandfather, Joseph Probst Jr. The new designation would add about 55 more mounted police to the rural precinct.
The additional horses were a great asset to the Richmond Hill police force. The large precinct, with 183 miles of streets in a sparsely developed area, was much too large to be patrolled by only by 15 mounted police and a few dozen men on foot and bicycle.
With the additional horses came the need for a larger horse stable. The new (circa 1913) police station at 275 Church Street did have stables, but not nearly enough for 70 or more horses.
The small number of horse stables at the Richmond Hill police station were not adequate for the new mounted squad. This photo was taken in 1975. New York Daily News, May 30, 1975
So in May 1916, the department leased from the Alex Campbell Milk Company a large frame stable on the east side of Sherman Street (126th Street), between Jamaica Plank Road (Jamaica Avenue) and Stewart Avenue (89th Avenue).
The building featured 36 plain and 2 box stalls, plus an open frame building that could be enclosed and modified for additional stalls. The annual lease was $1,000.
The location was perfect for my great-grandfather — he lived one block over on Ward Street (125th Street), just north of Jamaica Avenue — so he was close to his horse.
The Richmond Hill Police horse stables were located in the former stables of the Alex Campbell Milk Company on Sherman Street (126th). This was the former property of Colonel William Alexander Jones, who fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. G.W. Bromley 1909 map, New York Public Library
Help Wanted: Good Mouserfor Horse Stables
Now that the Richmond Hill Police had much larger horse stables, they needed a good to mouser to handle all the vermin that shared the building with the horses. According to the officers, who spoke to a reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1923, the stables had at one time become infested with literally millions of trillions of rats and mice.
Luckily, Tramp came along a few years after the horses moved into the stables and answered their call for help.
Tramp, described as a big-headed, earnest-faced, blue-eyed cat, limped into the station house on Church Street in 1919. (By this time, the precinct was known as the 118th Precinct.) The poor cat was limping because his front paw had been badly crushed in an auto accident. Somehow, he knew he could help at the building with the green lights out front.
Detective Sergeant Albert Hill bandaged the cat’s limb and placed him on a little cot in the reserve room. Tramp reportedly purred, meowed, wagged his fuzzy tail, and threw grateful glances toward his cat-man hero.
While Tramp was bed-ridden, the officers couldn’t do enough to help him. They brought him food and pet him every day. Then they officially admitted him to their ranks–even going as far as giving him a collar that stated, “P.D. 118 Prct.”
According to the men, Tramp responded to his new position as follows:
Bring on your blue-ribboned pussies and your lap cats! What are they compared to me? Perfumed, manicured parlor pets that simply lie around and look pretty. About as useful as a joker in a pinochie deck. I’m a cop and I’ll tell the world about it.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 17, 1923
Tramp quickly made friends with the entire department. His favorite was Officer Harry Scherer, a champion horseman nicknamed “the rough-rider of the department.” Harry was Tramp’s best friend and Tramp was Harry’s pet; woe to anyone who might say a harsh word about the cat in front of Officer Scherer!
Tramp earned his love and respect by making himself very useful as a champion mouser in the horse stables. As the Brooklyn Eagle noted, he could “swing a swarthy right.”
Even the horses became affectionately attached to the cat. After spending a hard day helping their human officers direct traffic and stop runaway horses, they welcomed the “sweet repose” that the vermin-free stabled offered them.
A month after the Brooklyn Daily Eagle first reported on Tramp, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter returned to the Richmond Hill station to follow up on Tramp. This time, the cat reportedly announced that he wanted to enter the Eagle’s movie contest.
According to the reporter, Tramp thought he had a favorable chance of being picked the most handsome brunette on Long Island. He also felt that the movie producer Ernest Shipman should sign him up for his next picture (Tramp was reportedly even willing to sever ties with the police for a starring role!)
This cat looks more like a monkey, but at least we can assume that Tramp was a Tuxedo cat. Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 22, 1923
As to what type of roles Tramp could play, the reporter surmised that, with the right director leading him, he could play any part from licking up a healthy size saucer of milk to scratching the eyes out of any person.
According to the Eagle, Tramp believed that dogs were too often cast as heroes in movies, and he was peeved that tom cats did not having starring roles on the silver screen (I guess he didn’t know about the movie cats of Miss Elizabeth Kingston, who ran a cattery in South Richmond Hill).
