In April, 1793, John Bill Ricketts opened the first multi-act circus in America in a building in Philadelphia. He thereby began an era of circus performances in temporary arenas that lasted until J. Purdy Brown went on the road with the first canvas circus tent in 1825. The use of wooden arenas did not cease with Brown’s adoption of the tent; it took another ten years for the canvas theatre to predominate.
J. Purdy Brown died in 1834, when he was about thirty-five years old. He apparently left no autobiographical notes, thus we do not know how he came to be the first showman to use a tent. The fact that he had it in his first season as a proprietor, and that he traveled far and wide in the country (oddly never in his native New York State, nor in New England), leads us to conjecture that he struck upon as a means by which he might cover a lot of territory. In other words, he planned not only a circus, but a tented circus that would allow him greater range.
If Brown’s original tent lasted two seasons, it was a thirty-six foot round top. T. B. Nathans saw it in the fall of 1826 and so described it. (1)
Nathan A. Howes, Aron Turner and Sylvester Reynolds were partners in 1826, in the first circus venture for all of them. As with Brown, they had a tent in their first season. A chronicler wrote:
After several days spent in handling the canvas, it was decided to give a performance under it. For this performance the tent was pitched on a lot nearly opposite “Stonehenge,” the present palatial residence of Seth B. Howes. The exhibition was given on town meeting day, April, 1826. (2)
Later in 1826, the third tent came into use, a fifty-foot round top on Fogg, Quick & Mead’s Washington Circus, which was playing in the southern states. (3) John Miller advertised “Pavilion Circus,” in Philadelphia. This was in Tivoli Garden, one of the early outdoor amusement places common in large cities in the early nineteenth century. Because of the nature of the place and the fact that the circus did not travel, we surmise that this was a wood-walled arena with a canvas top.
Hugh Lindsay, a clown, traveled with John Miller’s menagerie in the early eighteen-twenties. In 1859, he published an autobiography which states, if we read it correctly, that Miller had a tent in 1825. Miller’s caravan was more than a menagerie, yet less than a circus. He had Lindsay as clown, Dan Minnich as acrobat and walked the tight-rope himself. Lindsay’s dating is not specific, nor very clear to us; therefore we urge caution in accepting 1825 as the first year they performed in a tent. (4)
With all this sudden introduction of canvas in 1825 and 1826, one would expect its use to grow, but such was not the case. There are references to Benjamin Brown having a tent in 1828 and 1829. Tatnall was connected with a Pavilion Circus in the same year. Benjamin Brown’s “Royal Pavilion Circus” visited the Caribbean in 1830 and 1831 and in his list of assets is a center-pole.
The usual practice was to buy a center-pole at each stand, since the small dray wagons that circuses used would not accommodate anything that long. The tents were all push-pole rigged, of course, and a fifteen to twenty foot pole sufficed.
George F. Bailey is on record as saying that Aron Turner used a ninety-foot top in 1830. In 1831 both Fogg & Stickney and Captain Page had the term “pavilion circus” in their ads. In 1833, Hugh Lindsay and Nathan Miller took out a small circus for which they “got a new canvas,” according to Lindsay. (5)
Some circuses were still appearing only in wooden arenas in the late 1820s and early 1830s, some used buildings in the winter and tents in the summer, and still others used side-walls, open to the sky. From the wording in advertisements, we can usually identify those in buildings, but no notice has ever been found indicating that a circus was using sidewalls. The appearance of ads stating “pavilion circus” would seem to be attempts to distinguish between a tent and an open-air arrangement. Certainly, we cannot be far from the truth if we assume that a stand in a small town - Portsmouth, Ohio, for instance - is definitely not in a temporary wooden building. It would also seem safe to state that no one-day stand took place in such a structure.
The word “pavilion” was seventeenth-century usage for a building of light construction used for pleasure or amusement. The question arises that since such structures as the Brighton Pavilion or Astley’s Pavilion in Wych Street, London, were surely not tents, why should Brown and his contemporaries use of the word indicate anything other than a building? The word “tent” was known and used, after all. Why did he not say that his arena was a canvas tent?
