Whale Watching on Washington Street (episode 185)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome To Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the universe.
This is Episode 1 85 Well, watching on Washington Street. Hi, I’m Jake.
This week. We’re talking about a time when you could pay 20 cents to watch a captive whale swimming a custom built aquarium on Washington Street in Boston’s downtown Crossing.
Today, there’s no Seaworld location near Boston, and our New England Aquarium doesn’t hold any whales or dolphins.
Perhaps that’s for the best. As we now realize how intelligent these giants of the sea are,
however, times were different 100 60 years ago, and an entrepreneurial inventor did the impossible,
bringing a Beluga whale alive from the Arctic Ocean to Boston and keeping it alive here for at least 18 months before being betrayed by the greatest showman, PT Barnum himself.
But before we talk about what it took to start and run in 19th Century Aquarium, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

[1:11] My pick for the Boston Book Club this week is it documentary called Damrell Sfeir that’s available on Amazon Prime It charts John Damrell’s rise from a volunteer firefighter in Boston to the chief of the city’s newly professional fire department.
It opens with the horror of Chicago’s October 18 71 Great Fire and the lessons in fire prevention that Damrell learned by observing the aftermath.
It also covers the political battles that prevented Damrell from implementing many of his ideas.

[1:42] About a year after the Chicago Fire, Damrell was forced to confront Boston’s own Great fire.
On November 9th, 18 72 a small fire erupted in a basement in the heart of Boston’s downtown commercial district because of flawed construction techniques that allowed fires to accelerate quickly.
That small fire soon became a towering inferno of flame that was seemingly unstoppable as it swept across the city center While fighting the fire.
Damrell also had to fight business and political leaders about whether to use gunpowder to demolish buildings in the path of the fire and which businesses to say if the Boston Fire Department was able to stop the fire.
But John Damrell got fired anyway.
Not, however, before he could put steps into place that would help prevent similar firestorms in other cities.
This 55 minute film features documentary mainstays like historical maps, photos, engravings and clips from early silent films.

[2:42] They’re also interviews with Fire Department officials and familiar names in Boston history like Anthony Sammarco, Stephanie Schorow and Professor Robert Allison.
One of my favorite elements was a series of animations recreating 18 72 Boston and showing how the fire progressed.
Imagine the graphic quality of a 15 year old, low budget video game.
But despite that, they’re well done, fairly accurate three D rendering of the city as it existed. Back then, my favorite was a photo showing Old South meeting house in Washington Street that seamlessly transitioned into an animation.
And this week’s show notes will include a link to the film on Amazon Prime, as well as a companion website for educators,
and for our upcoming event this week, we have a virtual tour led by Gavin Kleespies, director of programs, exhibitions and community partnerships at the Mass Historical Society.
This Wednesday, May 20th 5 30 PM will be giving a talk called Misled, a virtual tour of inaccurate historical markers.
I have high hopes because the header image for the event post is a stone marker near Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge that says On this spot in the year 1000 Leif Erikson built his house in Vine Lind.

[4:04] Longtime listeners may remember that way. Back in Episode 17 we covered the common belief in late 19th century Boston that Vikings had settled the Charles River Valley.
In reality, of course, a wealthy baking powder magnet simply read a bunch of books about Vikings, walk to the banks of the Charles nearest his house, kicked in a pile of stones and said, Eureka, Leif Erikson house.

[4:30] Sometimes that’s all it takes to set the historical record wrong.
As the description of the event explains, historical markers influence what and who we remember.
But sometimes they aren’t quite what they appear.
Some are just wrong.
Even in a city like Cambridge, a place known worldwide as a home to rigorous scholarship, misleading and inaccurate historical markers can be found.
While these markers don’t always reflect the whole truth, sometimes the stories they tell offer important lessons about who gets to shape history.

[5:03] This virtual tour will explore. Cambridge is strange patchwork of unreliable markers, including mimic houses, mislabeled trees and even a fake rock.
The online event is free, but advanced registration is required.
We’ll have the link you need in this week’s show. Notes at Hub history dot com slash 185 Before I start the show, I just want to say thanks to our latest patri on sponsor, William L.
And all of you who have stuck with us through the Covid crisis.
The entire podcast business has been hit with declining download numbers now that people aren’t commuting or going to gyms and were no exception to that work.
Grateful to those of you who are still listening, and especially to those who still sponsors on patri on, we know that this is a lean time for many of you.
But after you support local businesses and, of course, your favorite historic site, please consider supporting the show as well,
as little as $2 a month helps us pay for Web hosting and security podcast, media hosting and the audio processing tools that make a sound so buttery smooth.