“A movie, like a good play, must have plenty of atmosphere, color and action,” Tramp reportedly told the journalist. “I don’t want to boast, but let me tell you that I’ve got all of those things. I may not be an artist, but I sure know a movie has got to have a cat moving around especially in the moonlit night scenes when lovers and cats come out to romance.”
I doubt that Tramp ever got to play a part in a movie. I have a feeling he wouldn’t have wanted to leave the police station for anything. And I know the men of the Richmond Hill station would not have wanted to lose their beloved police cat.
Coming Soon, Part II: Sport, the Hero Police Dog
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 30, 1924
In Part II of this story, we’ll meet Sport, the Richmond Hill Police canine mascot who rescued five kittens and their mother cat in 1924. In Part III, I’ll tell you about some of my great-grandfather’s adventures with his police horse and provide a detailed history of the Richmond Hill police station and mounted unit.
On August 12, 1897, three sea lions escaped from their enclosure at Starin’s Glen Island summer resort on the Long Island Sound. One day later, a 13-year old boy named Willie Grogan was swimming in the East River off East 84th Street when he saw what he thought was a seven-foot sea serpent–or worse–opposite East River Park (present-day Carl Schurz Park).
New York Times, August 15, 1897
According to The New York Times, Willie had just surfaced from a dive when he heard what sounded like a human cough. It was dusk, so he couldn’t see that well. He wasn’t supposed to be swimming there at that time, so he feared that a police officer had spotted him from the pier.
At first, Willie thought the cough was coming from a bald man with a long, droopy mustache. Thinking it was perhaps a local German saloon keeper taking a night swim, the boy yelled out, “Hello Dutchy!” The response was another cough.
Forgetting all of his fears of getting caught by the police, the young boy started to scream as he swam back toward the pier. All he could think of were sea serpents, sharks, and Jonah the whale.
The land bounded by East 84th Street, East End Avenue and East 89th Street–once a pleasure garden owned by Charles Sulzer–was acquired by the city in 1876 and became known as East River Park. At the northern tip of the park is Gracie Mansion, built in 1799 for shipping magnate Archibald Gracie. It was here that Willie spotted the sea lion. Photo by Jacob Riis; Museum of the City of New York Collections
As Willie continued to yell and point at the monster, the park began to fill with people who wanted to get a glimpse of the beast. The adults in the crowd correctly surmised that the sea serpent was actually one of three sea lions that had escaped from Glen Island in New Rochelle a day earlier.
The sea lion put on a wonderful display for the crowd, alternately diving into the water and leaping high in the air. The sea lion frolicked with the tug boats and put on a show for a crowd of people on an excursion steamer.
Sam McGingle and Pop Farrell got into a small rowboat and tried to capture the sea lion. They knew that John H. Starin, the owner of the pleasure park on Glen Island, was offering a $500 reward for the sea lion’s safe return.
The East River Park, 1898 Bromley map. Gracie Mansion is noted in yellow. New York Public Library Digital Collections
Their boat could only hold four people, so their plan was to lasso the sea lion and tow it back to shore. Despite the large reward, the men didn’t sound all that displeased when they returned shortly thereafter to announce that the sea lion had disappeared before they could reach it.
The next day, many young boys “hunted” for the sea lion all along the East River from 80th Street to the Astoria Ferry. Armed with hooks, small brass canons, and numerous other implements unsuitable for catching a sea lion, they searched in vain for the elusive sea creature.
Alexander Barnes, a seasoned seaman from a lumber ship called the Alice Furman, organized a search party with plans to harpoon the sea lion in the flipper. Other men hunted on the piers and along the seawall around East River Park armed with nets, clubs, and even a small boat cannon.
Although the sea lion was able to elude the East River hunters, sadly, it was reportedly killed in the Hackensack River a few days later.
According to the Passaic Daily News, the sea lion was spotted near Snake Hill (aka Laurel Hill) in the Meadowlands section of Secaucus. Fisherman Dick Eaton and William O’Brien shot the poor creature after finding it asleep on the river. The poor thing never had a chance.
The Sea Lions Escape Glen Island
The escaped sea lion was one of 16 kept in a 100×200 foot elliptical-shaped fish pond near a bridge leading to the park’s zoological gardens. Around the man-made pond was a donkey drive, where children in little carts were pulled by donkeys.
