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University of Michigan William L. Clements Library

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Benjamin Brown collection, 1817-2000 (majority within 1829-1844)

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Summary

Creator:
Brown, Benjamin Franklin, 1799-1880
Abstract:
The Benjamin Brown collection is made up of correspondence, documents, and artifacts related to the showman's career as a circus owner in the early 1800s. Many of the letters relate to his journey to Egypt between 1838 and 1840, as he attempted to procure giraffes for an American menagerie company; to his other travels; and to the contemporary American circus industry.
Extent:
Approximately 2 linear feet
Language:
English
French
Arabic
Authors:
Collection processed and finding aid created by Amanda Lenter, April 2003, and Meg Hixon, December 2011

Background

Scope and Content:

The Benjamin Brown collection is made up of correspondence, documents, and artifacts related to the showman's career as a circus owner in the early 1800s.

Letters, documents, and printed materials concern Brown's early ventures as a show owner, including correspondence and financial records pertaining to his travels in the Caribbean and to the northeast coast of South America in the early 1830s. These materials document the difficulties of transporting exotic animals by sea, the type of equipment necessary to run a circus, and other logistical issues.

A later group of letters and documents reflects Brown's experiences in Egypt, where he traveled as an agent of the June, Titus, Angevine & Company, attempting to purchase giraffes. Many of these letters are from Stebbins B. June, who was also in Egypt at the time, and several items relate to George R. Gliddon, United States consul in Cairo. Brown's friend Gerard Crane wrote about Brown's business affairs in New York, and frequently reported the increasingly frail health of Brown's father. Benjamin Brown received a letter from P. T. Barnum, who asked him to find a pair of fortune tellers for Barnum's museum. He also inquired about locating a pony small enough to accommodate his performer Tom Thumb (June 29, 1843). While in London, Brown frequently received letters from his sister, Eudocia Brown Noyes, who wrote of the Brown family farm and provided other news from Somers, New York.

The collection includes playbills and broadsides advertising Brown's circus; Brown's marriage license (March 20, 1841); a pencil sketch of Brown; two passports; and three fragments of an Arabic-language scroll, offering protection to the bearer. Later material includes newspaper clippings from 1879, 1880, and 1931, on Brown's life and career, as well as an audio tape of an interview with his grandson, Benjamin Brown.

Box 2 of the collection includes correspondence, documents, printed items, photographs, and audio recordings related to the history of Benjamin Brown, the circus, and Somers, New York. Principally organized around the career and research of Carrie Brown Rorer (1903-1969), President of the Somers Historical Society and Benjamin F. Brown's great-grandaughter, the material provides insight into public history, memory, and research on the circus. Included is a typed document, "Circus History: Recollections by Benjamin Brown (1877-1962) as told to Carrie Brown Roher, (1903-1969), who was one of his three daughters," which details memories of Benjamin F. Brown and family stories about him.

Benjamin Brown acquired clothing and artifacts, including the following:
  • Two shoes, [1800s]
  • Burnoose, [1800s]
  • Black circus jacket, [1800s]
  • Pipe stem and bowl
  • Two rocks
  • Fragments from an ostrich eggshell
  • Canopic jar lid
  • Two small boxes
  • Ushabti figure
  • Harpocrates figure

The Egyptian figures may date to around 600 BCE.

Biographical / Historical:

Benjamin Franklin Brown was born in Somers, New York in 1799, the son of farmer Isaac Brown. Around the age of 14, he left his father's farm to travel around the United States. He worked as a tanner's apprentice and on boats in the Mississippi River. After a brief return to Somers, he and his brother, Christopher Columbus Brown, were hired to travel the country with Hachaliah Bailey's circus elephant. By the mid-1820s, Brown traveled with Lewis Bailey's show to Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, before beginning his own circus in the early 1830s. He traveled with his show to the Caribbean and to South America. Upon his return to the United States, he was hired by the menagerie June, Titus, Angevine & Company from Somers, New York. In 1838, he left for Egypt to acquire giraffes for the company. Brown returned to the United States two years later, after a brief stay in London, and retired from the circus industry. He then became a successful farmer in Somers. On March 20, 1841, he married Mary Sophia Cops of London; her father, Alfred Cops, managed the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London. The couple had one son, Gerard Crane Brown. Benjamin Franklin Brown died on September 25, 1880.

Acquisition Information:
1999-2018. M-4067, M-4110, M-7081 .
Processing information:

Cataloging funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). This collection has been processed according to minimal processing procedures and may be revised, expanded, or updated in the future.

Arrangement:

The manuscripts are roughly arranged according to subject and document type. Additional items are housed in the Graphics and Book Divisions.

Rules or Conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Contents

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

How to Request

Ordering Reproductions

Download PDF Finding Aid
RESTRICTIONS:

The collection is open for research.

USE & PERMISSIONS:

Copyright status is unknown

PREFERRED CITATION:

Benjamin Brown Collection, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan