Annotated and Abridged Artifact

Abridged Text

It has been asserted of General Tom Thumb, that he has kissed more women than any living man. [1 »] I can with equal assurance assert that I have shaken hands with more human beings, royal and plebian, rich and poor, great and small, old and young, native and foreign, than any other woman in existence. I do not say this boastfully, but only to show how large has been my experience for the years I have been before the public.

I have endeavored to adhere strictly to facts, and if the personal pronoun appears rather prominently, it is to be remembered that in telling one's own story that seems necessary.

To begin my story after the conventional manner, with my ancestry, I trace my pedigree directly back through Richard Warren of the Mayflower company, to William, Earl of Warren, who married Gundreda, daughter of William the Conqueror. He died in England in 1088, which is as far back as I have traced my ancestry; but I fancy this is sufficient to prove my English and American nationality. [2 »]

My maiden name was Lavinia Warren, [3 »] and I was born October 31, 1841, on the old Warren farm in the town of Middleboro, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Had I possessed the power, I would not have chosen any other place wherein to make my first appearance on the globe to anxious and admiring attendants. The atmosphere pervading the localities made famous in our country's history no doubt imparted to me many characteristics, among them my intense patriotism. My entrance into the family circle had been preceded by two male and two female children, and was followed by two male and one female, all of whom were above the ordinary stature, except the youngest, named Minnie, [4 »] born June 2, 1849.

To return to my infancy, when the ceremony of weighing the baby was completed, it was announced that I tipped the scales at six pounds. Until I was a year old, I was of the usual size, from that time, I increased in stature very slowly, not growing in five years so much as an ordinary child would in one. I continued growing at that rate until I was ten years of age, and then ceased entirely. At that time I was twenty-four inches in height and weighed twenty pounds. I attended school with other children in our neighborhood, and found no difficulty whatever in keeping up with them in my studies at home, my dear mother taught me to sew, knit, cook, and do all manner of housework, so that I really became an excellent housekeeper. To overcome the inconvenience of my diminutive stature, my father constructed for my use a pair of light portable steps, which I could readily handle, and standing upon which I could easily reach the topmost shelves in the closets.

When I was sixteen years of age, the district school had become so large it was decided to divide it and form a primary department, consisting of pupils between the ages of four and nine years. The school committee waited upon my parents, and through them offered me the position of teacher. I accepted, and at the reopening of the school was duly installed in my new undertaking. I was very zealous in my duty, and at the end of the term received the commendation and thanks of the committee for the excellent discipline I maintained, as well as the progress made by the pupils under my tuition. The youngest even was far above me in stature, yet all seemed anxious to be obedient and to please me. When I had occasion to reprimand, it would be received with meekness and repentance. I thought I had now found a proper and genial vocation, but during the subsequent vacation an event occurred which entirely changed the tenor of my life.

The idea of a career as a public character had never occurred to me or my family. It was suggested that summer by a cousin who came to visit us from the West. He was the manager of a museum, a "floating palace of curiosities" on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The prospect of travel, the going "out West," as we then called it, made me eager to return with him. I added my entreaties to his, when he broached the subject to my parents and begged to be allowed to go. After a rather stormy family session during which my eldest brother declared that if I went he would leave the house forever, my parents gave a reluctant consent, binding Mr. Wood [5 »] by solemn promise to keep me under his personal supervision and cousinly care.

My cousin owned a floating theater, minstrel hall, and museum combined, upon one large boat, which was towed by a smaller steamer wherever it was desirable. These steamboats, being flat bottomed, all their machinery is on the lower deck, and thus the saloon above reaches the whole length of the boat, from bow to stern.

It seemed impossible to make people understand at first that I was not a child; that, being a woman, I had the womanly instinct of shrinking from a form of familiarity which in the case of a child of my size would have been as natural as it was permissible. With the quick perception that was a part of his nature, Mr. Douglas [6 »] understood, and laughing heartily, he said, with a merry twinkle in the eye, "I am often called the 'Little Giant,' but if I am a giant, I am not necessarily an ogre and will not eat you, although you almost tempt me to do so." After a pleasant chat, he took his leave with many good wishes for my prosperity and happiness, and that I might never again be frightened by a giant.

It was in the autumn of 1862 that my association with Mr. Barnum began. He had heard of me through the Western and Southern press and also having received vebal accounts from those who had seen and conversed with me, and thinking there was a possible opportunity of duplicating the great pecuniary success which had attended his introduction to the public of the famous General Tom Thumb, sent an agent to Middleboro to see and interview me. Later he sent him to my home to open negotiations with my parents for my appearance at his museum, corner of Broadway and Ann-st., New York, to be followed by a tour of Europe.