A red rail fence kept the public off the drive. A six-foot-high wire fence at the edge of the pond separated the waters from the donkey drive and was also meant to prevent the sea lions from getting out.
According to a press agent for the park, the 16 sea lions had arrived by boat from Jersey City on August 12. They were originally from Seal Rock near San Francisco, having traveled in tanks by rail from California to New York.
Search for sea lions off Glen Island. The World, August 12, 1897
On the first evening of their arrival, three of the sea lions escaped. They reportedly flopped across the dry land to another pond, and then made their way to the Long Island Sound. At the time, no one could figure out how the sea lions made their way over the six-foot fence.
Several men from the park, including Walter Bannister, superintendent of the zoo, and L.M. McCormick, curator of the park’s museum, set out in boats with nets, blankets, and poles. All they could do was watch as the three sea creatures disappeared into the Long Island Sound.
In addition to the poor sea lion that made it to the Hackensack River, one was reportedly shot and killed soon after the escape. The other sea lion was captured by way of lasso at Larchmont, just north of New Rochelle.
A week after the great sea lion hunt, a fatal tragedy led to the discovery of a small opening in the fence. It was perhaps through this hole that the three adventurous sea lions escaped.
Brooklyn Standard Union, August 23, 1897
According to the Brooklyn Standard Union, Mrs. James Crossman smuggled her pet pug, Bijou, onto Glen Island on August 21. The dog went undetected under her dress until Mrs. Crossman placed him on the ground near the donkey drive. The dog scampered under the rail fence and entered the drive, where it was in danger of getting trampled by a donkey.
One of the young boys in a donkey cart jumped out and tried to catch the dog. Bijou ran along the fence until he reached the opening. He passed through the hole, and landed in the pond, where the 13 remaining sea lions were basking in the sun on a raft.
The donkey drive at Starin’s Glen Island. To the right is the pond where the sea lions lived. A hole in the fence allowed three sea lions to escape and a little dog to lose his life.
It was mealtime. The sea lions were hungry. You can guess what happened next, so I won’t fill in the gory details.
According to Walter Bannister, the island had several valuable dogs, but they were all smart enough to stay away from the sea lions. Mrs. Crossman said she would file a lawsuit against the park to recover the value of the dog. Hopefully she never tried smuggling another dog into the park again.
A Brief History of Glen Island
Glen Island, 1881 postcard.
Starin’s Glen Island was a summer resort developed by U.S. Congressman John Henry Starin (1877-1881) in the late 1800s. Starin was a shipping magnate who owned a transportation company that included passenger excursion steamboats and almost every tugboat operating in New York Harbor. He developed the island as a grand destination for his excursion boats.
Although now one island, Glen Island was originally one large main island surrounded by several smaller nearby islands, rocky outcroppings, low-lying flats, and salt marshes. The first known inhabitants were the Siwanoys, whose largest village in 1640 was Poningo, located near modern-day Rye, New York.
In 1690, the island was the site of a farm owned by Jacob Theroulde, a refugee Huguenot from La Rochelle, France, who was one of the earliest settlers of New Rochelle. He sold the land to Johannes Berhuyt in 1701, who in turn gave the island to his son, Andre, in 1760.
Andre passed the island to his brother-in-law, George Cromwell, a loyalist whose active participation in events leading up to the American Revolution resulted in confiscation. In 1784, the island was sold by the Commissioners of Forfeitures.
John Henry Starin
Over the next 100 years, the island passed through several hands. At one time it was called Wooley’s Island for owner Samuel Wooley; it was later named Locust Island under the ownership of Newbury Davenport.
In 1847, Lewis Augustus DePau purchased the island and built a grand mansion surrounded by fish ponds, bathing facilities, and a bowling alley. He used the island for entertaining the rich and famous.
In 1879, Starin purchased the island for use as a country residence. A few years later, he bought four smaller surrounding islands—Glenwood, Island Wild, Beach Lawn, and Little Germany—which he incorporated into an extravagant summer resort and theme park he named Glen Island.
The enormous park, referred to as “America’s Pleasure Grounds,” was reportedly the first theme park in the country.
Circa 1880 map showing the five islands of Starin’s Glen Island. The fish pond and donkey drive are on the western end of the main island.
