Jumbo the Elephant had been captured as a two-year-old calf in 1861 in the French Sudan, bought by a collector, and sold on to the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. In 1865 he was transferred to London Zoo, where he was named by his keepers and became a national institution, giving rides to thousands children. Barnum himself recalled in his autobiography Struggles and Triumphs: "I had often looked wistfully on Jumbo, but with no hope of ever getting possession of him, as I knew him to be a great favorite of Queen Victoria, whose children and grandchildren are among the tens of thousands of British juveniles whom Jumbo had carried on his back. I did not suppose he would ever be sold". But in 1882, as a result of our letter to Bartlett, Barnum secured his wish, and Jumbo was purchased for $10,000. There was an outcry, and attempts were made to stop the sale. The Daily Telegraph summoned up the national mood: "No more quiet garden strolls, no shady trees, green lawns, and flowery thickets... Our amiable monster must dwell in a tent, take part in the routine of a circus, and, instead of his bygone friendly trots with British girls and boys, and perpetual luncheons on buns and oranges, must amuse a Yankee mob, and put up with peanuts and waffles". Farewell to Regent's Park On Wednesday last week, between 9 and 12 o'clock noon, the keepers managed to get Jumbo securely bound and boxed up in the huge timber cage, nearly as heavy as himself, constructed for his carriage to the trans-Atlantic seaport. In the afternoon it was dragged by a powerful team of dray-horses out of the gardens of the Zoological Society.
At the Docks On Thursday it reached the St. Katharine's Docks near the Tower of London, a distance of four and a half miles, and was hoisted by a steam-crane on board a barge which conveyed it down the river to Millwall. Here on Thursday afternoon it was lifted from the barge and placed on a quay of the docks where it remained until Friday. On that day the steam-ship Assyrian Monarch which had been loading cargo and coaling on the opposite side of the dock was warped over to the quay where the elephant was to be put on board. The two keepers Newman and Scott placed themselves on the little platform of the cage in front of Jumbo and the hoisting commenced. The American, "Elephant Bill", stood at the corner giving directions to the workmen so as to prevent any unnecessary swaying by the men having hold of the guiding-ropes while Scott leaned down patting Jumbo's trunk and keeping him from moving more than he could help. Quickly the box rose to a height sufficient to clear the bulwarks, then was traversed over the hatch and lowered gently to its resting place the whole work being completed in exactly eight minutes. When it was pronounced "All right" by Newman three ringing cheers were given by those on deck and responded to from the shore.
The food provided for the elephant upon his passage, which will be about thirteen days is two tons of hay, three sack of oats, two sacks of biscuits, one sack of onions (a delicacy of which Jumbo is exceedingly fond). A large company of guests had been invited by the owners to witness the embarkation of Jumbo and the distinguished visitors were also invited to a luncheon in the saloon of the vessel. Two or three complimentary toast were proposed and a gold medal was presented to the American elephant keeper, Mr Newman, as a token of the respect and esteem he had gained amongst his English friends during his sojourn here. Mr Bartlett replied for the Zoological Society of England, in doing so giving a short history of Jumbo. No one, he said, liked the elephant more than he did, he was an extraordinary good-tempered beast and while he had many friends he had not an enemy in the world. At the same time he was subject to periodical outbreaks, which from his immense strength made him, although the most amiable, the most dangerous animal that Mr Bartlett had ever known. The concluding remark that he would like to see Jumbo again in England some day, and that if not perhaps he might go to America to look at him, was received with loud cheers. The Assyrian Monarch belonging to the Monarch line of the Royal Exchange Shipping Company left Millwall Docks at five o'clock on Saturday morning. She was slowly towed down the Thames to Gravesend her passage being eagerly watched by multitudes of spectators in boats and ships and on the banks of the river who loudly cheered Jumbo at his departure from England. Mr Tallet of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals remained on board, and at Gravesend, Lady Burdett-Coutts the benevolent patroness of that society came on board with her husband and visited poor captive Jumbo in his box and gave him a parting feast of buns. The Assyrian Monarch was signalled off the Lizard Point and Scilly Isles on Monday afternoon when all was reported to be well on board. Jumbo Arrives Safely At day-break on 10 April 1882 the Assyrian Monarch arrived at New York's North River and Jumbo's fateful adventure in America was about to begin. From the Illustrated London News, 1 April 1882.
P.T. Barnum's prize elephant Jumbo was killed September 15, 1885, crossing railroad tracks in St. Thomas, Ontario. The collision derailed the train, and 150 people were required to haul the elephant's body up an embankment. Jumbo's death was a great loss to Barnum's show, but the loss was somewhat mitigated when both the taxidermied hide of the beast and its skeleton were exhibited together. On the night of September 15, 1885, the Greatest Show on Earth was playing the town of St. Thomas, Ontario. Twenty-nine elephants had already finished their routines and had been led down the railroad tracks to their waiting cars. Only the smallest, named after Tom Thumb, and the largest, Jumbo, remained to close the show. As keeper Matthew Scott finally guided the two mismatched performers along the tracks, he heard a whistle. The unscheduled express train hit Tom Thumb first, scooping him up on its cowcatcher and knocking him dawn a steep embankment, breaking his leg. Not willing to attempt the embankment and hemmed in by the circus train on the other side, the fleeing Jumbo was hit from the rear. The locomotive was derailed but Jumbo was crushed, his skull broken in over a hundred places. Still conscious and groaning, the dying elephant was comforted in his final moments by Scott. It took 160 men to drag the immense body to the edge of the embankment and roll it down. Overcome, Scott lay down upon his old friend and lapsed into a deep sleep while souvenir hunters approached with their knives.
It took two days for the Rochester-based taxidermist Henry Ward to arrive on the scene. After measuring every last detail of the animal, he and six local butchers fought through the heavy fat and the thick odor to recover the 1,538-pound hide and 2,400 pounds of bone, for Barnum was determined to have two Jumbos to replace the flesh-and-blood model, one made of skin, the other a skeleton. When Barnum heard that the hide could be stretched to make an even bigger beast than Jumbo had been, he wrote Ward, "By all means let that show as large as possible
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