Jacob Driesbach

He was 35 years old when his name first appeared as a lion trainer (Van Amburgh was 26 at the time of his debut). This was at Thomas Hamblin’s Bowery Theatre in New York in May, 1842. The play was titled The Lion of the Desert, and in it Driesbach played the part of an Arab outcast attacked by a tiger (in Africa!)

Driesbach joined Raymond, Ogden & Co.’s New York Menagerie at McCarran’s Garden in Philadelphia. It was his first appearance under canvas. The 1843 edition of the menagerie was called Raymond, Weeks & Co.’s Zoological Exhibition.

The animals from the 1853 effort were switched to the Great Broadway Menagerie for 1854 and Driesbach went with them. This was the first season since 1846 that his name was not in the title of the concern that employed him. In this year he married Sarah Walker, whose father was a farmer near Wooster, Ohio. Driesbach was now 47 years old.

There is no sign of him in 1855, but in 1856 Herr Driesbach’s Grand Consolidated Circus and Menagerie appears. Henry Barnum and Hyatt Frost owned the Great Broadway Menagerie of 1854 and might well have owned this 1856 Driesbach opus.

Herr Driesbach & Co.’s Menagerie and S. P. Stickney & Co.’s Circus operated in 1857, but our hero’s name was not on the roster of the opening stand in St. Louis. He may have retired temporarily. There is a Clipper reference to his leaving the Mabie Circus in Texas in February, 1860, and another to his being with George F. Bailey in 1863 (at some stands, his name was in the title). An 1868 combination advertised itself as Herr Driesbach Menagerie and Howes’ Transatlantic Circus, but again, there is no evidence that he accompanied it. Frank Howes and Lyman Hitchcock were the owners.