A total of 102 acres, the five islands were connected by red-roofed footbridges. Each island featured one of five cultures of the western world, with attractions including a Chinese pagoda, Dutch mill, and German castle (I wonder if Walt Disney got his idea for Epcot from Glen Island?).
There were also bathing beaches, music bandstands, dance pavilions, bridle paths, a miniature steam train, a theater, an aviary, and a zoo that featured monkeys, lions, camels, polar bears, elephants, and trained seals.
Steamboats arrived hourly from Starin’s Dock at the foot of Cortlandt Street in Manhattan.
The park opened to the general public in 1881, attracting thousands of people each day via steamboats originating at Starin’s Dock on Cortlandt Street, or by a chain ferry and trolley cars from nearby Neptune Island. By 1887, attendance had topped one million people.
The Glen Island Hotel at 88-90 Cortlandt Street, owned and operated by August Quick, was opposite the Pennsylvania ferry and Starin’s Dock, from where steamboats to Glen Island departed daily in the summer months.
In 1904, New York’s worst maritime disaster claimed nearly 1,000 lives when the General Slocum excursion boat caught fire on the East River. Although the steamboat was not heading toward Glen Island, many people lost their appetite for taking excursion trips following the disaster. Attendance at Glen Island began to steadily drop.
One of the islands was called Kleine Deutschland (Little Germany), which featured a castle designed to look like a German fortress. Here, singing waiters in lederhosen served lager beer from New Rochelle. Although this castle is no longer in use, it still stands (albeit, it was damaged in a few small fires in the 1980s).
John Starin died in March 1909. On January 29, 1910, The New Rochelle Pioneer reported that the Starin family had sold Glen Island to Ignatz Roth, a woolen importer, for $600,000. Over the next ten years, the resort changed hands a few times, going from one corporation to another as it gradually declined from glory days to decay.
In 1924, the Westchester County Parks Commission purchased the group of connected islands to add to its County Park System. Through extensive landfilling, all five islands were joined together to form one large island. A drawbridge was also constructed so that the island would have a permanent link to the mainland for easy public access.
Today, Glen Island Park is the second most widely used park in the County Parks system (after Rye Playland). The park offers picnic pavilions, boat launching, pathways, a catering hall, and a restaurant. Old cannons, sculptures, and several structures still remain from the days of John Starin’s resort. However, there are no longer sea lions at the park.
Glen Island Park
If you enjoyed this story, you may enjoy reading about the sea lions and penguins who swam in the fountain at Rockefeller Center.
This is not the cat that cried murder, but he very well could be related. This is David D. Bartow and Moses the cat at their home on Herriman Avenue in 1904. Photo by William E. Case, Queens Public Library Digital Archives.
“Hurry up! There is murder at Herriman Avenue, Jamaica. The telephone receiver is off the hook and I can hear terrible screams and groans. Send the police department down quick.”
That was the breathless message that Lieutenant Louis Keppel of the Jamaica police precinct received shortly after midnight exactly one hundred years ago, on July 31, 1921. The voice was coming from a frantic telephone operator.
The alarms bells for the reserves clanged as the lieutenant pushed the button to summon additional help. Half a dozen police officers rushed to the station headquarters in the old Jamaica Town Hall building and buckled on their revolver belts.
The Jamaica police headquarters was located in the old Jamaica Town Hall building, just two blocks from the scene of the crime on the corner of Fulton Street and Flushing Avenue (now Parsons Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue).
Some distance away, the men could hear fearful crying, alternated by what sounded like stifled groans. As they formed a cordon around the house, they drew their revolvers.
They hammered on the door and a second later could hear a scuffling of feet while the horrible shrieking increased. “I hear feet,” one policeman said. “Watch out, he may run through the rear.”
With increasing impatience, they knocked on the door a few times. Finally, a man in pajamas opened the door. Upon seeing the uniformed force outside his door, he nearly collapsed.
While one of the police officers held the man, another walked into the parlor, from where the sounds appeared to be coming. Seeing a set of gleaming eyes in the corner of the room, he flashed his light in that direction.
There on a small telephone table was a cat wailing the human-like cries. The receiver was off the hook.
“And to think,” said the telephone operator, “that I might have been a heroine.”