[6:13] On a personal note, I want to say that I’ve been suffering from a crippling bouts of writer’s block since our social distancing experiment began.
Something about the added stress of working at home full time and the background anxiety of wondering whether picking up groceries this week is going to kill me has made it impossible for me to write new scripts.
Since mid March, I’ve released five interview shows, three reruns and the only new scripted show I’ve released was Episode 1 77 about a well on long Worf,
and I actually wrote that 1/2 years ago and just never got around a recording.
It all that is my long way to say that I’m very relieved to have finally written a new show script.
So without further ado, it’s time for this week’s main topic.
Perhaps during this Corona virus quarantine, you’ve been one of the millions of people charmed by YouTube videos of Wellington the Penguin exploring the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
With no people around, the curator is allowed Wellington and his fellow rock hoppers to roam around the building and examine the other exhibits.
In one video, the tiny penguin comes nose to nose with a white Beluga whale through the glass of the Beluga stank.

[7:25] Beluga looked like oversized white dolphins with stubby nose is, but they’re actually one of the smallest species of whale native to coastal waters in the Arctic Ocean.
While there are no whales or dolphins at Boston’s New England Aquarium, you might be surprised to learn that Boston could once boast of Beluga of her own.

[7:44] There was no school on George Washington’s birthday February 22nd 18 61 times were tense, but the outbreak of the Civil War was still months away.
For nine year old Sarah Ghoul Putnam, the bells that chimed in a window that morning heralded a day full of promise.
In her diary. She later described how she celebrated the day with some sponge cake and some Children’s theater, and she finished it off with a visit to one of our favorite attractions in Boston.

[8:13] In the evening, I went again to the Aquarium gardens, and there we saw the whale being driven by a girl.
She was in a boat, and the whale was fastened to the boat by a pair of rains and a collar, which was fastened around his neck.
The men had to chase him before they could put on the collar.
Surely this fanciful account of a lady in a boat being pulled by a harnessed whale must have sprung out of the imagination of a precocious little girl, right?

[8:41] Well, not so fast and honest to goodness Grown up, wrote a description of the same show the following year in Balance Dollar Monthly magazine,
The author describes how the proprietor had a lovely ferryboat constructed by one of our Boston boat builders and the shape of a Nautilus shell.
He intended to have a dolphin pull the boat, but the dolphin died before he could train it.
Instead, By lose relates, he asked himself, Why not harness the whale?
The question was considered, and the monster was measured for collar and traces he took to them both kindly and Oppa.
Kant Little piece, having been written the services of Neptune and Trite on were enlisted and Madamoiselle Leone charming young lady of Boston boldly entered her boat and drove the whale as deftly as if he had been the tame ist of ponies.
The success was at once very great, and the attraction continues unimpaired to the present time of writing.
The idea of harnessing and driving a whale was a bold one.
No one but alive Yankee would have dreamed of such a thing are carried it out to a successful issue.

[9:50] So how did an Arctic whale end up harness toe a novelty boat in a small glass tank on Washington Street in Boston?
While the story starts in the early days of photography.

[10:03] In 18 39 a French inventor publicly revealed the first practical way to create a photographic image.
Using a glass plate coated with reflective silver, which was fuelled with iodine vapor.
A faint image could be captured, then developed into a visible photograph using mercury fumes named daguerreotypes in honor of its creator, this method would take the world by storm.
Here in the US, many photography studios opened in the 18 forties. Using the Dig era type system, Matthew Brady would become one of the most famous after his pictures of Civil War battlefields brought the war into people’s drawing rooms for the first time.

[10:46] In the early 18 fifties of Bostonian named James Ambrose, Cutting patented a new process that used a glass plate coated with a chemical called Kal Odeon, dipped in silver nitrate and then exposed while still wet.

[11:00] This new technique, soon known as an amber type, was cheaper to produce than a daguerreotype while producing an image that many viewers preferred.
Within a decade, its popularity was beginning to outshine its predecessor, while Mr J. A. Cutting enjoyed the fruits of being the patent holder of a runaway success.

