Valley Girl Views: When General Tom Thumb Came To Milton [and Lewisburg, & Sunbury]

General Tom Thumb was the stage name used by Charles Stratton, who was born Jan. 4 1838 in Bridgeport Connecticut

Born to parents of normal stature, Charles ceased growing at the age of 6 months. He remained 25 inches tall, and weighed just 15 pounds, until his teenage years. He later grew to 40 inches tall, and 70 pounds.

P.T. Barnum (who got his start with Hugh Lindsay, a showman who retired and wrote his memoirs in Milton Pa) hired Charles for his museum when Charles was not quite 5 years old. Barnum, not one to ever be concerned by facts, publicized him as General Tom Thumb, an 11-year-old dwarf from England.

In 1844 Barnum took his protégé to London, where he was driven about in a carriage hauled by miniature horses and charmed Queen Victoria when she summoned him to Buckingham Palace. He went on to tour France, where his impersonation of Napoleon Bonaparte went down well. Witty and charming, he was old beyond his years, drank wine with his meals from the age of five and started smoking cigars when he was seven. He said later that he never had a childhood.

"Tom Thumb" quickly became a celebrated figure in the United States and abroad.

"It was, however, Charles Stratton, a man only 25 inches (65 cm) tall who was discovered by Barnum, that proved to be his most profitable exhibit. Ballyhooing Stratton as General Tom Thumb, Barnum sold 20 million tickets to the museum. After being received by U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln, Barnum and Tom Thumb enjoyed a triumphal tour abroad, during which the latter gave a command performance before Queen Victoria." https://www.britannica.com/biography/P-T-Barnum#ref292151

"A natural performer, Charley became enormously popular and wealthy, more so than any other performer before him." - Tom Thumb, A Man in Miniature, by George Sullivan

When General Tom Thumb came to Milton on June 26 1849, he would have been just 10 years old, and still only 25 inches tall. Barnum, his employer, would have parted ways with Hugh Lindsay a few years prior, and Lindsay would not yet have retired to Milton.

On June 27th 1849, the Lewisburg Journal published one line -

"Tom Thumb tomorrow and Friday"

So it appears that he went from Milton to Lewisburg.

And from there, to Sunbury for an exhibition on June 30th.

In 1863, at the age of 25, Tom Thumb married another of Barnum's performers, "Little Queen Of Beauty", Lavinia Warren. The wedding was an elaborately staged ceremony, held at Grace Episcopal church in New York City.

Tom & Lavinia toured Europe and later Asia and the Far East. The couple traveled with a miniature carriage, and miniature horses. They hired a baby in each country, which they pretended was their own. They later joined Barnum’s circus.

General Tom Thumb died of a stoke on July 15 1883, at the age of 45, in Middleboro Massachusetts. Lavinia remarried, but when she died in 1919, she was buried beside her first husband, "General Tom Thumb".

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