† Lizzie is a dead Female ♀ Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), , who died 1913-03-31 at John Robinson Circus, in United States, . Official death reason described as drowned in Hoboken.
Lizzie was born wild 1888.
Holly Metz, a guest curator with the Hoboken New Jersey Historical Museum has written in the publication “City Animals: “Sometimes circus performers - human and animal - made headlines when the companies’ carefully orchestrated activities went awry, and threats of danger and potential death, always an undercurrent in their shows, became reality. On March 31, 1913, the front pages of the New York Times, Hudson Dispatch and Jersey Journal reported the startling death in Hoboken of an elephant from the John Robinson Military Circus (1). Five elephants, after performing stunts during a weeklong engagement on 14th Street in New York City (including the firing of cannons and miming rescues), were transported just before midnight by ferry to Hoboken. Third-generation Robinson Circus owner John G. Robinson was working with his trainers to bring the elephants to railroad cars waiting to take them to their next venue in Cortland, New York. Lizzie, the largest of the troop, alarmed by a train roaring overhead on the elevated line, broke away from her trainer, “leaped over a low stone wall into Ferry Street” and “trumpeting madly,” began to “plunge along Washington Street to Newark Street.” The streets were crowded with people returning from New York, and news reports describe women pulling their children to safety and the racing elephant overturning a heavy milk wagon. Robinson and his crew, soon accompanied by a crowd of hooting men and boys, chased Lizzie and tried in vain to capture her as she rushed down the Christopher Street slip into the ferry-house. The Jersey Journal account described ferry attendants attempting to stop the elephant by beating her on the head with boat hooks, but she pushed through the iron gates and on to the ferryboat Drummond, which was tied up for the night. With a mad cry the beast lumbered aboard the boat, bounded through the wagon cabin and plunged into the Hudson... For ten minutes she surged in the river, trumpeting violently and slashing the water with her Trunk and Feet. After a little, however, she emitted one more cry and sank to the bottom. Robinson who had tried with his assistants to rescue Lizzie by pulling her in with a strong rope, “sat down on the deck and cried like a baby. He had had Lizzie nearly all the twenty-five years of her life.” The following day, Lizzie’s body washed ashore at Staten Island. “Rumors were flying around that a vessel has been driven ashore in the storm,” the Staten Island World announced. “Investigation revealed the carcass of an elephant floating around in about thirty feet of water.” By evening, “fully three thousand people had gathered on the foreshore to view the body,” the Hudson Dispatch reported, “and the police had to be called out to maintain order.” Lizzie’s body was to be transported to Fire Island for burial but no record of the interment has been found (2). John Robinson remained deeply devoted to the remaining elephants in his care. Even after bankruptcy forced him in 1916 to sell most of his equipment and animals to other circuses, he kept four elephants on his Terrace Park, Ohio, property, which had always served as their winter quarters. After Robinson’s death in 1921, his widow continued the practice and the elephants became an unusual fixture of the village. Local historians report “it was commonplace to see an elephant pulling a plow for a spring garden” or wandering around Terrace Park streets (3). (1) The drowning of the John Robison Circus elephant in Hoboken is described on the front pages of the following March 31, 1913 newspapers: “New York Times; “Jersey Journal”; and “Hudson Dispatch”. (2) Staten Island World, 5 April 1913; Hudson Dispatch, 1 April 1913. (3) Ellis Rawnsley, “A Place Called Terrace Park”.
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