[11:21] As he read about early successful attempts in London to keep fish and glass aquariums by using plants toe oxygenate the water and snails to filter it out.
Cutting reportedly developed to small aquariums in 18 54.

[11:35] This likely means that he was the first, or at least among the first people in America to keep aquariums.
The Balance article reports that he immediately dreamed of something bigger for some time.
Previous to the year 18 59 Mr James, a Cutting had revolved in his mind the idea of founding in Boston and Aquarium on a grand scale.
Until then, the collections of fishes and aquatic wonders generally have been made in small tanks, and we’re little better than pretty scientific toys.
No one had as yet turned the idea to practical purposes.
The elegant miniature fish ponds were comparatively useless, Mr Cutting on being satisfied that the principle of the aquarium had been fully established, determined to develop it to its fullest extent.
If he reasoned, a minnow can be kept alive and healthy in its native element.
Why not a monster of the deep if a shrimp one out of shark?

[12:35] Meanwhile, in New York City, a business partner of Phineas T. Barnum introduced some aquariums into Barnum’s American Museum.
Then he wrote an influential book in 18 58 called the Family Aquarium, which may have been the first book about keeping fish at home.
In it, he explained the careful balance that was required to create a successful aquarium at the time.

[12:58] Animal life absorbs oxygen and throws off carbonic acid gas.
Vegetable life, on the contrary, absorbs carbonic acid gas and throws off oxygen.
What one rejects the other needs what would suffocate the one, if not removed. The other would die of exhaustion if it could not obtain.
This is the universal compensating action of nature and applies under certain circumstances to man in a rose bud as peculiarly as it does to a Noxon and oak, a trout in a water lily,
an aquarium exhibits a very accurate self adjustment of this delicate balance of vital ization and destruction.
It should contain precisely enough animal to sustain vegetable life and sufficient vegetable to meet the demands of animal life.
It is a very nice scale of physical equivalents. The fish, insects and reptiles must to thrive, consumed the oxygen with which the plants impregnate the water.
And they supply in return, the carbonic acid gas, all of which the plants must absorb for their own growth and the water’s purification.

[14:04] In early 18 59 that partner Henry D.
Butler teamed up with James a Cutting to bring a new venture to the streets of Boston Butler and Cutting brought early expertise in aquariums and Cutting, and PT Barnum provided the money.

[14:21] An advertisement in the April 5th 18 59 edition of The Boston Post announced the grand opening that would come two days later.
This magnificent display of one of the most fascinating phenomena of nature is nearly completed and will be open to the public on Thursday.
The seventh, These Ocean and River Observatory’s are the most exquisitely interesting subjects to contemplate, ever yet presented to the admiring gaze of mankind by the hand of taste and refinement.
They present us with a perfect in striking illustration of life beneath the waters.

[14:57] Located at first a 21 Bram Field Street in downtown Crossing, Cutting and Butler named their venture, the Boston Aquarium Gardens.
It was directly across the street from the ancient province house, which was the ceremonial home of Massachusetts governors from 16 79 to 18 64 before being torn down in 1922.

[15:20] Inside the aquarium gardens, the main exhibits were house and around room, under a high domed roof with plenty of windows to let in the light.

[15:30] And Engraving in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum shows a series of tanks arranged on tables in a circle around the room.
In the center of the circle stood a larger octagonal tank, with the possible exception of that central tank.
None of them will be considered especially impressive by the average home aquarium keeper today.
But of course at the time nobody had seen anything like it before.
A slightly later advertisement describes what a visitor could expect to see.
The aquarium consists of fresh and salt water crystal ponds varying in capacity from 20 toe 100 gallons.
The’s ponds are enclosed in plate glass. They are perfectly translucent and being artificially furnished with rocks, sand, etcetera with varieties of seaweed afford of vivid representation of the bottom of the sea.
Here, therefore, we can have in their natural element in conditions every variety of living marine and freshwater fish, molluscs, zuo fights and plants.
The scene is at once wonderful and intensely beautiful hours of delight, maybe spent in watching the habits of the animal, seizing and devouring their prey,
and disporting themselves as freely as if they were still enjoying their full freedom in the ocean or river, where they first saw a life.

