Mar 07, 2024 - Sale 2661

Sale 2661 - Lot 24

Price Realized: $ 562
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(ENTERTAINERS.) BARNUM, PHINEAS TAYLOR. Autograph Letter Signed, "PTBarnum," to Colonel Joseph H. Wood ("My old friend Col J H Wood"), with a postscript Signed, "PTB," offering him a management position in the "big show." The postscript: "Prey write me a good long letter." 2 pages, 8vo, "Waldemere" stationery, ruled paper, written on two sheets; chipping at side edges without loss to text, short separations at folds, minor scattered staining. (SFC) Bridgeport, CT, 12 September 1887
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

"Our Mutual friend W.S. Hutchinson . . . told me . . . that you are in good health & as full of vim as ever, and that you seemed to have retired from business. Now my dear fellow it is a great mistake for a man of brains, . . . good judgment and honesty like yourself to 'retire' at all while health lasts. I tried it when I was 60 years old (17 years ago) and in two years I became so rusty & nervous I should have died, if I had not gone into business again. I . . . could have given you charge of a department in the big show, which would have netted you $30,000 or more by this time & probably you would have owned an interest in it. Such a chance may perhaps occur again next spring if you want it. . . . I can get plenty of 'hands' but I want heads. You have both, & the energy to make heads & hands work together . . . ."
Joseph H. Wood (ca. 1818-1892) toured a traveling museum beginning in 1843, later opening "Wood's Museum" in Philadelphia and Chicago in 1854. He acquired his nickname "Colonel" from having led a regiment of volunteers during the "Toledo War" in 1835-36.