Читать книгу The Life of P.T. Barnum - P.T. Barnum, P.T. Barnum - Страница 6

PHINEAS TAYLOR was my maternal grandfather. I was his first grandchild, and it was suggested that I should perpetuate his honored name. My delighted ancestor confirmed the choice, and handed to my mother a gift-deed, in my behalf, of five acres of land, be the same more or less, situated in that part of the parish of Bethel, town of Danbury, county of Fairfield, State of Connecticut, known as “Plum Trees;” said tract of land being designated “IVY ISLAND.”

The village and parish of Bethel, honored by embracing within its limits that valuable inheritance of mine, (of which I shall hereafter have something to say,) has been repeatedly mentioned to me, by persons who ought to know, as my birth-place, and I have always acknowledged and reverenced it accordingly.

As however my grandfather happened to be born before me, and as it is said by all who knew him and have knowledge of me, that I am “a chip of the old block,” I must record some facts regarding him.

I think I can remember when I was not more than two years old, and the first person I recollect having seen, was my grandfather. As I was his pet, and spent probably the larger half of my waking hours in his arms, during the first six years of my life, my good mother estimates that the amount of lump sugar which I swallowed from his hands, during that period, could not have been less than two barrels.

My grandfather was decidedly a wag. He was a practical joker. He would go farther, wait longer, work harder and contrive deeper, to carry out a practical joke, than for anything else under heaven. In this one particular, as well as in many others, I am almost sorry to say I am his counterpart; for although nothing that I can conceive of delights me so much as playing off one of those dangerous things, and although I have enjoyed more hearty laughs in planning and executing them, than from any one source in the world, and have generally tried to avoid giving offence, yet I have many times done so, and as often have I regretted this propensity, which was born in me, and will doubtless continue until “dust returns to dust.”

My grandfather had four children: IRENA, my mother; LAURA, now the widow of Aaron Nichols; EDWARD, late Judge of the County Court. These three at present reside in Bethel, in which village ALANSON, the youngest of the four, died June 5, 1846, aged nearly 45.

The two sons exhibited a small degree of their father’s propensity for a joke. My aunt Laura is considerably given that way – my mother somewhat less so; but what is lacking in all the children, is fully made up with compound interest in the eldest grandson.

My paternal grandfather was Captain Ephraim Barnum, of Bethel^fn1 – a captain in the militia in the Revolutionary War. His son Philo was my father.^fn2 He too was of a lively turn of mind, and relished a joke better than the average of mankind. These historical facts I state as some palliation for my own inclination that way. “What is bred in the bone,” etc.

BORN – MARRIED – DIED. Most of my ancestors have passed the third state. I hope, through the grace of God, to meet them all in a better world, where “they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” and where “Death is swallowed up in victory.”