[16:49] In his book on the History of Boston Aquarium’s Gerry Ryan describes the significance of the aquarium gardens.

[16:56] What Cutting and Butler, founded on Bram Field Street, was the first recorded aquarium that was not part of something else.
The aquarium gardens were first foremost and exclusively dedicated to the appreciation of marine life and the education of the public.
And in this lies their uniqueness, though it seems odd to say so now.
The aquarium gardens were at the forefront of technology at the time.

[17:22] One of the most important breakthroughs was the creation of Mechanical a Raiders, which used steam power to pump air to the bottoms of the tanks.
As the bubbles then rose, they provided oxygen for the fish.
With narration, the water could be oxygenated without the use of plants.
No plants meant no place for the fish to hide, so visitors could be sure to see the fish in every tank.
And those visitors could expect to see a dazzling selection of specimens.
In a listing of the gardens holdings from July of 18 60 the collection included Cnnmoney’s and fresh coral, starfish and sea urchins as well as horseshoe king and hermit crabs.
There were fresh water. Son fishing crowd adds perch, shiners and carp in the salt.
Tanks were snappers, turtles, eels, sticklebacks in a variety of colorful reef fish in slightly drier cages where alligators monitor lizards, boas and pythons.
Soon a kangaroo would join the company as well.

[18:29] Starting in the summer of 18 60 the first of what would turn out to be many exhibits of questionable scientific value went on display.
The learned seals Ned and Fanny were trained to perform a number of tricks.
A pamphlet published by the Aquarium Gardens describe some of the highlights.

[18:48] One of Fanny’s performances amuses everyone who sees it.
She will lie upon her back meekly folder hands meaning, of course, her flippers upon her bosom and will feign, sleep and snore with the energy of the most inveterate night trumpeter of the human family.
This is perhaps the most remarkable, as well as amusing off our many pleasing performances, displaying a power of mimic Reina direction. Contrary to our nature, that is really marvelous.
She seems to delight in the performance of this as though she thoroughly comprehended and appreciated the joke she’s playing on her visitors.

[19:24] Ned had a different set of tricks up his sleeve. First he shows his visitors with much latent, droll ary how he wakes himself in the morning and makes his exodus from dreamland into this matter of fact world.
Next he takes his bath, thereby conveying to the Spectators the lesson that a maternal plunges a very wholesome, improper performance.
If Mr Cutting intimates to him that this cleaning exercise has been somewhat hurriedly and imperfectly performed, Ned makes no scruple about repeating it, and this time he goes under with a will.

[20:00] Next, he assumes a graver and more aspiring character and Mr Cutting.
Having handed him a rifle or gun, Ned shoulders, arms, instant ER and with all the gravity of a member of the governor’s bodyguard,
where the comic ality of a Massachusetts farmer on Training day but passing over his other performances we may mention one other and that one of the most marvelous,
we refer to us playing upon the hand order, which he has learned to do with perfect ease and wonderful adroitness, even to the changing of hands when one of them is wearied with the exercise.
It is to this performance that we have alluded as being his favorite one, whether it’s the revolving motion of the handle or that he has a greater passion for that class of music that most human householders have.
We pretend not to decide.
But we’re sure that he takes pleasure in it, from the fact that if the organ is left upon his platform, he’ll play upon it from choice in the night as well as in the daytime.

[20:59] As the collection grew and the public demanded war dynamic and entertaining exhibits like the learned seals, the aquarium gardens quickly outgrew their space on Bram Field.
At the same time, Cutting became fixated on the possibility of displaying a living whale, something nobody in the world had been able to do up to that point, not even PT Barnum.

[21:21] In the fall of 18 60 the gardens moved a few blocks away to the Central Court on Washington Street, is the current location of the Lafayette Mall behind Macy’s.

[21:33] Gerry Ryan’s book described the new structure, which Cutting and Butler had purpose built for the aquarium.

[21:40] The architects plan for the Central Court Gardens building, which was expressly designed to house the aquarium garden and thus holds the distinction of being the first aquarium designed to such,
is strikingly similar to the actual Hutchinson building on the corner of Bram Field in province streets.
Although only two stories high, it presents a relatively narrow facade and is of considerable length here, too high arched windows to find the buildings appearance.
Since it was built on a slope, it would appear to be of a single story when approached from the front, a lateral view shows stairs leading down to a lower level of considerable proportions from the street.
One entered directly into the aquarium section on the upper level, where the ticket office was located.