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My parents and family favored the new road presented for me to follow, the only deterring obstacle being an erroneous impression of the character of Mr. Barnum, whom they looked upon as an arrant humbug. [7 »] They thought he would do something to make the public believe that there was some deception in me -- that I would be looked upon as another of Barnum's humbugs.

Mr. Barnum finally sent an invitation to us to visit him at Bridgeport, and in his own home gave my family satisfactory assurances of his good faith.

I little thought when we accepted that invitation how many important events would quickly follow and be crowded into my life's history, one of the most important and least anticipated being my marriage, almost at the opening of my career. I had heard of General Tom Thumb, and had seen him once, but knew nothing of his character, reputation, and fame.

After a brief visit to Boston I returned to New York, where I held levees [8 »] for three or four weeks. I arrived at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on December 30, 1862, and the next day received New Year calls. Among my callers were many who afterward became famous, among them Generals McClellan, Burnside, Rosecrans, and McPherson. [9 »] Other callers were the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and others of the "Four Hundred," [10 »] though that term had not then come into general use, and very surely the number of my callers was not limited by that fanciful term.

My reception by the press and the public of New York was all but overwhelming. The leading daily papers devoted a great deal of space to my appearance, and described me in most flattering terms. I will quote only one the many notices of the day.

The New York Tribune of December 23, 1862, said:

Yesterday we saw a very pretty and intelligent little lady at the St. Nicholas Hotel in this city. This woman in miniature is twenty-one years of age, weighs twenty-nine pounds, and measures thirty-two inches in height. She enjoys excellent health, has symmetrical form, and a perfect physical development. She has a full, round, dimpled face, and her fine black eyes fairly sparkly when she becomes interested in conversation. She moves about the drawing room with the grace and dignity of a queen, and yet she is entirely devoid of affectation, is modest and lady-like in her deportment. Her voice is soft and sweet, and she sings excellently well. This charming little woman was born in Middleboro, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Her parents are of ordinary size and stature. Miss Warren dresses richly and with exquisite taste. She is receiving, in her private parlor, visits from some of the most prominent families in this city.

In 1861, Mr. Barnum had engaged a bright, intelligent little man named George Washington Morrison Nutt. He named him Commodore Nutt, and exhibited him in the museum as the "$30,000 Nutt." During my levees at the museum, Mr. Barnum, learning that my sister, Minnie, seven years my junior, was also of diminutive stature, induced me to send for her. My parents brought her to the city, and Mr. Barnum, greatly pleased with the beauty of her sweet face and faultless form, immediately made a proposition for her engagement, to which my parents were willing to accede, as she would be under my care and supervision. The idea had presented itself to Mr. Barnum that by reengaging General Tom Thumb, he would be enabled, as he expressed it, "to present to the public a quartet of the most wonderful, intelligent, and perfectly formed ladies and gentlemen in miniature the world ever produced."

This idea was carried out after my marriage; and as a preliminary that the public might have a glimpse of us together, when arrangements were made for the wedding, Minnie was chosen as bridesmaid, and the Commodore as groomsman.

I will now return to the events prior to the marriage, again quoting Mr. Barnum. "Of course, when the approaching marriage was announced, it created an immense excitement. Lavinia's levees at the museum were crowded to suffocation, and her photographs were in great demand. For several weeks she sold more than three hundred dollars' worth of her cartes-de-visite [11 »] daily, and the receipts at the museum were over three thousand dollars a day. I engaged the General to exhibit and assist her in the sale of her photographs, to which his own picture was added. I could therefore afford to give them a fine weeding, and did so."

Mr. Barnum frankly confesses that the questions asked and the opposition raised in some quarters to this marriage became a source of pecuniary benefit to him, by giving it such publicity that it increased the crowds at the museum, and that because this, which irreverent people might call free advertising, he tried to defer the marriage, and that he offer Mr. Stratton and myself fifteen thousand dollars to postpone our marriage for one month and continue the exhibitions at the museum.

As the General and myself were expecting to marry each other, and not Mr. Barnum, and as, moreover, we were neither of us marrying for money, we did not quite see that a money offer was any part of the business; so we declined.

Mr. Barnum further says that he had many applications for tickets of admission to the church to witness the ceremony, some offering as high as sixty dollars; but he refused it, and not a single ticket was sold. Everybody in the church came by invitation, and thus the ceremony was conducted as would be any marriage of people less before the public. Whatever Mr. Barnum's peculiarities, he would not violate the wishes of friends, or the sanctities of a church ceremony.