The proof of the use of the word “pavilion” as meaning a canvas tent would seem to lie in the progressive use of the word. No circus ad prior to 1850 (the limit of this research) uses the word “tent.” Only “pavilion” can be found. The earliest use of the word “tent” in connection with a menagerie appears in 1832; with a circus in 1847. Both references are newspaper comment, not advertisements. (6) Even after the clear establishment, by iconography, of the use of the canvas tent, the word “pavilion” was in exclusive use in advertisements.
Having so little information from the showmen (more properly, from the showmen’s ads), through 1833, we find in 1834 a sudden plethora of tent descriptions, most of them from multi-tented menageries. The tent may have been so common as not to be worth mentioning, but when two, and even three, tents came into use, it was worth pointing out.
Gregory, Washburn & Co., which was a combination of two small animal shows, had two pavilions in 1834, and a capacity of 4,000 persons. For an extra 12 1/2 cents, the public could view a cosmorama of the world, one of three long paintings mounted on rollers and usually fixed inside a wagon the side of which let down. The cosmorama was most likely in the second tent.
J. R. and Wm. Howe, Jr. & Co. also had two tents, in one of which Saunders G. K. Nellis, the armless man, could be viewed. Twelveand- a-half cents was asked for this as well.
Purdy, Welch, Macomber & Co. had two tents and a capacity of 4,000. They offered an exhibition of paintings and engravings in one of them.
Three of these caravans had three pavilions each. June, Titus, Angevine & Co. started the season advertising a tent 170 x 86, thirty feet high. Later, they spoke of three tents, 80 x 120 (an eighty with one forty, in modern parlance). They carried an exhibit of wax figures and a fifteen-foot anaconda as extra attractions, but surely they didn’t need three tents for that. Different notices said they had between twentynine and thirty-six wagons, perhaps two-thirds of them cages. Thus, we could assume that they had two tents of cages and one of other attractions.
Purdy, Welch & Co. also had an exhibit of paintings and engravings and as many as twenty cages. They had three tents and a capacity of 6,000 people.
Macomber, Welch & Co. claimed 120,000 square feet of canvas in three tents. They had seventy-five animals, but no extra exhibits.
Raymond & Ogden was the only 1834 menagerie to have but one tent, and admit to it. Their capacity claim used the figures 600-800.
Five of these caravans also introduced bandwagons in 1834, something not known prior thereto. Having multi-tent shows and bandwagons come on the scene in the same year makes us wonder if there wasn’t collusion between the managers even prior to the establishment of The Zoological Institute in January of the following year.
The reader will have noticed that tent capacity figures seem to center at about 2,000 persons per pavilion. This would include up to five hundred seats on the “ladie’s side” of the ring. In actuality, if 2,000 persons crowded into one of these tents, it would be difficult to see the displays. There are some references to complaints that the tents were so crowded as to make the visit uncomfortable. The cages would be in a large circle at the side-walls and the ring in the center. A menagerie ring would not need to be as large as a circus ring, since their acts were mainly monkeys riding Shetland ponies. Fifteen hundred people would seem, from reviews, to be thought a large crowd.
Howes, Sands & Co.’s circus had a sixty-foot round top in 1834, with a twenty-foot dressing tent. When they were combined with the Tippoo Sultan menagerie in the Zoological Institute in 1836, they had two hundred-foot round tops.
Aron Turner was in the Institute only the first season. In 1836, he went back to his own circus and in that year had a seventy five-foot round. He had a forty-foot ring, leaving fifty feet on each side for seats, which may well have been only four or five tiers high. (7) By 1842 he had a hundred-foot round top.
Once the Zoological Institute collapsed, the reference to tent number and size was apparently academic, as so little appears. It became the usual thing to have an after-show in a separate pavilion, which one entered from the main tent for an extra charge. Thus, most menageries had two tents, most circuses (which didn’t ordinarily have extra exhibits) one.