[22:28] The article in Ballads magazine ads a more complete and come odious structure for a special purpose cannot anywhere be found.
The building is divided into an upper and a lower hall and the former of which is a deep gallery and connected with it.
A spacious stage on which occasional scientific lectures, air delivered and scientific exhibitions conducted.

[22:51] In the lower hole is a splendid collection of fine living zoological specimens and a ring for the performance of trained animals on entering the main hall.
The object, which first strikes the eye and elicits the wonder and admiration of the visitor, is the great central tank.
This magnificent reservoir, or miniature ocean, as it has been not in aptly called, is a perfect triumph of a query, a lark, it texture.
The central tank is described as being six feet deep and 30 feet in diameter, again, not impressive compared to the giant ocean tank in today’s New England Aquarium, but completely unprecedented in the United States in 18 60.
The enormous water pressure was contained by 18 pains of inch thick plate glass that have been special ordered from Euro Values Magazine describes the next great technological marvel that was pressed into service to support the aquarium gardens.

[23:51] To fill this huge receptacle with fresh water would have been easy enough.
But as Mr Cutting intended to place a whale in it and his whales do not generally live in constituent fluid, it became necessary to devise some means not only of furnishing the tank with saltwater but of procuring a constant supply of the briny element.

[24:11] Central Court is situated 3/4 of a mile from Boston Harbor. At the nearest available point, it was certain that the whale could not be taken, the other to enjoy his daily change of fluid.
Therefore, it was decided, as Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, the mountain should come to Mohammed to speak without trope or metaphor.
As the whale could not visit the sea, the sea should rush to the residents of the whale.
Fresh water could be conveyed long distances in pipes, and so then could saltwater accordingly.
Iron pipes carefully lined inside and outside with cement were laid down under the streets, from the harbor of the foot of summer street to the building in Central court,
a work involving no small labor and expense $10,000 at least having been expended on this item alone.
At the harbour terminus of the pipe, a steam engine of 20 horsepower was erected to pump up the water and send it along the underground channel.
Another steam engine of 12 horsepower was put up in the gardens.
This latter forces the seawater into the Great Reservoir on the roof, which supplies the tank and the fountains in its centre.
By means of these appliances. Fresh seawater to the amount of 860,000 gallons passes daily through the central and smaller tanks.

[25:32] The New Boston A Query Allow and Zoological Gardens opened on October 4th, 18 60.
The grand opening featured a lecture by Louis Agassi and a performance by five South Africans.
Thies to inclusions hint at one of the darker aspects of the aquarium gardens.
Agassi was a famous and at the time well regarded biologist.
Born in Switzerland, he was recruited to Harvard and founded the school’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

[26:04] Agassi would end up being the most frequent lecturer at the Aquarium Gardens, and he was also a leading proponent of theories that are now regarded as scientific racism.

[26:16] Under the influence of Louis Agassi, the five South African men were exhibited in what was essentially a human zoo.
Gerry Ryan route. The main attraction on opening day was the South African Origen ease at tired in their native costumes, who were to perform their war and festive dances accompanied by their national songs.
After giving a brief description of the southern portion of the African continent and a sketch of the early life of each individual specimen of the nomadic tribes.
The South African Aborigines, who were in fact living important tell when they were recruited and who were fluent in Dutch and English, remained at the Gardens on Sunday, April 28th 18 61.
Things took a tragic turn the following day, the Boston Post reported.
One of the famous company of Wild Africans for a long time passed on exhibition at the Aquarium Gardens Central Court, committed suicide last evening.
At just 17 years old, the young man, Studeman Ganges, had hanged himself in the quarters he shared with this four countrymen.
He waited for them to go to a church service and ended his life while they were gone.
In one final humiliation, Louis Agassi took possession of his body and arranged for it to be put on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

[27:39] Soon after students death, the rest of his countrymen returned to port in a towel, leaving show business behind.

[27:46] They were replaced by a Native American family advertised as the red men of the forest Mohawk chief at Sakata, who with his wife and family will go through several interesting Indian ceremonies.

[28:02] Louis Agassi would continue consulting for the A quail gardens and giving frequent lectures there for the lifetime of the institution.

