Our Show / A Humorous Account of the International Exposition in Honor of the Centennial Anniversary of American Independence, from Inception to Completion, Including Description of Buildings, Biographies of Managers, Receptions of Foreign Dignitaries, Opening Ceremonies, Poem, Oration, Amusing Survey of All Departments, Incidents, Etc., Etc.

Our record would be incomplete if we failed to insert a few brief biographical sketches of some of the personages prominently connected with the conduct of the Centennial celebration. We regret being obliged to limit the list to a very few of the many deserving of the honor. The facts which we relate in regard to them, have been industriously gathered from many sources probably unknown even to the parties themselves. Should we succeed in awakening one soul to pure aspiring action—should we be the means of placing one pair of feet into those “footprints on the sands of time” which lead to honored greatness—our labor has not been in vain.

GENERAL JOSEPH NAPOLEON HAWLEY,

the President of the Centennial Commission, was born principally in the State of Rhode Island, but grew so rapidly that his parents soon found it necessary to have him hauled over entirely into Connecticut. Here he flourished and grew fat among the healthy wooden nutmeg groves. He early displayed unmistakable evidences of genius. At the age of seven, he invented a tin lightning rod, and a schoolboy’s improved blowpipe of the same material. For this latter, his teachers passed him a vote of thanks through the medium of a ruler, and graduated him from the scholastic establishment. Shortly afterwards he originated the business of manufacturing paper shell almonds, but sold out advantageously to a near-sighted relative and entered the Artillery school at Brienne, from whence he soon meandered to the military academy at Paris. He instituted the “legion of honor,” won the battles of Marengo, Jena, Austerlitz, Eylau, Wagram, and some few others, and then retired to the monastery at St. Helena. Here he took the veil and several other articles, and leaving, one cloudy night, worked his passage to London. At this metropolis he mixed freely with the heads of the nobility, opening a hat store and being appointed “hatter extraordinary” to the Queen. He pined, however, for the breezes of his native land, and when Columbia called upon her sons to lend a hand to the Centennial structure, he returned to America and was elected President of the commission.

His bravery and prowess are equalled only by his genial nature and the style of his moustache and imperial. Of him the poet Horace (Greeley) has said,

Some of his enemies recently nominated him for Congress. Their sinister designs failed, however, and he will happily remain for some time longer an ornament to society and a credit to his country.

THE HON. ORESTUS CLEVELAND,

OH REST US.Vice President of the commission, was born, when quite an infant, in the State of Ohio. He gave such promise of future greatness that his native city was named after him.

He was the eighteenth child of his parents, and was, therefore, called Orestus. The name was suggested by the friends who had been acting as godparents for the family. He must not be confounded with the Orestes who murdered his ma and was afterwards killed by the bite of an Arcadian serpent; he is quite a different sort of an Orestes.

Through life he has been noted for his culture and refinement. These qualities he owes to his father’s care. The old gentleman made a point of polishing him off regularly twice a week during his youth.

He always displayed a remarkable fondness for school. He could often be found there an hour after all the rest of the pupils had gone home. His teacher was especially fond of him. “Frequently,” said she to us, with tears in her eyes, “frequently did I lay him across my knee to more readily display the affection with which I regarded him.”

When he was not at school he was engaged in the noble work of repairing and paying for the window panes his companions had smashed; in replacing fruit upon the trees from which they had stolen it, and in going to church and praying for their regeneration.

His manners always continued engaging. Unimpressible police officers have been known to form an attachment for him, the more remarkable as he never encouraged their sociability.

After essaying many learned professions, he finally concluded that his forte lay in the profession of being a rich man. He bought a farm near Camden, planted Kelley’s patent inflation bill, and raised money in that primitive fashion. After passing the meridian of life in honor and righteousness, the devil put evil thoughts in his mind, and he embraced the legal profession, to which he is still united.

His front elevation is very imposing. His face is somewhat in the Corregio style, with Roman nasal appendage and Grecian earwings, doing much credit to the architect who designed him. He is finished with a double action expanding chest, with corrugated windpipes, and he stands on two seventeen inch pedestals cased in patent leather. He was on exhibition during the entire continuance of the exposition.

