The Book of Daniel Drew

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
Ill THESE years of mine as a calf-drover were broken in upon a little later. I went into the circus business. Some time after the War of 1812, the travelling circus came into fashion. The people in those days lived in little settlements. They were lonely. They didn't have much amusement. So, when times became settled once more and the farmers had recovered from the war, the Rolling Show came in and did lots of business. Only we didn't call it a show in those days, nor a circus — no siree! The people wouldn't have come near us. Because the preachers thundered against circuses and all such worldliness. To get the trade of the church people, we called it a "Menagerie" and "The Great Moral and Educational Exhibition." Putnam and Westchester counties were headquarters for the circus business in early days, particularly Star's Ridge, in the town of South-east, and Purdy's Station, just below Croton Falls. I guess the reason for this was, because those two counties are just north of New York City. Being a beautiful farming region, with Bridgeport, Conn., and Danbury just across the State line, this region became naturally the winter quarters for the New York shows. The circuses would start out from our section each spring, and come back to us in the fall, for winter quarters. In this way all our part of the State got to talking circus. There was old Hakaliah Bailey, of Somers — Somerstown Plains it was, back in my day — five miles below Carmel. He brought over the first elephant ever seen in the county. "Old Bett," he called her. In front of the tavern there in Somers — the Old Elephant Hotel they called it — you can see even yet a pedestal with an elephant carved on top of it. And Seth Howe, down at Turk's Hill, near Brewsters', when he came to make his fine summer home there, ...