[28:10] In hindsight, that appears to have been a mistake. It was only in the second half of the 20th century that Harvard and other institutions affiliated with Louis Agassi finally started to wrestle with his legacy.

[28:23] Now, though, Cutting had especially built aquarium, he had a large central tank.
They had almost 900,000 gallons of fresh see what air being pumped in daily.
All they needed now was a whale.
Today, of course, we recognize that whales of all species are highly intelligent creatures, and keeping them in captivity is increasingly seen as inhumane.
Sensitive listeners may want to skip forward by a minute or two to get past the description of the capture.
The white whale was cuttings. Goal and Balance magazine relates how he intended to capture one.
There is a species of whale well known to frequent the Gulf of ST Lawrence at certain seasons of the year for the purpose of following and feeding on the immense shoals of a small fish called the Kaplan that abound in those seas.
The’s whales and the act of catching are often themselves caught, and Weir’s constructed for the purpose from which, when they once enter, there they can only with great difficulty emerge.

[29:28] Cutting contract ID with a Canadian whaler to procure a living Beluga, which had never been done successfully.
An article in the Boston Atlas gives the location along the ST Lawrence, where the whaler operated as between the or L and Do Loop rivers.
Bellew said that the Whaler was amused, but he didn’t believe it would be possible to keep the whale alive long enough to bring it all the way to Boston.
Nevertheless, he was willing to give it the old college Try.

[29:57] An 18 79 book about ocean life by William Damon, who would later work at the aquarium. Gardens, describes the process he undertook.
The difficulty of capturing a whale even 20 feet long is immense, and the expense is also great.
It cannot be taken alive by pursuits, and the only successful method is to build a large trap by sinking long stakes into the mud at low tide, enclosing a space large enough for several whales.
And excavating this so is to form a sort of basin.
When a school of whales approach this. When a school of whales approached the spot at high tide, they do not perceive the shallowness of the water on the sole chance of capturing them is that they remain sporting about over the enclosed basin until the tide is retired,
when they then find themselves struggling in the mud or and what are too shallow to float and easily.
And there, then approached by their hunters.
Now comes the tug of war. Several men enter the water and endeavour to fasten ropes around one or two of the entrapped animals.
The lower the water, the more easily this is done.
But generally a very exciting struggle ensues. The whale endeavoring to escape for the barriers which surround him, and the men in their attempts slipping, splashing, sinking in the mode,
sometimes knocked over by the plunges of the worried animal ordering, shouting And I fear I must add swearing.

[31:25] Finally, in a few instances, they have at last succeeded in making leviathan captive.

[31:32] The Boston Atlas adds a note on the fate of the other whales caught by the same whaler that season.
14 have been caught within two months. Which period is commonly accounted a season?
Oh, but that caught for Mr Cutting were killed for the purpose of procuring oil, which is their only product of any value.
Having succeeded in catching a living Beluga in his were the Whaler sent a telegram to Mr Cutting, who brought a small army of workers and equipment to the shores of the ST Lawrence to pick up his catch.

[32:05] Dollars magazine, then picks up the tale again. The next thing to be done was to convey them overland to Boston.
In order to do this, a wooden tank rather longer than the whale and deep enough to hold him. Coffin Wise was made.
This was partially filled in, lined with seaweed laid on its side, and about 50 men rolled the whale into it.
Not, however, without is protesting against such liberty by sundry lashings of his powerful tail.
Once in the box, he was well packed with wheat and placed on a truck on which was carted 12 miles to the nearest railroad point.
Here, Mr Cutting had charted a special engine and truck on which ladder the whale in his box was placed.
And away went the train with its novel freight, now approximating to the flying fish to Quebec and from thence on the Grand Trunk Railway to Portland, Maine, and finally to Boston,
where the whale, having had water thrown over him every now and then during his long journey, arrived safely and an excellent condition.
Being the first living whale that had ever traveled on a rail.
In anticipation of the monsters arrival, a Derrick have been raised over the great tank and the wooden box being lifted to its edge.
The whale was tumbled into its new residents, where it is now quite a home.

[33:24] The Beluga whale was on display by the first week of June. In 18 61 it was soon joined by a dolphin.
I couldn’t find a source that describe the dolphins capture in detail, but I assumed the method was similar.
When Sarah Goal Putnam visited the new Aquarium Garden on November 21st she described both new residents.
There is a whale in a tank. The whale was about as long as two short men, and he has his white, almost a snow.
There is a dolphin with him and several little fishes, and there was a fountain in the tank, which looks very prettily when it plays.