A Brief History of Herriman Avenue
Herriman Avenue is in the top left of this 1873 Beers map of Jamaica Village, Queens. The old town hall building, which also served as the police station, is the black building on the corner of Fulton Street (now Jamaica Avenue) and Flushing Avenue (now Parsons Boulevard). The final Herriman family home and what was called Herriman’s Brick Block are circled in red.
Herriman Avenue (now 161st Street) was named for James Herriman, who purchased a 40-acre farm on the north side of Fulton Street (Jamaica Avenue), just east of North Washington Street (now 160th Street) in 1792. Originally called Herriman’s Lane, the road led from Fulton Street to Herriman’s barn and then up the hill to the farm and beautiful woodland on the hill.
The name of the lane was changed to Herriman Avenue after it was opened and widened in 1854-55. During this time, Herriman Avenue was the most important business street in the village of Jamaica, and many prominent families lived on the avenue.
One of the important buildings constructed on Herriman Avenue was the public school, which was built in 1854 (noted on the map above and pictured below). This building later served as Fraternity Hall, aka Old Fellows Hall. It was demolished in the early 1900s.
The old public school was constructed on Herriman Avenue in 1854.
In 1858-59, a town hall was erected on Herriman avenue, just north of Fulton Street. This was a wooden structure, two stories high, with a basement housing five cells and a police court room. The first floor was fitted up for town meetings and public business. The second floor was used for justices’ courts.
The old town hall was sold to John H. Brinkerhoff in 1870. He converted the building into private dwellings.
In 1870, a new town hall was constructed on the corner of Fulton Street and Flushing Avenue (now Parsons Boulevard). This building served as the civic center for all villages within what was then the Town of Jamaica.
After Queens County was consolidated into Greater New York City in 1898, the building also housed the 58th Police Precinct, a traffic court, and a small claims court. During this time, the Jamaica police station covered 35 square miles. (Consider that all of Manhattan is 22 square miles.)
Due to the high cost of maintaining the massive Victorian structure, it was demolished in 1941.
The Old Jamaica Town Hall at what was then Fulton Street and Flushing Avenue. Today this is the site of a McDonald’s restaurant.
The Herriman Family
Very little has been written about James Herriman, but the family’s history goes back to 1620, when John Harriman reportedly landed at Plymouth Rock. In 1730, John Harriman’s grandson, Stephen, moved to Jamaica and changed his last name to Herriman. Stephen was the father of James Herriman, who was born in 1761.
James and his wife Magdalene had five children: Martha, James, Margaret, Stephen, and John. James died in 1801 at the age of 40 from yellow fever; his wife died in 1841.
Of the five Herriman children, only James II, born in 1790, stayed on the family farm in Jamaica. He and his wife had three sons (Charles, Joseph, and James Augustus) and two daughters (Catherine and Mary).
Another look at Herriman Street on this 1901 map. New York Public Library Digital Collections
According to an 1850 census report, James reportedly grew wheat, rye, and corn on the farm. The Herrimans also owned two horses, two cows, and four pigs. In later years, the family sold off a large portion of the farm for building lots.
In addition to the farm, James also owned a dry goods and grocery store in a three-story brick building on the northwest corner of present-day Jamaica Avenue and 161st Street. (The old family barn was behind the store.) He ran the store with his brother-in-law and his neighbor Richard Brush; in 1836, his son James Augustus joined the business.
During the Civil War years, when James Augustus was serving as a general with the 87th Brigade of the New York Volunteers, Charles Herriman took over the business. James Augustus passed away in 1875 following a long illness.
The north side of Jamaica Avenue, from 160th to 162nd Street, around 1900. New York Public Library Digital Collections
In the photo above, the frame store on the left (corner of 160th Street and Jamaica Avenue) was owned by Richard Brush; his residence was to the right of that. James Herriman owned the remaining buildings on the block, including the store on the corner of 161st Street, his own residence to the left of the store, and the large buildings in the center, one of which was Mr. Watrons’ drugstore.
In addition to the block on the northern side of the street, James Herriman also owned ten acres of land on the south side of Fulton Street, where he built a block of six brick, three-story and basement houses. Over the years, this block of buildings became known as Herriman’s Brick Block. The Herrimans eventually lived in one of the large houses in the center of the block–the address was 350 Fulton Street.
When James died in 1863, Charles sold the family store and got a job in Manhattan as a bookkeeper. Charles died in the Herriman family home on Fulton Street in October 1901 at the age of 71.
