The Incredible True Story of P.T. Barnum, Business Huckster

Huckster, fraud, con-artist, prankster, terrible businessman, incredible businessman. Any of these words and phrases could describe Phineas Taylor Barnum — and any of them would be fitting.

P.T. Barnum was one of America’s most captivating personalities, at once a man who gleefully deceived the public for his own gain while also pulling back the curtain, eventually. Barnum was a man who could take a few thousand dollars, make millions, then turn around and lose them all, and then turn around and repeat the whole process.

But there’s so much more to The Greatest Showman than a few mysterious carnival tents. Barnum’s life — much like his attractions — is a thing of wonder.

Barnum was born on July 5, 1810 in Bethel, Connecticut, a quaint New England town within a two-hour train ride to New York City. His father, Philo, held many not terribly profitable jobs, including farmer, grocer, storekeeper, and country tavern keeper. His maternal grandfather, Phineas (for whom he was named after) really enjoyed practical jokes.

When Barnum was born, his grandfather bestowed him a mysterious tract of land called Ivy Island. He would frequently tell the young child that he was the richest boy in town because of it. At 10-years-old, P.T. finally got to visit the property — it was nothing more than a few acres of swampy, hornet-infested land.

Philo died when he was 48-years-old. P.T., at the age of 15, was now the man of the family. Philo had left nothing behind — little Barnum had to borrow money just to buy funeral shoes.

Shortly thereafter, in 1826, he went to apprentice as a clerk. Already, he was scheming to make more money — and get noticed. He traded for a wagon-load of green glass bottles in exchange for his own “unsalable goods at very profitable prices,” he wrote in his autobiography “Struggles and Triumphs: or, Forty Years’ Recollections of P. T. Barnum.”

Needing a way to dispose of the bottles along with some other worn-out containers, he created a lottery, with the highest prize being $25 worth of shop goods. He used the containers as ticket holders and quickly sold them off. The lottery became a smash hit, and eventually his businesses extended to several branches throughout Connecticut. Barnum moved back to Bethel and became a lottery agent, this time selling Connecticut lottery tickets. That led to enough success that he could open a sundry shop, the “yellow store,” along with his uncle.

But Barnum was not yet a shrewd businessman. The yellow store bled money as Barnum acquired too much debt; he bought out his uncle and closed up shop by 1833.

While operating the yellow store, Barnum also became involved in local politics — well, insofar as writing about them. After a weekly paper in Danbury, Connecticut, refused to release some of his politically-charged editorials, Barnum created and distributed his very own newspaper, “The Herald of Freedom,” in 1831, at 21-years-old.

It didn’t go smoothly.

Barnum wasn’t a journalist, and as such, didn’t really know how far he could go. Over three years he was charged with libel three times. The first time, where he accused a Danbury butcher of being a political spy, the court fined him several hundred dollars. The second was withdrawn, while the third libel suit earned him a fine of $100 and 60 days in prison. He had accused a deacon from the town of Bethel of having “been guilty of taking usury of an orphan boy.”

Barnum was 23.

But Barnum reveled in his newfound notoriety and having gained the attention of the public. He wrote, “[A]t the end of my sixty days’ term the event was celebrated by a large concourse of people from the surrounding country…. An ode, written for the occasion, was sung; an eloquent oration on the freedom of the press was delivered; and several hundred gentlemen afterwards partook a sumptuous dinner followed by appropriate toasts and speeches.”

Selling both “The Herald of Freedom” and the yellow store, Barnum and his family (he had married Charity Hallett in 1829) took to New York City in the winter of 1834.