[34:00] We already described the spectacle of the whale pulling a boat that Sarah witnessed a few months later.
William Damon describes what it was like to work with the Beluga.
It continued in good condition for more than a year and became so perfectly acclimated to its new home that it actually showed some signs of intelligence.
There was a Nautilus shaped boat made to which he was occasionally tackled and talked to draw I fancy. He was not very fun of being treated like a draft horse for when we wanted him to hold up to be harnessed.
He just put on speed. And when all the faster around his glass walled circle,
he would, however, sometimes condescend to take a live herring or squirming hell from my hand and then turning on one side, sail round and look up for more of the same sort, and in other ways he would show that he was really becoming an intelligent, Americanized citizen.
This creature hardly ever remained. Still, it appeared to always be swimming around its tank and ever in the one direction but varying its speed.
And it seemed to find amusement in diving up and down and in splashing water with its tail, which was admirably formed for the purpose, varying its performances by occasionally spouting a stream of water through its blowhole into the air.

[35:15] By all accounts, this first Beluga lift for about 18 months in captivity.
That’s a depressing Lee short period. But eons in comparison to P. T. Barnum’s rates down in New York, Barnum was trying to add a Beluga of his own to the American Museum.
In his book, Gerry Ryan wrote Barnum, with his customary bravado, claimed to be the first to capture an exhibit of live whale and dramatically describe this Herculean feat.
In his autobiography, Cutting Obtained his specimen prior to Barnum Cutting Swail survived for at least 18 months.
Barnum is Whales were notoriously short lived.
In a letter to The New York Times, Barnum wrote in August. Last I succeeded in bringing to the museum to living white whales from Labrador.
One died the first day and the other the second day. Even in this brief period, thousands availed themselves of the opportunity of witnessing this rare sight.
Since August, I have brought to more whales to New York at an enormous expense, but both died before I could get them into the museum.
1/5 living whales now arrived here and will remain in the museum as long as he lives.

[36:30] Yet that fifth whale didn’t fare much better than the 1st 4 and soon Barnum recruited the assistance of J.
A Cutting and Boston’s Aquarium Gardens, as described by Gerry Ryan,
in July of 18 61 the central tank became seriously crowded Barnum loan to of the ST Lawrence belugas to the Aquarium Gardens for two months prior to their installation in New York.
There were now three living whales, measuring 9 11 and 12 feet and weighing from 800 to £1000 thus rendering the gardens and this particular alone the most instructive. An interesting place of amusement in the world.
In all probability, this was the third pair that Barnum had captured, having failed miserably and maintaining the 1st 2 previous pairs of belugas.
It seems likely that the great showman tried to learn the technique of keeping whales alive in captivity in Boston before moving them to their final destination.

[37:27] P. T. Barnum seldom did anything with this interest. When Barnum finally moved his two whales to New York, they quickly expired.
Rumors say that PT Barnum soon owned a series of whale pins along the ST Lawrence and had a supply chain of whales and constant motion.
So new belugas appeared in New York City every few days to replace the earlier specimens that died almost immediately upon arrival.
Well, you know what they say. If you can’t beat them, join them.
Or, in Barnum’s case, if you can’t beat him, initiate a hostile takeover, push out the original management and turn the aquarium gardens into just another sideshow act.

[38:07] Old Phinnaeus T. Had been an investor in the aquarium since its start on Brownfield Street, but he’d been a silent partner up to this point, Gerry Ryan’s book says.
On May 13th of 18 62 the gardens were closed for extensive improvements, a change having taken place in the management.
It can be safely said, that Henry Butler was Barnum proxy, and without the presence of his agent, the great showman felt that he had lost control of the gardens, which he’d been financing.
The establishment was reopened on June 16. On the occasion, Barnum said he would use his extraordinary facilities for procuring rare novelties from nearly every portion of the globe.
At the same time, he hoped to form such a happy blending of amusement with instruction as not to depend solely upon the scientific public for support but to render this establishment attractive and popular with all respectable classes.
James Cutting, who had founded the aquarium gardens and successfully captivated a whale, was relegated to remain at the gardens and take charge of the living whale and the musically educated seals.
Under the new regime, Cutting scientific approach to operating the aquarium went right out the window.
Instead, Barnum’s famous curiosities took center stage at the newly renamed Barnum Aquarium Gardens.