Of the early days of

MRS. EMMA D. E. N. GILLESPIE,

but little is accurately known. Though historians agree upon essential points, there are many of those conflicting side issues which always arise from a multiplicity of traditions. We know, however, that at her birth she was taken under the especial patronage of the Fairy “Bookotheopera,” who endowed her with all the virtues in that fairy’s repertoire, and presented her with a beautiful purple pincushion with

blazing in the brass heads of the pins which it contained. It is still in her possession.

CENTENNIAL
MYTHOLOGY.She has performed many noteworthy deeds in addition to those connected with the Centennial. ’Tis true, she never fooled with asps or indulged in pearl cock-tails like Cleopatra; nor did she act as a spy during the war like Major Charlotte Cushman, but her quarrel with Neptune concerning the right of giving a name to Cecropia (Horat. 1, od. 16), deserves as much attention as either of the above performances.

The inhabitants of Taurica offer upon her altars all the strangers wrecked upon their coasts as a mark of their appreciation of her efforts in establishing the American line of steamers (Apollod. 1, c. 4, etc.), and though her resentment against Paris (the son of Mr. Priam) was undoubtedly the cause of the Trojan war, yet the myrtle and the dove have ever been considered her most sacred emblems. Her ride upon the white bull is as famous as Sheridan’s ride to West Chester, and her patronage has been so extensively claimed by artists of all sorts, especially such as painters, carpenters, white-washers, and tea importers, that the poets have had occasion to say—

To her, more than to any one other individual, is the success of the celebration due. We have remarked her executive ability, and the manner in which she directed the nymphs of her train, and it is our candid opinion, that nobody could have been found or invented, to fill more perfectly a position involving so much annoyance, so much mental and physical labor, so many petty anxieties, and so comparatively little general appreciation. There are some debts which cannot be paid. We put that owing to her upon the list.

GOVERNOR BIGLER,

the Financial Agent of the Executive Committee, passed his early youth among the vine-clad hills of Bucks County. He was brought up a sturdy farmer’s lad. Day after day, in the hot sun of noon, he stood erect in the centre of the cornfield, the terror of the devastating crow.

He was not called “governor” at his birth; his name is SWEET
WILLIAM.William; the former title he acquired later in life when he married a governess. Willie was very popular in the country school which he attended during the winter evenings. Upon several occasions his master bestowed a cane upon him, which token of desert he received with a few powerful and eloquent remarks and tears in his eyes.

His nature was always affectionate. He would never visit a young lady the second time unless he could kiss her “good-bye” the first time he called.

Artless to a fault, he never knew the use of wigs until after he married, and it is said that he never acquired his second teeth until a few years back.—He couldn’t have got them then if he hadn’t paid fifty dollars for them.

Despite his gentle nature, however, his physical strength is immense. His prowess in the amphitheatre, his speech to his brother gladiators at Capua, and the able manner in which he defended the wire bridge against Mr. Porsena, of Andalusia, are favorite themes with every American school-boy.

After the revolution he had his sword cut down into a set of shoemaker’s tools, and followed the cobbler’s peaceful pursuit, until the Centennial committee demanded his time and services. For this he gave up everything. He cheerfully immured himself for a time in the St. Nicholas Hotel, New York, living on rye bread and wheat whiskey, and enduring all sorts of hardships in his endeavors to collect subscriptions from the Dutchmen of Manhattan. He came home, however, in time to tack the roof on the main building.

Should he again take to mercantile life in our midst, we cordially recommend him to our friends for “invisible patches.” His name will ever be high upon the list of the best beloved sons of the Keystone State.

As

MR. DANIEL J. MORRELL,

A SECOND DANIEL
COME TO JUDGMENT.the Chairman of the Executive Committee, was changed while an infant in his cradle, and the child of his nurse substituted for him in order to obtain possession of the chateau and estates, we were not thoroughly satisfied that he was entitled to any biography. We called upon him to ascertain what he knew about himself, and were disappointed to find that he was not very well up upon the subject.

We found him a man of fine appearance. He has the eye of a hawk, the nose of an eagle, the hair of a raven, and the cheek of a Colossus of Rhodes—with which he expects some day to start a museum. We informed him why we had called, and at once commenced a list of questions which we had taken the precaution to prepare.

“As a youth, sir, were you gentle, with a sweet disposition?”

“A sugar refinery, gentlemen, wasn’t a circumstance to me.”

“Were you always gay and cheerful and generous beyond measure?”

“I was.”

“Were you ever in love?”

“I decline to criminate myself.”

“Well, Schiller loved once, Goethe many times, which do you consider the most natural?”

