P.T. Barnum in Brattleboro, and Jumbo in the Whetstone

Time for a summer circus story.

As I was reading some old newspapers, I found an entry that caught my eye. In a report about a flood, the newspaper mentioned that it was hard to believe that the flooded field by the Whetstone was the same place that had been host to P.T. Barnum and Jumbo just a year prior.

I’m a big circus fan, but didn’t know that P.T. Barnum had come to town, let alone that his world famous Jumbo walked about our streets. I dug around some more and found that this circus story began much earlier and was more interesting than I imagined.