Category Archives: Indiana History

Acting Bears Come to Indy, 1864.

ActingBears

150 years ago today, Hoosiers were undoubtedly excited by the soon to arrive circus. But this wasn’t just any circus. The acting bears depicted here (realistically, no doubt) were but one of the many attractions to be featured at what was billed as “positively the largest exhibition of the amusement world,” The Monster Equescurriculum! It was going to be an immense and unparalleled combination, heralded here in the September 19, 1864, edition of the Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel.

The bears shown here were “Old Grizzly Adams’ Troupe of Acting Bears, from California.”  Adams himself, it would appear, wasn’t traveling with the bears, since he died in 1860 from a succession of injuries caused by the bears (and in one case, a monkey).  The bear depicted on the California state flag is apparently one of Adams’ bears.  It is not known whether that bear was one of the bears to visit Indiana, although the bear wearing a top hat bears a strong resemblance to the one on the flag.

But according to the announcement, since the combination of acts is such as had never before been attempted by private enterprise, it gave notice that the management will be “pardoned for directing attention to the fact that this magnificent phalanx of exhibitions not only combines and infinitely greater degree of novelty, variety and effect within itself than can be found in any other place of amusement in the world, but also a nearer approach to perfection in every detail.” It also notes that the performance entailed such an enormous expenditure of money that only the most liberal patronage could render it remunerative.

Admission for one of the four performances was fifty cents, 25 cents for children under 12.

 


A Parental Kidnapping Solved, 1919

BLrewardposterIt appears that the pages of Boys Life magazine were used to solve a parental kidnapping case in 1919.

This ad looks somewhat out of place in the November, 1919, issue of Boys Life magazine.  It reports that Graydon Hubbard, age 12, was an active member of his Scout Organization at Brookville, Indiana, when he and his brother Harold, age 8, were “stolen from their home early last July.”

The ad goes on to say that Graydon “will undoubtedly make an effort to get in touch with the nearest Boy Scout Unit to the point where they are located,” adding ominously, “if they are in this country.”

“If any Boy Scout–or Scout Master–learn their location–and will advise the Cincinnati Office of the William J. Burns Int. Detective Agency, Inc., of their address–upon receipt and verification of same–the above reward will be paid.”

The advertisement appears to have been successful, and it seems that some Scout in Riverside, California, must have collected the reward money. The November 30, 1919, issue of the Indianapolis Star reports that the boys’ mother, Mrs. M.P. Hubbard, was indicted in Indiana on a charge of kidnapping after the father, M.P. Hubbard, had been granted custody.

The boys were returned to Indiana from Riverside,California, by the chief of police and his wife, along with a private detective from the agency named in the advertisement. The article reports that Mrs. Hubbard had assumed a different last name and “had taught the children to go by that name.”  The article goes on to say that she had recently been named defendant in a lawsuit brought by the former husband.