In 1839, June, Titus, Angevine & Co.’s circus valued their canvas at $500, their poles at $100, and their seats at $100. (8) The 1840 version of S. H. Nichols’ Victory Arena used a bright red tent; in 1842 he had a 150 x 80 pavilion. Rockwell & Stone’s 1842 and 1844 tent was a seventy-five foot round accompanied by a fifty-foot side tent. Gilbert Spalding carried a ninety-foot round in 1844 and had several stands at which people were turned away after 2,000 tickets were sold. Rufus Welch brought out a tent 140 feet long in 1846. The largest tent used to that time, according to the ads was on Seth B. Howes’ “Howes’ & Co.’s Great United States Circus” in 1847. The show drew large crowds wherever it went. For the first time, two entrances were offered, one for single men, one for couples.
As the tents grew in size, still having but one centerpole, the problem of having cloth ceilings arose. If the seats were more than five or six rows high, the heads of the people on the top row were very close to the canvas and if the cloth was stretched, by age or dampness, it was possible that it hung so low as to obscure sight. Gilbert R. Spalding solved this by inventing the quarter-pole. By inserting these between the side-walls and the center-pole, he raised the canvas so that all could see. Further, he was now able to raise the number of tiers in his bleachers (to eleven, it is said) and therefore, sell more tickets. Generally, Spalding is credited with doing this in 1850. We think this comes from his obituary in the 17 April 1880 New York Clipper. However, his advertisements in 1847, one of which we reproduce here, show a tent with quarter-poles. Nothing is mentioned in the text of any of his ads. Fred Dahlinger has suggested that the name “quarter-poles” implies that there were four of them and that they divided the tent into four parts.
The above woodcut is one of the earliest renderings of circus tents we’ve found. Of course, showmen didn’t expect the public to come to the grounds to see the tent; that is why their ads featured equestrians and clowns. A few tents appear in advertising in the 1850s. Shows that had ascension acts as free outdoor exhibits often pictured the wire-walker going up the wire stretched from ground to the top of the center-pole. None of the several examples from the 1850s, however, pictures tents with quarter-poles. It may have been that only the largest tents could make good use of them.
We said that the advertising referred to tents as pavilions. The circus men themselves used the word “canvas” when speaking of tents, thus making that word operate to describ both the object and its substance. The 1842 June, Titus, Angevine & Co. route book for its western division lists a “canvas director,” one J. C. A. Hobby. We have found no earlier reference to someone charged with handling the tent. By 1863, the Clipper was referring to “boss canvasman” and “canvasmen.” In the 1870s their names were listed along with other members of the staff.
The phrase “top canvas” is occasionally seen. We think it is a corruption of “topped canvas,” to distinguish a tent from a side-wall arrangement. From top canvas comes our modern term “top,” meaning tent.
The tent was the mark of the traveling circus; it is difficult to imagine what other type of theatre the showmen might have used. It was inexpensive, simple of design, easy to transport and simple to assemble. It provided the essentials of cover, privacy, and expandability. It has been the visual and emotional essence of the circus for over a hundred and sixty years.
1. Stuart Thayer, “The Nathans, a Circus Family,” Bandwagon, xxix:2 (1985), p. 24.
2. Brewster Standard, 25 February 1887. This information was provided by Leslie Symington, researcher, Southeast Museum, Brewster, New York.
3. Stuart Thayer, “Trouping in Alabama in 1827,” Bandwagon, xxvi:2 (1982), p. 20.
4. History of the Life, Travel and Incidents of Col. Hugh Lindsay, the Celebrated Comedian (n.p.), Philadelphia (1859), p. 25.
6. New Hampshire Spectator (Newton, NH), 11 August; unidentified Cumberland, Maryland, newspaper quoting from Georgetown Advocate (n.d.), 1847. Information supplied by James Stegall.
7. George S. Cole in the 1905 John Robinson Circus route book.
8. List in vertical files, Somers Historical Society, Somers, New York.
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