[39:30] The reopening was celebrated with a great national dog show.
They were followed by an albino family from Madagascar. A glass blowing exhibition, a Connecticut giant tests, a double voiced singer and the Grand National Baby Show.
General Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt, both circus performance with dwarfism who are employed by Barnum, would perform at the newly revamped Gardens extensively in the summer and fall of 18 62 when Tom Thumb was 24 years old and Nut was just 14.

[40:03] Sally Ghoul Putnam visited again during this period on a late November Saturday and recorded this in her diary In the afternoon I went with Gertrude and Johnny to Barnum Za Query ALS.
We went in time to see Commodore Nutt as he’s called and see a man swing on a rope and turned head over heels on it and see a contortionist, and we heard a man sing a real funny song.
And then we went down to the lower place of the aquarium gardens and saw the rhinoceros eating, and then he went down into his tank and laid down contented. I guess we saw the seals to of this period, Gerry Ryan noted.
Barnum reigned for eight months of the Aquarium Gardens, which became a little more than a poor parent of his American museum in New York.
As promised, the rare novels he’s arrived thick and fast. The marine life exhibits were mere background.
In the middle of all this witnessing is dream. Being cheap into destroyed was James Cutting.
One can only speculate as to what must have been going on inside this pioneer Aquarius, who marveled at the wonders of marine life and wanted to share this experience with others.

[41:13] At about the same time in November of 18 62 when Sally Putnam was watching Commodore Nutt, James Cutting left the Aquarium Gardens and William Damon took over.
His chief trainer, Cutting tried to open a competing aquarium, but it failed after only two weeks, Ryan concludes.
At any rate, his role in a new institution, after all that he had accomplished, must have been humiliating.
As the separation from Net in the living whale on the other fish and mammals he had nurtured must have been painful.
It was a tragic ending for a gifted scientist, a naturalist.
Within weeks of cuttings departure, PT Barnum moved all the fish tanks in aquatic displays out of the main floor, shoehorning them into the lower floor with the Zoological collection.
He converted the main floor to 1000 seat vaudeville theater.
In January of 18 63 he put the business up for sale, and in February he closed it abruptly, moving the remaining animals to his American Museum in New York.

[42:14] The purpose build aquarium building at Central Court would be used as a vaudeville theatre until 18 72 when it burned down in Boston’s Great Fire.
You can learn more about that in this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
Starting in June of 18 63 Cutting would make one more attempt to open an aquarium in Boston.
This time, he partnered with Buckley Serenade ER’s installing fish tanks in the basement of their new minstrel hall of the Aquarium gardens, where blackface performances were offered.
Daily Cutting was never able to put together a collection that attracted visitors, and the aquarium closed in October and November of 18 63.
James A. Cutting, the gifted inventor and dedicated naturalist, was soon confined to an insane asylum in Worcester, where he died in 18 69.
Bostonians would have to wait nearly 1/2 century to visit another aquarium.
Finally, in 1912 the South Boston Aquarium opened at Marine Park, and the magnificent New England Aquarium opened on Central Worf in 1969.
Let’s all go visit when the pandemics over.

[43:21] To learn more about the Washington Street whale, check out this week’s show Notes.
A hub history dot com slash 185 We’ll have a link to Gerry Ryan’s book about the aquarium gardens that we relied so heavily on, which was also our Boston Book Club pick A few weeks ago,
we’ll link to the 18 62 profile of the Aquarium Gardens in Balance Dollar Monthly magazine to Sally Cool Putnam’s Diary entries about the aquarium gardens and to a listed the aquarium’s holdings.
In July of 18 60 May of 18 61.
We’ll have pictures of the original aquarium gardens, as well as pictures of the Beluga pulling a boat.
They will be links to the book about the learned seals and the books written by Butler and Damon.
We’ll have depressing news coverage of the early attempts to captivated Beluga by Barnum and Cutting, as well as a modern account of an offshore sanctuary in Iceland, where captive belugas are gradually reintroduced to the while.
And, of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming event and Demirel’s fire, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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