“The latter, decidedly.”

“Were you ever jealous?”

“Once.”

“How did you act towards the cause of this feeling?”

“Smothered her with a pillow.”

“Oh, then, you could be a Othello?”

“I could be twenty Othellos; but, gentlemen, as this style of procedure is evidently fatiguing to you, suppose I relate my story without questioning, eh? James, a bottle of champagne and a box of those victorias for the gentlemen.

“I was born,” he continued, “on the Island of Borneo. My mother was a decendant of the noble Italian family of McLaughlini; my father was also of noble birth; he never walked afoot; he always drove a carriage—for the man who owned it. Cast upon the world at a tender age, I went to England and took up my residence on Hounslow Heath—maybe you’ve heard of the place. Always of a playful disposition, I invented a pretty little game called ‘Your money or your life,’ which I taught to all the lonely travellers who passed my neighborhood, to cheer them on their way. They generally used to leave me their pocket books, watches, and whatever valuables they had about them, so gratified were they with my attention. The Royal Family soon heard of me and despatched a regiment of guards to conduct me to London. Naturally modest, I endeavored to avoid this distinction, shunning a meeting with the deputation as long as I possibly could. At last I found myself compelled, as it were, to accompany the party. I was conducted to a grand stone building of immense proportions and solidity of design, in which, apartments had been prepared for me. From thence I was introduced at Court, and, upon the suggestion of the Lord Chief Justice of England, the apartments in the granite building were placed at my disposal for six months, after which time he desired me, in the name of the government, to address a public meeting of citizens and officials from a raised platform, in Newgate Yard, hinting that the address would be followed by my immediate elevation to a high position. My sensitive nature shrunk from this display. Not wishing, however, to offend the gentlemen delegated to attend me, I remained quiet as to my plans for avoiding it until the opportunity I waited for offered. Then, weaving my bed clothing into a rope, I let myself down through the chimney and hurried home to America, without saying adieu to them. They were sorry to lose me, and offered quite a large reward for my return if living, or my body, if dead, designing, no doubt, in the latter case, to give me a grand funeral. But I have ever preferred a quiet private life to the elevation they tendered me. That is all, gentlemen.”

“We are obliged to you, Daniel; good morning.”

“Good morning: but recollect, gentlemen, I am entered according to the Act of Congress, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and any infringement will be punished according to law; you understand? Good morning.”

THE HON. ALFRED TIMOTHY GOSHORN,

Director General of the Exposition, was born in the State of New Jersey. This was, however, without collusion upon his part, and no one more sincerely regrets the circumstance than himself. His father cruised about the Spanish main, from Burlington to Gloucester. Some folks called him a free-booter; he was only this, however, when young Alfred misbehaved himself or the tide ran the wrong way. Our hero was a very promising lad. He was ever ready to promise anything. He was of a domestic turn of mind and could generally be found in the vicinity of the kitchen, especially when cakes and pies were in process of preparation. After a course of studies at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell, his parents transferred him to a public school to acquire the arts of reading and writing and the rudiments of arithmetic.

Early in life he joined the temperance movement, but resigned when he grew too big to parade with the cadets. He adopted the profession of the law, and rose as rapidly as a schoolmaster from a tack-lined chair. He was appointed minister to the court of St. James. He preached there until the Saint moved out of the court, and he then took entire charge of the Crystal Palace Exhibition of ’44, after which he swam across the Hellespont and returned to Philadelphia.

An aunt in Cincinnati died and left him a large pork sausage manufactory. After entering into a contract with the Philadelphia dog-catchers, he moved West to take possession of, and run the mill. He assumed a leading position in the city’s trade, was made president of the Commercial Exchange, and in this capacity was selected as director of the Cincinnati Industrial Exhibition.

This double experience made him of course THE
RIGHT MAN.the most available citizen to take charge of the Centennial Celebration. The manner in which he performed the arduous duties of the office, and their effect upon his once robust constitution, may be conceived if the reader will but glance at Gutekunst’s latest photograph of Timothy, which may be found, full length, upon the back cover of this volume. He is going into the sausage business again to recuperate.

Taken altogether and without exception, we may feel justly proud of our countrymen and women who labored so faithfully for the honor of our common nationality. We trust our country may be as blessed in noble hearts, generous souls and gifted minds, at her next Centennial Anniversary, and that we may all be here to meet them.