At the time of Charles’ death, only his sister, Catherine, the widow of George N. Codwise, was still alive. When she died in 1904, the Herriman estate was supposed to be bequeathed to the trustees of a new public library for the village of Jamaica called the Herriman Library.
According to the will of James Augustus, the library was to be housed in the stately Herriman family home on Fulton Street.
Unfortunately, the will was contested by several heirs (some distant cousins), and the library deal free through. The heirs sold the estate in a partition sale August 1904. James Augustus had made his living in real estate, so the property holdings were quite extensive, and extended beyond the village proper.
In 1919, many of the old street names in Jamaica, including Herriman Avenue, were changed to numbered avenues and streets; however, it would be a few more years before newspapers stopped referring to the old street names.
The Herrimans owned a block of six, three-story brick houses on the south side of Fulton Street (Jamaica Avenue) at 161st Street, where the Burlington Coat Factory and other shops exist today. The Herriman home at 350 Fulton Street was among these houses.
The $300, genuine cherry-colored cat from Connecticut.
“There is a sucker born every minute.” Although there is no evidence that the great showman and circus legend actually said this famous quote, P.T. Barnum has always been closely associated with it. There are many stories behind the quote, including many sources that suggest it arose from the great Cardiff Giant hoax, in which a Syracuse banker named David Hannum exhibited a fake petrified man in 1869. But my favorite story is that of the cherry-colored cat.
In 1927, Gene Byrnes created a comic based on the cherry-colored cat prank.
Barnum was always on the lookout for strange and sensational attractions for his American Museum on the corner of Broadway and Ann Street. As one version of the cat story goes (there are several versions of the tale), the owner of the cherry-colored cat used the phrase to describe P.T. Barnum.
According to this tale, one day Barnum received a letter from a Connecticut farmer who claimed to possess a genuine cherry-colored cat. The farmer asked Barnum if he would be interested in purchasing the cat, explaining that his cat would beat any of the other odd critters Barnum had on display at his museum.
Barnum contacted the farmer and said he’d gladly purchase the cat for his museum if the cat were truly cherry-colored. The farm agreed to ship the cat to Barnum for $300 (other articles say Barnum paid $25, $50, or $200.)
A few days later a crate arrived at the museum. When Barnum opened it, he found a an ordinary-looking jet-black cat inside. In response to Barnum’s angry letter, the farmer responded with a note: Dear Mr. Barnum, did you never see a black cherry? We have loads of them born in Connecticut. There’s a sucker born every minute.”
In 1871, Foster Brothers used a Barnum advertising tactic to advertise its store on Columbia Street.
Another version told by a Yale professor by the name of William Lyon Phelps suggests that Barnum may have borrowed local cats whenever he took his circus on the road.
According to Phelps, who shared his story with a reporter for the Tampa Times in 1939, he once knew a black cat that belonged to a Mrs. Sanford at York and Chapel Streets in New Haven, Connecticut. The day before Barnum’s circus reached town, the cat disappeared. Three days after the circus left, the cat was returned to his house with a card that read, “With Mr. Barnum’s compliments.”
And one more version of this tale, by Henry Collins Brown, suggests that as soon as Barnum saw that he had been fooled, he uttered the phrase, “There is a sucker born every minute.”
Whichever story is correct, there is a chance that the cat had something to do with the famous sucker quote.
In his book “From Alley Pond to Rockefeller Center,” Brown notes that Barnum rightly concluded that he wasn’t the only sucker in New York; there must be many of them. So, he promptly covered every vacant fence, wall, and window he could find with large posters proclaiming the amazing discovery he had made: a genuine, cherry-colored cat from Connecticut.
Customers got a kick out of the hoax; they knew Barnum had pulled a prank on them, but they kept it a secret and encouraged friends and family to go see the cherry-colored cat. Now, the problem was getting all these crowds of people out of the museum to make room for new paying customers.
According to Brown, Barnum instructed one of his carpenters to turn an unused door exiting onto Ann Street into an exit door for customers. He then put up a sign with a hand leading to the door that said, “This Way to the Egress.”
No one had ever heard of an egress before, so they thought it was just another strange exhibit. As they opened the door and stepped onto Ann Street, they realized they had been suckered once again.
